To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [72]
Sir James Liddell had waited. He spoke to her, smiling. ‘Forgive them. My lord Duke holds your husband in great fondness. I am sure they will follow tomorrow.’
She answered gracefully. Mistress Clémence was approaching, with Pasque, and the man who had given Jordan the whistle, whose name was Archie of Berecrofts. She could see now that there was a small cavalcade waiting on shore: horses and mules, and men in the Bank’s livery. She could see even that Nicholas, detaining the Duke, had turned aside to speak to them for a moment. Then they went on. She looked down at a sound and saw that Jordan was silently weeping.
Mistress Clémence picked him up. ‘Now wouldn’t the Duke of Burgundy have been proud of Jordan de Fleury this day! I never saw a boy bow better. And where is that whistle?’ She dried his cheeks with two dabs.
He put his thumb in his mouth.
‘Pasque has it,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘And there is Pasque with the horses. Come! Let us hurry to Pasque!’
Gelis followed. The arrival she had dreaded was over, and she had been received, with her husband. Received because Nicholas had coolly introduced them all three as a family: father, mother and child. Received because the contentious name of her child was already known, and patently tolerated by its father. Received because news of her accident had already been broadcast, inviting sympathy or satisfaction, and demonstrating impartially that whatever had passed was either atoned for or forgiven. None of it was for her sake. This small, portable Arcadia had been engineered solely for Jordan de Fleury. Bouton, he had called him.
Her arrival was over, and none of the traps she had expected had opened for her except one – and that had dealt a blow to her self-esteem, not her arm. The little delicate girl, Adorne’s niece, had talked to her once about the doings of Nicholas in Scotland. Gelis had discounted what Kathi had said because it smacked too much of the legend of Claes, the mischievous, foolhardy apprentice of Bruges, and Nicholas had been far from that, since his wedding. His months in Scotland in reality had been ugly with incident: Simon’s sister had died; Simon himself had nearly lost his life to Nicholas, and so had Adorne. Why else had Godscalc, dying, forbidden Nicholas to return for two years?
So Gelis had come back to Scotland, confident that for Nicholas, too, this would not be a cloudless return. She knew Scotland by now. No country could afford to spurn the foreigner come to engage in banking or fighting or trade to their mutual benefit, but such occasional visitors were treated with caution. It had been her experience. It had been the experience, too, of Anselm Adorne, of Louis de Gruuthuse, of those van Borselen lords who had come to negotiate, to serve, to impress. Provided their conduct conformed, a courteous forbearance would not be denied them.
But of course Nicholas had not conformed, as Kathi had once attempted to warn her. Actor that he was, unpredictable as he was, foreigner as he was, Nicholas had come to this same people, and left love behind.
Sensibly, Katelijne Sersanders applied for no special leave to travel to Leith to witness the riveting arrival of Nicholas de Fleury and Gelis his lady. She did however pounce on her brother next day when, fulfilling a promise, he brought the news to the priory of Haddington.
There was no prospect, of course, that she would see him alone; or not until he had run the gamut of the senior nuns and the more powerful of the distinguished residents, among whom would certainly be the King’s sister her mistress. All of them already knew all the best rumours about M. de Fleury and his family, and Kathi only hoped that Anselm realised what was expected of him. At times she felt that he was the person who was seventeen and she the middle-aged woman ten years older. She noted he was wearing one of his very best hats, a bad sign.
‘So?’ said Kathi. They weren’t even inside the priory; his audience had all flowed into the yard the moment