To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [355]
‘But especially, and repeatedly, not to tattle to the lady Gelis, I suspect. Come, Dr Tobias: admit it. She has betrayed her husband’s plans to his rivals. Does it not please you to think that she received nothing from it? That he knew all along?’
Tobie said, ‘I will not be drawn into this.’ But his face, staring at Nicholas, was enough.
Nicholas swung the wine in his cup, round and round. Gelis said to him, ‘You did know.’ You could hear the pain of the wound. You could see it.
And so Fat Father Jordan had triumphed over them both. Gelis’s shortcomings had been dragged into the open, and so had the superiority Nicholas had tried to conceal. And this time, the lie couldn’t be covered. She would find out. Anyone, going over the transactions, would see how Nicholas had misled her, had taken measures to offset his losses. Nevertheless, of course, there had been serious losses. She was good.
He said, ‘It doesn’t matter. What you did, you did well. I couldn’t have let it go on. I should have had to buy you off, or ask you to join me. That is where we shall take it up, next time.’ He turned. ‘M. le vicomte, what remains to be said is between you and me. Lock the others away.’
‘You may be right,’ said the fat man. ‘Certainly, Master Martin should go. And the noble lady and her doctor may follow, as soon as we have established one thing. If there has been a contest, then certainly the Banco di Niccolò has won the chaplet, and the lady has forfeited. So soon as she admits it, she may go.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. It chimed with the same word, spoken by Gelis.
‘Then,’ said Jordan de Ribérac, ‘she must stay, and I shall convince her. There is no hurry.’
‘Isn’t there?’ Nicholas said. ‘You say that you are no longer in the French King’s employment. If I called, would the Duke’s men believe it?’
‘It is academic,’ de Ribérac said. ‘You cannot leave this room unless I permit it. Your nurse stands outside that door with your son at her side, and the knife of my man at his throat.’
Gelis rose with a cry. Nicholas glanced at her. He said, ‘I don’t believe you.’
Martin, protesting, had been pummelled out of the room. The door shut. The boy Henry said, ‘Grandfather? Will you make him come in? Let me show you?’
‘Very well. Send the child in. But he is not to run to, or be touched by his parents. Is it understood?’
‘Tell his nurse,’ Nicholas said. He had had to know if it was true. And he had to have Jodi here, however terrifying it might be.
When the door opened again, it was to admit Clémence de Coulanges, pale as the napkin round her head except for two spots of red in her cheeks. Jodi trotted beside her. And behind strolled a man in a plate helm and cuirass whom Nicholas recognised at once.
It was mutual. ‘Aye, my lord,’ said the man. ‘And how are your shin bones these days?’ He was tossing a knife in one hand, and gripping the child with the other. Jodi, seeing his parents, reddened and struggled to run. Then he saw Henry, and gasped.
Henry broke into laughter. Henry hurled himself in front of the child, howling and waving his fists. ‘Kill Jodi,’ shrieked Jodi’s brother. ‘Kill Jodi! Kill Jodi!’ And turned to his grandfather in triumph as the child broke into terrified screams.
‘See?’ said Henry. ‘A coward!’
‘What a boor you are, St Pol,’ said de Ribérac languidly. ‘Mistress, kindly bid the child stop, or we will stop him for you. The old woman was nearly as bad. Now, my lady. Shall we proceed?’
The child sobbed, the nurse kneeling beside him. Nicholas said, ‘I could have killed your grandson; had him imprisoned and hanged.’
‘I dare say,’ the vicomte said. ‘On the other hand, you needed Henry, did you not, to make others think he was Jordan? I believe the whole story is worth telling. For there is no doubt – there is no doubt at all, my dear lady, that your husband is a genius in his own way. You could never have matched him.’
‘What has he done?’ Gelis said. Bel’s words, long ago.
‘Let me tell you,’ de Ribérac said. ‘And you will agree he has won.