Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
‘And maman?’ said Jordan. His heart pumped like a bird’s.
‘Maman is in Bruges,’ said his father. ‘You will see her soon.
And so shall I.’
They left, and Wolfaert van Borselen, dismounted, stood in their place. He said, ‘What can I say?’ He sounded hoarse.
‘There is your pupil,’ Nicholas said. ‘He speaks for you.’
The boy Henry had got to his feet. Expertly delivered, the blow should have broken his neck. At the last moment, the man had held back. As it was, the boy swayed. The whole side of his face was
discoloured, and his pupils were so distended that his eyes appeared black, and not blue.
‘He is scum,’ Wolfaert said. ‘I should never have taken him.’
‘He is the son of your cousin. This is a house expected to breed and train leaders. You were sent a savage and have done nothing to curb him.’
Wolfaert said, ‘He caused no trouble before.’
‘Are you excusing him?’
‘No. But the fault isn’t all mine. ‘You and your feud with his father–’
‘And the conduct, you would say, of your other cousin, who slept with his father?’
‘You said it, not I,’ Wolfaert said.
‘Just to remind you. You knew. So that any fool but you, my lord, would have been on the lookout for trouble.’
‘I beg your pardon!’ Wolfaert was flushed.
‘I am not ready to give it. This boy is afraid that mine has a claim on his father. He wants him dead. Am I right?’
He turned on the boy who returned his stare from under drawn brows. ‘Of course,’ Henry said. ‘A bitch litters. The product is dung. You and him.’
Wolfaert lifted his arm, and then dropped it.
‘What a pity,’ Nicholas said, ‘that I wasn’t wearing a ring. My lord? I need transport.’
‘Anything. Anything. Food, a wagon, an escort. And for this knave, a prison cell in the castle.’
‘I am a van Borselen,’ said the boy. His face blazed.
‘You are a St Pol, nothing else,’ said the seigneur of Veere. ‘I have disowned you. Beg your life from this lord.’
‘What lord? This cuckold?’ said Henry.
‘Did you speak? Don’t speak,’ Nicholas said.
‘How will you stop me?’ said the boy.
‘With a gag. Will your men remove him, my lord?’
‘Where?’ said Wolfaert.
‘Oh, to prison,’ Nicholas said. ‘But not for long. An hour, maybe. I have to send off some messages. Then I am taking him with me to Bruges.’
‘Tonight?’ Wolfaert said. A man of conscience, he tried to dissuade him, but was clearly quite thankful to fail. He knew Nicholas had already ridden from Antwerp. In fact, he had set out that morning from Ghent. Nicholas hardly remembered it, through the pure, high, white fury that burned, Loki’s star, in his mind and his senses.
*
It was a fast journey, fast as he wanted. He slept, he thought, in the van Borselen boat which took them from Flusa over the Scheldt, but no one mentioned it; the small armed escort provided by Wolfaert were silent throughout. Henry’s eyes followed him in the half-dark but Henry said nothing: Nicholas had sealed his mouth, as he had promised, some time ago. He took a room for a few hours at Sluys, which they reached after midnight, and changed Wolfaert’s horses for some of his own, which were kept there at stable. At three in the morning there was an outcry from the place where the men-at-arms were sleeping with Henry: the boy had been ungagged on his orders, and on some excuse his escort had untied his hands, and he had nearly escaped, wounding the innkeeper. Nicholas dealt with it as Astorre would have done; the men-at-arms muttered behind him. By dawn they were riding into Bruges with the first of the packhorses and wagons, and Nicholas was at his own door.
The night porter was sleepy, and unknown to him. Nicholas kicked the door from his grasp and, when men came running half armed, made known his opinion in a few suitable words, and had his escort made welcome and led to the kitchens. He gave the leader his purse, entire, as a gesture to Wolfaert, but the man’s eyes, as he thanked him, were aloof. Henry stood, his face grotesquely bloated, and shivered while everyone stared. His hands were tied and his lips bound again. Nicholas hooked him by the shirt-collar and pulled him indoors and upstairs, passing familiar faces but not looking at them. No one spoke. Since he did not know which door was Gelis’s, he hammered on them all. A baby started to cry.
Father Moriz said, ‘What are you doing?’ He stood by the stairs, fully gowned, and smelling of candles.
Nicholas said, ‘Where is Gelis?’ Behind the gag, the boy was sobbing quietly.
The gnarled, truculent face surveyed them both. Moriz said, ‘I will fetch her. Go to the parlour. Who is this?’
Nicholas said, ‘Gelis knows.’
‘Go, then,’ said Moriz.
