To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [361]
From the middle distance, the voice of Nicholas, in the irritated accent of one who is tired of repeating himself, said, ‘Let them go! Let them go, you bloody fools! What are you going to charge them with?’ The sound of fighting gradually came to a halt, and the room started to empty.
Gelis remained in the seat where she had dropped, on hearing that unmistakable voice. She crouched, gripping her arms, but the stomach pangs and the shivering continued. The room she sat in became gradually silent, as it had been when she was waiting for Nicholas. Finally, she was alone. She sat up, with an effort. She saw that the door was still open, and someone was standing there, holding it. She had no doubt who it was.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Nicholas said. He closed the door, and then smoothly locked it. He said, ‘Don’t be afraid. I don’t want interruptions, that’s all.’
She nodded, and then said, ‘Yes,’ because the room was so dark. She watched him coming towards her, picking his way among the fallen stools.
Nicholas said, ‘He has gone. It seems to be over.’
She said, with an effort, ‘And no one has died.’
‘You sound disappointed,’ he said. He had taken Jordan de Ribérac’s chair. His shadowy outline reminded her of the fat man’s.
Her shivering stopped. She said, ‘You could have had him killed.’ She thought of de Ribérac, fighting his way to the door. She thought of the single strange look that he and Nicholas had exchanged.
Nicholas said, ‘He wanted me to.’
She said, ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Because he hates me so much. I should have had to, if he had taken the affidavit.’
‘He didn’t? Why didn’t he?’ Gelis said.
‘He couldn’t, without taking me. I swallowed it,’ Nicholas said.
Mask after mask. This one was smiling. She said, ‘You couldn’t have. It was vellum.’
‘No, I couldn’t have. But he thought I had. Now you are going to burn it.’ He had pulled the thing from his shirt: now he threw it to her.
She said, ‘You knew what it was.’
‘An attestation that Henry is my son by your sister. I assume Tobie gave Godscalc a copy. I didn’t know.’
‘Godscalc gave it me when he was dying. It was only a copy,’ Gelis said.
‘But enough to tell de Ribérac that the hope of his house is my son,’ Nicholas said. He paused and said, ‘I thought the page would be blank. But you threw it down, so I knew that it couldn’t be. Why, Gelis?’
‘Why not? Why not treat Fat Father Jordan to some of the anguish he has dealt out to others? Why not pull that spoiled brat from his shelter, so that he can’t threaten Jodi?’
‘He would have died,’ Nicholas said. ‘Henry wouldn’t have lived to grow up: not after that.’
‘I wanted to see if you would try to stop it,’ she said.
There was a little silence. He said, ‘I was going to die, anyway.’
‘But you didn’t,’ she said.
Another silence. ‘Apparently not,’ Nicholas said. ‘So what are we going to talk about now? The fact that you have won? It is genuine, this time. No deception. I remember begging in very real earnest.’
Suddenly, she couldn’t bear it any longer. She rose, and walked to the window and closing the shutters, turned and looked at him. At first glance, even yet, you would think he had been sitting at ease, drinking wine with his friends. The fine black doublet, buttoned up to the throat, had resisted all the mishandling: only the cuffs below it were torn, and there was a slash in his hose, showing the skin below spotted with blood.
She said, ‘Stop acting. Stop pretending. The game is nothing, is finished, is void. You wrote a script for the destruction of Scotland and carried it out, just to show you could do it. And because I was your reason, you’ve forced me to share your guilt, too. You’ve destroyed everything else, not just Scotland. And just when …’ She stopped, on a sob. She said, ‘What demon gets into you, Nicholas? What demon from Hell?’
‘It was your challenge,’ he said. ‘On our wedding night.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I hated Katelina … I thought I hated Katelina and you. I was afraid of you. I am