To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [349]
Then they had let him go, and he could leave for St Maximin. He spoke to Astorre, and gave his papers to Julius. He had already visited all his team. Anna said, ‘But you are coming back?’
Nicholas said, ‘I think it is likelier that you will all come to St Maximin. There may be ill feeling. One will have to choose one side or the other.’
She had smiled, shaking her head. ‘I don’t mean to suborn Julius. But I did hope that the two courts would become one. Will you tell Gelis that, whatever happens, I wish her all happiness?’
‘I hope you can tell her yourself,’ Nicholas said.
It was John who forced a bodyguard on him, and insisted on accompanying him to the Abbey. He was right. The people of Trèves, after eight weeks of idle soldiery and rocketing prices, had lost patience at last and, crowding the streets, were shouting abuse at every foreigner. Once, it must have seemed that the Great Encounter was going to bring a flood of prosperity to the Electorate and its capital. Now, having exhausted its supplies and its patience, the princes had cancelled the finest free show of them all, and left the citizens to the Burgundians’ anger. There were no trumpeters on the Porta Nigra today.
If the atmosphere in the city was ugly, that in the Abbey precincts was one of boiling rage. Everywhere men stood in groups, and shouting sounded from casements, while servants and wagons crowded the courtyards, as the great households slowly began their dismantling. In all this, there was no likelihood whatever that Nicholas would be received by the Duke. He could try to see Hugonet. He dismounted.
John said, ‘Are ye worried? About the bairn and your lady?’
Nicholas said, ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve seen them myself. Why not go and find Tobie? I’ll come later.’
Hugonet was asleep, but had left word to be wakened if Nicholas came. He sat, grey-faced, on the edge of his bed and listened. At the end he said, ‘I spoke to the Duke. I recommended that, as the Duke’s loyal servant, you should be allowed to remain at the Imperial court if invited. You are not, however, to take your men-at-arms, or promise them elsewhere without sanction.’
‘The Duke has my word,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am grateful.’
It was done. Everything was done, but for one thing.
At his door, Pasque let him in, full of lustful delight over the morning of drama. She was alone, but for the Lady. Mistress Clémence had gone to the herb gardens, and Master Jodi was asleep in his room. Nicholas sent her back to her charge. Then he spoke Gelis’s name, and her voice replied from the parlour. He had only to open the door, and walk in.
Five years. It was a long time for an estrangement. But for Godscalc, it would have been three, and he wouldn’t have gained what he had gained; and lost what he had lost. He stood, and thought of Gelis on the other side of the door, waiting for it to open. Now, the moment of truth; no longer the fencing, the irony. He pressed the latch, and went in.
She stood facing him, motionless as a painted wood quintain. He thought of carnival-time in Bruges, and the fat, raucous child who had commandeered his company and perhaps averted a killing. The obsessive, competitive child from whom had grown the quick-tongued, vigorous girl, the magnificent lover, the ruthless opponent, and now this fine-boned, high-mannered woman with no flaw as yet in her beauty.
She said, ‘Well, Nicholas?’
He did not want to begin. The hour had arrived: the culmination of all he had lived and worked for since their wedding day, and from now onwards, whatever happened, it would be different.
She said, ‘I am told you have won the Emperor’s favour.’
‘And the Duke’s,’ Nicholas said. ‘I can choose which to serve, or serve neither. That is all I had to establish.’
‘I see,’ she said. ‘And now you find it hard to begin?’ She still stood.
He said, ‘Yes. I have no script today, Gelis, and no masks.’
‘No music,’ she said.
He made a sound. ‘It is bad enough, without music. Do you want me to begin? Or shall we toss?’ Reminded of