In the parlour, which was unlit as yet by the dawn and quite empty, Henry ceased sobbing at once. His eyes sneered.
‘Your moment is coming,’ Nicholas said. He found tinder and lit all the candles, so that the boy’s misshapen face glimmered and gleamed. Then he untied the gag.
‘Your wife is a cow,’ Henry said. ‘I have seen both her dugs down her dress.’
The door opened abruptly. Henry stopped speaking. ‘Nice attempt,’ Nicholas said.
It was Diniz, looking heavily worried. ‘Come in,’ Nicholas said. ‘Who sent Catherine to Veere?’
Like the good man he was, Diniz swallowed his questions. He said, ‘Paul invited her. She is friendly with Paul van Borselen. I hope – I hope nothing has happened to her.’ His eyes were on Henry.
The door opened again. It was Tilde, Catherine’s sister, in her bedgown. Diniz said, ‘Nicholas is asking about Catherine.’
‘Why?’ said Tilde. ‘She’s at Veere. Is something wrong?’ Her eyes fell on the boy, and she gasped.
‘This,’ Nicholas said, ‘is Henry, son of Simon de St Pol. Diniz may remember him as a child in Madeira, where he expected to enjoy my execution. Did Diniz not tell you this?’
Someone made a sound, and suppressed it: Henry, his hair aureoled by the light. He spoke in a whisper. ‘I was four years old when it happened. I asked you to forgive me.’ His eyes were full of tears.
‘… And has since,’ Nicholas continued, ‘escaped a charge of attacking a princeling and attempting to blind him in Scotland. You didn’t know this? You didn’t know about his father and Gelis?’
Diniz said nothing. Tilde looked uncomfortably at her husband. ‘We had heard. But –’
‘You had heard. You knew that Henry de St Pol had been sent to the household at Veere. You knew that my son was at Antwerp. You knew that I was absent. And you did nothing about it, so that your sister not only went to Veere, she allowed Wolfaert’s wife to bring my son there. Yesterday. Friday. Yesterday, without mother, father or nurse, Jordan and Henry were together at Veere.’
‘Robin was with him,’ said Gelis. ‘Robin and Pasque.’ Moriz had brought her. She stood in the doorway, her hair rough on her robe, her face ghastly. There were others behind her, one of them Julius. She said, ‘Nicholas?’ Then her gaze fell on the boy.
‘So if Tilde and Diniz helped it to happen,’ Nicholas said, ‘what about Jordan’s mother? Pasque, you say. Do I remember appointing Pasque as senior nurse to my son? She cleans the floors well, it is true, but cannot really be expected to prevent the lady of Veere from walking all over them. Mistress Clémence is the senior nurse. Where is she?’
‘What has happened?’
said Gelis.
‘… Or do I know? Looking after the motherless infants of Anselm Adorne. I sympathise. But Anselm Adorne has many children, and you and I had only one. Still, perhaps you were right. One should be magnanimous. Jordan’s mother, unlike theirs, was alive and could care for him. Except – how extraordinary! – Jordan’s mother left Antwerp as well.’
Tell me.
Tell me,’
said Gelis.
‘Where is Jordan?’
‘You have to ask me?’ Nicholas said. ‘I have been in Arras: how should I know? You mentioned Robin; but Robin is fifteen and quite as overawed as Pasque when a great lady breaks all the rules.’
‘Robin didn’t know,’ said Gelis flatly. ‘Robin didn’t know of the danger. I did. It is my fault. It is all my fault, whatever has happened. Nicholas, have pity. Is he dead?’
Father Moriz said, ‘Let him answer that question alone. None of us has a right to hear it. Come. Let us go.’
‘No!’ The scream of the boy stopped them all. ‘No! Don’t go! He will kill me!’
The eyes of Jordan’s parents had locked. Nicholas said, ‘He will never forget what has happened. He is alive.’
She stared at him, her eyes blank. The boy, throwing himself at her feet, clung to her gown. ‘Help me. Help me. He will tell you terrible things.’
Slowly, Gelis looked down. ‘Did you harm Jordan?’
Exposed to the light was the profile of a white and gold angel. Then it turned, showing the closed eye, the thickened lips, the gross swelling, black, red and blue. Henry whispered, ‘I couldn’t do it, what Robin does. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. And when he makes nie, I bleed.’
Gelis pulled her skirts away. The boy subsided, his face running with tears. Nicholas said, ‘Is that what you told the men-at-arms? Henry, why did I strike you?’
The boy sobbed. He said, ‘Because I wouldn’t – wouldn’t stay in your bed.’
