To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [63]
She should have expected, therefore, that on board ship he would do what he did, which was to turn the same skills on herself. For the sake of the child, she shared as before the child’s sleeping quarters. The intimacy of marriage was therefore plausibly lacking, but in every other way he remained in public her husband and friend. When, watching the coast recede, she had found him at her side, the screaming Jordan clutching his neck, she had been dazed by the affectionate ease of his manner. He spoke to her as she had heard him speak to Tilde or Margot, or – long, long ago – to the gentle black girl whom his friend Umar had married. And Gelis, staring back at him dumbly, had had to fight an impulse to tears, because Umar and Zuhra were dead, and because he was acting.
Her son was screaming with joy. She had forgotten that Jordan had recently made his home for many weeks on a ship. She had forgotten that his father had first come to him like this, between water and air, on swaying decks, among the cords which Clémence had put up so deftly in the first moments on board.
The truth was, of course, that Nicholas was not playing fair. To Jordan, his father was the first person, the only person who belonged to a ship: the magician who might be anywhere from helm to forecastle, from the depths of the hatches to high by the flag in the rigging. And she had forgotten that Nicholas was happy at sea. Sailing out from Lagos bound for Africa on his wonderful ship the San Niccolò, she had never seen him so happy, except when she had made him so herself.
Jordan was crowing, and Nicholas was looking at her with an easy replica of the open, generous smile that he had turned, too, on Tilde and Margot, on Katelina and Marian, on Umar and Zuhra and herself. His eyes were pin-sharp as a kite’s and even held some amusement. She walked away.
Of the others on board, John le Grant saw what was happening but ignored it. He belonged to Scotland and was reasonably interested in coming back, and extremely interested in the opportunities lying ahead of him. He was not at all interested in the marital problems of Nicholas. That said, he twice received the rough edge of Mistress Clémence’s tongue for showing the child tricks with tinder and alum.
Moriz, being a priest, was here for the opposite reason. He should be in Venice, not here: there were sensible reasons why Nicholas had expected him to stay behind, apart from the fact that he knew nothing of Scotland. Both he and Nicholas knew that he was here because of what had happened with Gelis. When Nicholas allowed him to come, it had been a sign of exasperation, not acquiescence. These days, Nicholas wouldn’t lose sleep over a small German priest threatening hellfire.
The same view, Father Moriz had found, was held by the lady. She had kept him at a distance on the journey from Venice to Brixen, as she was polite on the journey to Calais and after. He was not a patient man. The first rough day at sea, when the child was to be seen drenched to the skin and whooping with glee in the grasp of Mistress Clémence or his father, Moriz marched below to the lady.
She had looked surprised but had admitted him. She had been writing, with difficulty. He helped her stopper her ink; she had already turned over her papers. She was undisturbed, he saw, by the motion. He wished he could say the same. Shortening matters, he sat down and said, ‘I am here to tell you, madame, that I am not your husband’s spaniel nor am I yours. I see you are in difficulty, and I am a man of experience. I propose therefore to offer myself as a mediator. What may I do for you?’
She secured the last of her pens and sat back, her free hand nursing the arm that was bound. ‘Difficulty?’ she said. ‘You are very kind, but truly there exists no special difficulty. Or if there did, it has been resolved.’ Her colouring was so fair