To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [77]
She said, ‘I see your room is next door.’
He sat down on her fine cushioned settle. He smelled of horse and looked unslept, but quite tranquil. ‘That doesn’t please you? I have a bed in my office, but I can’t pursue my conjugal duties from there. That’s all really that still interests the populace. Once they are reassured, I shall remove myself and my books to my quarters. You should see your face.’
‘I imagine it expresses my feelings,’ said Gelis.
‘I suspect I knew them already,’ said her husband. ‘Your chastity will remain strictly inviolate. I shall come to see Jodi, and you and I shall make some ceremonial visits. Inquisitive ladies will send their chamberlains to you, and I expect you will bring yourself to visit them. You have horses and servants and money, your own and mine, and must use it all as you please and go where you wish – so long, of course, as you are discreet. Alonse will tell you what I am doing and when we have any mutual engagements. If you want anything, tell him, or Govaerts, or me.’
He rose without haste, preparing to leave. She said, ‘As you have devised, so it shall be done.’
‘I should hope so,’ he said. The door closed. She felt like an overwound wheel, as after all their meetings alone. There had only been a handful since Hesdin and all had been equally brief, tailored to the span of their mutual tolerance. The span would lengthen, no doubt, as their nerves calmed, or their indifference strengthened. At present the ark of their marriage was secured by a line made of hyphens.
She lay in bed listening for many nights after that, learning how often he came home and when, and in what condition. She won, in time, the reticent acceptance of Govaerts, but failed with Alonse.
In October, when it was known that, despite everything, Anselm Adorne was coming to Scotland, Katelijne Sersanders paid her first visit to the Ca’ Niccolò in the Canongate since its owner’s return. She carried a cage with a parrot.
Being inquisitive but not having a chamberlain, she had already examined both the child and its mother from a distance. She approved of both, but thought that M. de Fleury’s rearranged marriage would have a better chance of success if the person who purloined his son did not feature in its earlier stages.
Before coming at all, she had consulted four different people at Haddington. Her brother Anselm held that Gelis the wife was a bitch, but that she regarded Kathi as no more than an officious young meddler, which is what she had been. Her friend the equable Mistress Phemie thought that it was time for a friendly, impersonal call so long as Kathi didn’t make too much of the child. In this Kathi concurred. Will Roger, the royal musician, emerged from working on the high notes of the lady Margaret and the chest notes (deeply rewarding) of the servant nurse Ada to express doubts.
‘I thought they were reconciled,’ said Kathi, puzzled. She was learning to knit. ‘Just because she isn’t sharing his business …’
‘More than his business,’ Roger said. ‘Who the hell taught you that?’
‘Bishop Tulloch’s housekeeper,’ Kathi said, sticking her needle back into her waist and beginning to flicker her fingers again. ‘What do you mean? I heard they were together.’ The son of Archie of Berecrofts came to Haddington for his lessons.
‘Well, tell me what you find out,’ said Will Roger sarcastically. ‘But pick a time when he’s sober.’
She laid down her needles. ‘Ah.’
‘It may just mean he’s happy,’ said Roger. ‘In fact, he is happy. Don’t go and spoil it.’
The last person she consulted was her physician. Dr Andreas said, ‘Of course you must go. But remember. You are bad for each other. No escapades.’
She had smiled. ‘I’m not fourteen any more, Dr Andreas.’
And he had gazed at her with the intentness he sometimes applied to his charts before saying, ‘Katelijne, there is a fourteen-year-old in the oldest of us; in men like M. de Fleury as well. Let it sleep.’
Walking up the turnpike stairs and from room to room of the Ca’ Niccol