‘But, Henry, you and I had our quarrel in public,’ Nicholas said. ‘A dozen people were there, including the lord Wolfaert of Veere. They would say that your tale was a lie. They would say you were punished because you had secretly attempted to murder your cousin, forcing him to run to his death.’
‘It isn’t true!’ Henry said. ‘He was running from you. I didn’t want him to bleed. I was saving him.’
Someone made an odd noise: probably Julius. Father Moriz wore a look of disgust, and Diniz had put his arm around Tilde, his grip convulsively tight, his face wretched. Gelis, pallid as a Venetian mask, looked first at the boy, then at Nicholas. Then she bent, and took the boy by the ear and pulled him up. He stopped crying.
She said, ‘My dear Henry, that is one accusation that will never stick. Truth apart, the lord of Veere will see that it doesn’t. Which is the side of your face that doesn’t hurt yet? Because if you wait, I, too, am going to present you with a mark of my feelings for you.’
She had actually lifted her hand when the boy tore free and made for the door. There, someone caught and removed him. Nicholas concentrated on Gelis. He said, ‘Thank you. I always hoped to be credited with my preferred vices, at least. So why did you decide to leave Jodi? He asked for you, by the way, between screams.’
The group at the door had dissolved. Now Father Moriz, stretching his hand, drew Tilde and Diniz out of the room and, shutting the door, stood inside. He said, ‘Stop, Nicholas. You are not yourself. Go to your child, both of you. So long as he is safe, nothing else matters. You have, I am afraid, found the miscreant.’
‘Where is Jodi? Is he downstairs?’ Gelis asked.
Nicholas slammed his palms on the back of a chair. ‘My God, do you think I would bring him here? He is in Antwerp, and will stay there. As soon as Mistress Clémence returns, Pasque will receive her wages and go. Robin will be sent back to Scotland. The guard has already been doubled. What sort of mother are you?’
‘You left him alone?’ Gelis said. ‘After all that, you left him alone in order to come here with Henry?’
The priest said, ‘Catherine de Charetty is also with him, and Paul. The men downstairs told me.’
There was a porcelain vase on the table. It was Indian, and had been in the old house as well. Nicholas detached a hand and, lifting it, hurled it with a crash on the floor. ‘I asked you a question.’
She looked up, her eyes wide with shock. ‘You didn’t care about Henry. You left Jordan because you wanted to do this to me. What sort of father are you?’
‘To do what to you?’ Nicholas said. ‘Ask you questions you are ashamed to answer?’ He lifted a glass flask and balanced it.
‘I’m not ashamed. I was asked to meet Julius and his client. You were away. She owns half the
Fleury
.’
‘The monumental Gräfin,’ Nicholas said. He lifted the glass vase and smashed it straight down. The fragments flew everywhere. ‘You were avid to meet her. Didn’t you know that Charlotte, that stupid woman, wanted your nurses? She didn’t care what happened to Jodi. Jodi thought Henry was chasing for fun. Henry pushed him like a ball, striking him further and further. The last shot of all was aimed to kill, at his head. But he fell.’ He moved about, touching one thing after another. He saw a casket of Marian’s.
Gelis said, ‘You were away. You could have given Jodi these two weeks at least. I’m sorry, but Father Moriz is right. We’ll talk when you are sober.’
‘It is your fault,’ Nicholas said. He held the casket, and thought of Marian, and opened his hands in spite of it all. It fell, and Gelis cried out.
He said, ‘It is your fault that Henry thinks that your son is Simon’s. That is why he is trying to kill him.’
‘And what about you?’ Gelis said. ‘Why did you come here with Henry, instead of staying with Jordan who needed you? Why have you dashed to abuse me, except to hide from yourself what has really happened? What you can’t bear. What you want to punish me for. But it isn’t my fault, is it, what has happened to Henry? It isn’t my fault that –’
‘Stop,’ said Nicholas. He found he had stepped across and was holding her hard, one hand over her mouth. Glass crunched under his feet. Her eyes, Nordic-blue, stared into his, exploring them, puzzled.
Father Moriz shouldered between them, breathing hard. He said, ‘Gelis, get out.’
She pulled her head free, and Nicholas let his hand drop. ‘We haven’t finished,’ she said.
‘You have,’ said the priest grimly. ‘Stand back.’
Nicholas stood back. The fury, evaporating, left a white haze. The door opened as Father Moriz walked to it, holding Gelis. Mistress Clémence stood there, with another woman. Mistress Clémence curtseyed to Gelis and the priest and looked across to where Nicholas stood. She said, ‘I am free to go whenever you want me, my lady.’ She paused and said, ‘I have to tell you that Master de St Pol is asleep and well guarded, and has been seen by a doctor. Also that …’ She hesitated, glancing behind.