To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [51]
Her heart stopped, and so did she. Then, thudding, it brought back her blood and her voice. She said, ‘Now you have surprised me.’
He wore his puzzled, amiable face. ‘Have I insulted you? I thought you wanted one.’
She gazed at him. Mistress Clémence, grimly attending, had taken three ostentatious steps from the door. Disregarding her, Gelis lifted her brows. ‘Then we are both mistaken,’ she said. ‘I thought you wanted the child.’
‘That would be the condition,’ he said. ‘So you don’t want a divorce? Stay there a moment.’
‘Not on that condition,’ she said. ‘Not on any terms that give you sole rights to my son.’ She was looking down. Below her feet was a grating. She made no effort to leave it. She observed, ‘Is the mechanism usually so slow? It will be dark in twelve hours.’
‘No, you can move. Your skirts were supposed to fly up to your shoulders. Some of the pumps, like the Koy’s, have got rusty, and there is not quite the same inducement to mend them. So go on. You were saying?’
She gazed at him, then began to walk through the door. Clémence followed. Gelis said, ‘You didn’t mean what you said? You were simply putting off time?’
‘No, I meant it. I keep the child. If you want a divorce, you can’t have him.’
‘Who says so?’ said Gelis.
‘Money,’ he said. ‘Julius loves lending money to Cardinals. Do go on. Do you want a divorce?’
‘I thought you said you were obtaining one,’ Gelis said. She walked obediently forward. Half her mind was focused on what he had said and why he was saying it. The rest was surveying the room for devices. Some might work and some might not: a typical de Fleury refinement. But she would prefer, on the whole, to have warning.
‘I could cancel it,’ Nicholas said. ‘It would be very much more economical. I could go to Heaven instead.’
No gratings, no jets but a distorting mirror, shifting and leering at the edge of her sight. She turned, not without cost, and surveyed herself in it, but nothing happened. She ran a finger down the holes in the frame and drew it off orange with rust. Nicholas shimmered behind her. He said, ‘Some of them work. May I interest you in the next room? How is Julius, Stupor Mundi? Romances, weddings, infants born or expected?’
The next room had a grille in the threshold. She paused there, but again nothing happened. Gelis said, ‘I don’t wish to spoil your enjoyment, but perhaps Mistress Clémence was right. Rather than a long, fruitless walk, why not sling a bucket of soot at me now, and let me ride on to the camp? I promise not to rinse off till I get there.’
‘Would you?’ Nicholas said. ‘Of course, I’d rather you stayed, but if you want to go off to camp, I shan’t stop you.’
She turned quickly and saw the two dimples: the code she knew better than anyone. She said, ‘You are lying.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You can go. Naturally, the boy isn’t there. He was moved as soon as we left. You won’t find him.’
‘I will,’ said Mistress Clémence unexpectedly.
He glanced at her. ‘Yes. You will. But not my wife, unless she completes the certified course. No Hesdin, no Jordan.’
He had hidden the child. It was what she would have done – had done often enough. Confirmation of it still made her feel sick. She said, ‘I thought I had sent you to Heaven. Is this my reward?’
The dimples smoothed. He was studying her. ‘You are asking me to withdraw the divorce?’
‘Until the state of your soul is secure.’
‘Then we stay married,’ said Nicholas. His voice echoed. He added, ‘How simply these things are arranged. So will you kindly walk forward? It will be dark in twelve hours.’
‘I am sorry,’ Gelis said. ‘I was waiting for the noose round my neck. In here, would you say?’ Behind her, the nurse gave a click of impatience. She had forgotten her.
The room she had entered seemed to hold nothing but an old lectern with a book of some kind laid open upon it. The stem of the lectern was thick, and there was a mark on the ceiling above. Nicholas spoke. His voice, without the echo, was good-humoured enough: ‘The book is a volume of