To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [50]
‘Entre cuir et chair as of old: I know how secrets attract you. Then what are we waiting for?’ said Nicholas de Fleury expansively.
This is a palace of springes. Springes, and springs. The Counts of Artois, two hundred years since, had made this fortress a playground for mockery; a place where high-born lieges paid for their suppers by suffering, overcoming, enjoying – if their natures were hearty – a series of practical jokes, devised to mortify and to hurt, to shock and to shame. Forty years ago, Duke Philip of the black wit and sardonic mind had had the devices repaired and improved. His son, the single-minded, the dour Charles, did not use them. But they were still there.
As Nicholas said, everyone knew about Hesdin, including herself. Apprehension, then, was part of her punishment, followed by mortification, ridicule and discomfort. She had no redress. In losing the child, she had placed herself in his physical power, not only today, but for as long as he wanted. But whatever happened, she would see that he received no satisfaction; saw no trace of anger or fear. It struck her as curious, frightening even, that he had expected this circus to cow her. Unless, of course, he had heard what had happened when he left her childless in Venice. She had broken down then. She had shown fear and anger and every aspect of agony then.
But that was over four months ago. She had recovered. And – blessing and pain at one time – the child was not here, distressed witness of her humiliation. Unless, suddenly, Nicholas would overstep even that boundary and produce him. Apprehension of that, too, was her lot, she assumed. Apprehension mixed with terrible hope. Nicholas generally employed only the finest of weapons, and dealt in largely invisible wounds.
By twisting words, for example. A secret is kept between skin and flesh: a cliché for some; an intimate term, as it happened, for her. No one noticed. No one would comprehend the other phrase he had used at their meeting: Walk over with me.
Die with me, the words meant. Or had meant when last he spoke them, holding her on a dawn such as this. Die with me if we cannot live without hurting each other. She had refused, in a cry of derision. And he had repeated the words in derision just now.
She believed she was not going to die in the palace of Hesdin. So long as the child lived, or interested him, the long duel would afford Nicholas pleasure. He had brought her here to suffer indignity. He would mortify her, as the Dukes made buffoons of their courtiers. And then he might or might not allow her the child.
They had begun to walk through the chateau, Nicholas a little removed from her side. By some alchemy, contrived by distance, contrived perhaps by nothing more potent than soap and water, he had sterilised the sense of the familiar which had seized her when they met. Mentally, physically, she had no sense of him any longer. He had not touched even her hand. She walked before him through every doorway, and Mistress Clémence, as due to her sex, followed next. Built over the centuries as palace, fortress, pleasure-house, the place was a concoction of wings, each containing chambers and salons, parlours and staircases and galleries, sleeping rooms and rooms for retiring, rooms for courtiers and servants and guard. She would not know, until it happened, where the first trap would be sprung.
She said, ‘Might we pass the time in conversation? Or is it forbidden to talk?’ Her voice echoed. In all their journey so far, they had seen no one else. This was to be a private performance, it seemed, for her husband alone. Yet Clémence was here.
He was smiling faintly again. ‘I could prevent you? What do you want to know?’
‘Nothing that you would want to tell me. I wondered whether some of my womanly gossip might be new to you. Does the Bank inform you of romances, of weddings, of infants born or expected?’
‘Of such stuff,’ said Nicholas, ‘is good banking made.’ He opened another vast door and stood aside. ‘But it is news, indeed, if you have developed an