To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [45]
Captain Astorre, bent double, came into the room, his face red, his eye glittering madly. He straightened. On his shoulders, miniature of his stave-bearing father, was a grey-eyed child, crowing, his brown hair tight-curled in the damp, his rotund cheeks merry with dimples. John straightened. Father Moriz increased his grip, studying Nicholas.
‘Well!’ said Captain Astorre, looking round. ‘What’s all this about a room of his own, when a lad wants the house of his father? Here are his nurses to tell you as much. And where is your father, then, young Master Jordan?’
The boy looked round the strange room, cast into dusk by the strong light outside. Reassured by Astorre’s jovial voice by his ear, the child seemed quite at ease. He looked first at the window and smiled at Moriz and John, although they too were strangers. Then the smile, travelling on, reached the wall. ‘M’sieur mon p’p … a … a … a!’ said Jordan de Fleury, in the moderate shriek of a child who has found a promised toy, and is pleased as much with himself as with the enjoyment ahead. ‘R’garde! R’garde! R’garde!’
Nicholas stood free of the wall. ‘Eh bien, c’est M. JeMoi,’ he said. ‘Comme tu est gros.’ He spoke direct to the child, his voice calm.
‘Nenni! ‘Suis ici!’ said the child. It was more than an announcement. His head tilted.
‘Go to him, then!’ said Astorre, raising his hands. But before he could lift him down, the child in turn had stretched his arms to his father. ‘I am here! Where is maman?’
Beside Moriz, John le Grant breathed through his nose. Moriz continued to grip him. At the door he could see two women standing still, saying nothing. The nurses. Astorre hesitated, looking at Nicholas. And Nicholas, after the shortest pause, strode forward and sweeping the boy into the crook of his arm, looked him in the face.
‘Toujours! Encore? That the gentlemen stand aside from the window?’ And when the way was clear, the man with the child took their place, talking. His voice was low, but the child’s was clear and confident, as if reciting some incantation. ‘Horses! Boats! Cows to be milked!’
Then the child said, ‘But she is still busy?’
Nicholas turned, facing the room, still with the child in his arms. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She is coming. She is coming here.’ His gaze fell on Moriz, who felt himself wince. The same gaze travelled over John, and Astorre, and the two women who stood in the doorway.
Nicholas said, ‘Ta maman will be here in three days.’ On the hand spread to hold the child so securely was a mark. Father Moriz knew what it was, and that it had not been there earlier in the day. Tracking Gelis, Nicholas had not realised that the child was so near. Or this encounter would have happened, as intended, in private.
Father Moriz said, ‘Your son will be tired. Let the nurses take him,’ and was surprised to find his help accepted.
Nicholas said, ‘You hear that? To Mistress Clémence. I shall see you tomorrow. You will get fatter.’
‘Always,’ said the child. The woman Clémence, coming forward, lifted the child and set him on his feet, curtseying to the room before she went out, the elderly maid at her heels. He had had his nurses, then, through all his absence. Moriz knew about them from Mistress Margot, and thought, momentarily confused, that he must send to Venice to tell Mistress Margot and assuage some of her fears. And of course, those of the mother as well. Then he remembered what had just been said. The lady Gelis was coming herself. In three days she would be here. And what would happen then, he could not predict.
Astorre, wiser perhaps than anyone, had left. Moriz was afraid John would linger, in the belief that Nicholas wanted their company. On the contrary, the engineer had walked to the door and was waiting for him, too, to leave. Nicholas watched them sardonically. Moriz wondered what resources