To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [357]
‘I made them,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not personally, of course. It was expensive, but worth it.’
The doctor said, ‘I find this hard to believe. But even if it’s true, M. le vicomte, your son has been made a rich man. You may have lost your position in France, but you’ve gained a comfortable roost in Kilmirren.’
‘Have I?’ the vicomte said. ‘Ask your young friend.’ His gaze was locked, Gelis saw, in that of Nicholas. She could not read her husband’s expression. Only, in the fading light, the mark on his face caught her attention: the filament of white which ran from the eye down to the natural dimple that was no longer there.
Tobie said, ‘You are implying that there is some further trick?’
The vicomte turned aside. ‘Trick? A trick is something performed by a marmoset, to make village louts laugh. This is no trick. It is a tragedy.’ His eyes were resting on Gelis. He addressed her heavily.
‘Madame, from pride, from vanity, from pique, you provoked a dangerous man, and issued a challenge. He has replied. He has replied, not by destroying you, or your pretensions. He has replied by destroying a nation.’
The doctor said, ‘What?’
The fat man said, ‘A man, a base-born ingenious man is asked to prove his ability. Business success is too easy. Even the slow destruction of his rivals seems to lack dash. But here is something he can achieve: something that no single person has ever aspired to before. Something that, when it is finished, will allow him to turn to his wife and say, “What can you do, what could you ever do that will equal that? I am your master.” ’
Her heart beat. She said nothing. Tobie said, ‘The Tyrol. Or Cyprus.’ He was looking at Nicholas, with something like appeal in his face.
‘I said a nation,’ de Ribérac said. ‘The home of my son and myself; of the prudish race which cast out that trollop his mother. The country which, like Cyprus, has a young, silly Court, open to influence. Can you not guess?’
Against the wall, the men shifted. Jodi snuffled. Gelis lifted a hand to the pain in her throat. She said, ‘Nicholas?’
Nicholas looked across. Outside, lamps had been lit in the yard and shone yellow through the shutterless panes, barring the nurse’s white coif. It was nearly five hours since noon. Tomorrow the Emperor would open his doors for the Duke’s ceremonial leave-taking.
None of it mattered now. Gelis said, ‘Why did Godscalc forbid you to go back to Scotland?’
‘For two years,’ Nicholas said. ‘It was inconvenient, but I managed to pass the time somehow.’
‘Then you went back.’
‘He went back,’ said the doctor sharply, ‘surely because the King was no longer a child, and Nicholas could expect a reasoned endorsement for all his new projects. Am I supposed to remind you about the experimental crops, the hydraulic machinery? The search for coal and silver and gold; the salt-pans, the boatbuilding? The fostering of all the civilised arts, from architecture to music and goldsmithwork? Is that a recipe for destruction?’
The fat man had never ceased to look at Nicholas. The vicomte said, ‘The new crops? Useful, yes, had they not succumbed to the cold of the north, despite those acres of fine fertile ground they had occupied. The drainage? Once the experts had gone, was it not sad how many pits filled, how many of these costly pumps broke down and failed? The mining, ah yes. The art of divining, which so often underpinned a fine sale of land which later proved to be barren. Or led to exchanges of land which favoured Beltrees.’
‘Can you prove that?’ said the doctor. ‘Nicholas bought his land from other men, or the crown.’
‘From the crown,’ de Ribérac said. ‘From the King, who had to find a means of settling his debts. From other landowners such as Lord Hamilton, who was so generous with