To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [352]
Some of it hurt. She had encouraged the Duke, at second hand, to send to Scotland for the materials of the Play, and to ask for him to come as director. It bastardised all he had done, and was an insult to Adorne’s son who had died. Or perhaps only he felt that. And perhaps even he had no right to feel it.
The recital came to an end. She had proved the point he had asked her to make. She had damaged the Bank, especially in those early days in Cologne and in Bruges; and even before that, when she had set out for the Holy Land with Adorne. She had impeded his business to the point where he would have to ask her, or to force her to stop. And he could not use force.
She said, ‘Well?’ She looked like the girl of five years ago.
He remembered fragments of something Kathi once had said. She may be cleverer than you are. If she will only be happy when she thinks she is, give her that happiness now.
Kathi had been right. He had not thought so at the time. Paradoxically, his consideration then had been for Gelis: how she would feel, discovering one day that she had been allowed to prevail. And below that, another thought, born from his own experience. How, knowing what she had done – the brutalities of the wedding night; the poisonous revelations; the challenges; the cruel deceptions over the child – she would find a kind of absolution in what he, in return, had inflicted upon her. Beginning, of course, with his abduction of Jodi, and his consequent control of all that she did. For although he had invited her to leave with the child, he had known that she would not. She knew, as he did, the bond – the raw, speechless bond – that lay between them.
But now, it was different. Now, day by day, he was beginning, despite his elation, to glimpse that he had perpetrated something in the course of this feud which might deserve a far greater punishment than anything that Gelis had incurred. He had already been made to suffer by Gelis. Now, to throw away his advantage, to concede the battle, was the final restitution he could make for both her sake and his own. Then they could surely go forward, even though Gelis did not yet know what he was capable of. And after she had chosen her prize (for he was sure what her choice was going to be), he would tell her what he had done, and the reason.
So, he conceded. He said, ‘I don’t know what I could set against that. I could show you the successes of the Bank.’
‘I know them,’ she said. ‘I can tell you precisely how much greater they would have been, but for me. Do you want me to stop working against you?’
He said, ‘You are asking me to give in.’
She said, ‘Only if you want me to stop. If what I am doing is of no consequence to you, then I shall continue. But this time, of course, I should work openly for the Vatachino. It might puzzle some of your friends.’
‘It might puzzle Jodi,’ he said. He saw she had forgotten Martin. She had forgotten everything, except that she had succeeded. She had forced him to comprehend, at last, what she could do. Now, she believed, he must ask her to stop.
As, of course, he must. He drew a breath. He saw her lean forward a little, and then bite her lip, for a door had opened quietly: the door to the antechamber behind her. Nicholas heard someone speak his name, and looked round. Tobie stood there.
Nicholas said softly, ‘Tobie, go away.’
And the doctor said, ‘Nicholas. No.’
Behind him was a boy, and a man, and a group of powerful soldiers. Three of them had faces Nicholas knew: he had fought them by the Loire close to Chouzy.
He fought them again now, as they moved into the room, but he knew it was useless. Tobie and the other man were unarmed, and there was Gelis to think of. In the end he relinquished his sword, and two of them held him until he recovered his breath and temper, and addressed the newcomers, as he should have done at the beginning. ‘Monseigneur le vicomte de Ribérac. And Henry.’
‘Monseigneur le bâtard,