To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 13
‘Julius would remember,’ said Nicholas. ‘Didn’t you mention romances? Not that the lady Violante was quite what he fancied. So what did you think of the Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck and her daughter? Is Julius serious?’
‘It was the talk of Cologne,’ Gelis said. ‘Beautiful, wealthy and widowed. You should divorce me and cuckold Julius. Give me my son and take the Gräfin’s charming daughter. She is eight.’ She stood in mid-chamber, Clémence beside her. The floor was cut into recesses and channels, and Nicholas was closing the shutters. A lantern flickered. Somewhere, she could hear the sound of a drum, like a heartbeat.
‘Too young for me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I should tell Julius to ship her to Simon. We know that Simon can’t get her with child, and someone ought to give him a virgin instead of all these used matrons he tries out.’ He turned. ‘Did you think I should let you walk free?’ His voice was sweet.
‘Of course not,’ she said. The air sighed. The drum deepened its sound. Beside her, Mistress Clémence took a quiet step and placed a hand under her arm. The hand was steady.
The last shutter closed. The lantern glimmered, the only light in the room. There was another sigh, and another, and the ground began to slide under her feet. She sprang aside, taking Clémence with her, and, scrambling, made for the wall. The floor in the centre had changed. The uneven paving had sunk, forming a broad rectangular pit which barred her way to the end of the chamber. Across it lay a finely wrought bridge, upon which Nicholas stood, his eyes wide.
He said, ‘The door behind you is locked.’ Somewhere, someone started to chant. Mistress Clémence, pressing her arm, had brought them both to stand with their backs to the wall along which the paving still ran, high and firm. Immediately ahead lay the edge of the chasm. Other voices joined in the singing: the sound was serious, liturgical, soft, the sound of a blessing or maybe a curse. Something materialised from the gloom of the pit and rose, whirring. It was joined by another. Its flight, inconsequential as that of a dragonfly, stirred her hair and fluttered the nurse’s stiffened voile, so that she put a hand to her throat. The voices were those of women. Dim in the light, the golden stars glittered and the panelled walls faded, replaced by shadowy boughs, glimmering fruit, floating garlands. Mistress Clémence said, ‘Toys.’
She spoke to Nicholas. ‘Toys,’ he agreed. He stood, substantial among the weaving denizens of the room, dark but for the lantern-glint that stood in his eyes, and the flame from his ring. The jewel burned. The black rectangle below him had begun to breathe smoke, and a flicker of red burnished the bridge and dimly illumined his face from below, distinguishing the high Latin nose within the plain Burgundian mask. Mistress Clémence moved.
‘It is not fire,’ Gelis said. Now you could see the dragons above, and the angels. It was the angels who were singing. It was Latin. It was not a blessing. She said, ‘You should, I think, let Mistress Clémence leave. She has caused you no annoyance that I know of.’
‘Presently,’ Nicholas said. The singing reached a climax and broke off. The drum beat. The pit glowed. Unexpectedly, far above, a bird started to sing. Its voice was frightened and loud. Nicholas said, ‘Mistress Clémence? You know why we are here?’
The bird sang. Mistress Clémence’s voice, when it came, was surprisingly steady. ‘My training is with children, not adults, M. de Fleury. They chastise one another with blows.’
‘And you think that better? Perhaps you are right. But I reserve some rights as a husband, or else my son, when he grows, would despise me. When I am abused, I make some complaint. It seems a mild one, to me. As you see, my wife is not easily frightened.’
‘It is not my place to comment,’ said the nurse. ‘I only hope, as he grows, that your son will forgive you the part allotted him in this experience.’
‘You would tell him?’ said Nicholas.
‘Others will, soon enough. It is as well to remember,’ said Mistress Clémence. ‘The bond between mother and child cannot be broken. A son will defend even a mother he hates.’
‘Thank you,’ said Gelis. ‘I am here, do you remember?’
The nurse turned. ‘Your son loves you, madame.’
‘Who can doubt it?’ Nicholas said. ‘But in time, he will learn, as you say, what has happened. So will others, and sooner. You have heard my lady wife express her wish to continue our marriage. I am overwhelmed – for my own sake, for that of the child. But I would begin our new married life in public accord. Being young, she fell into error. I have exacted my own form of punishment. I have forgiven her.’
‘Thank you,’ said Gelis. About her, the air swam with flickering shadows, red with a breathing malevolence. The bird screamed. Her flesh, fighting to preserve itself, tore open her mind to the channels of instinct while she sought, breathing fast, to control it.
The announcement he had just made was a travesty. The promise he had not made was the one she wanted to hear. She said, ‘And Jordan? Jordan?’
The name was the trigger. She was in the lair of a Professor of Secrets, and the levers under his hand were his playthings. As she spoke her son’s name, the bird’s song reached the highest point of its terrified screech and darkness fell. A fissure of light, sizzling high in the air, showed the pit at her feet, showed the bridge, showed Nicholas standing immobile still, looking down at her. The dragons and angels had gone and the walls had turned black. The ground under her shook. A roar swept through the room: a rolling crash that hammered into her eardrums; withdrew and thundered again. The lightning seared through the air and the fingers of Clémence dug into her arm.
‘Toys, my lady,’ said Clémence. ‘The louder the noise, the smaller the harm. There’ll be rain.’ As she spoke, the hiss started.
It fell from above. At first, it drummed into the bed of the floor; then the rush of sound altered as the water fell on itself, surging, rising, filling the pit. The spray coated her face, her hair, all she wore. She pressed back on the wall. ‘I am sorry, my lady,’ said Clémence.
There were jets on the wall. As he had touched off the storm, so the silent controller of Hell brought to life, one by one, all the other devices. Water poured under her skirts, over her shoulders, streamed down her hair and her face, stopping her breath. Thunder crashed as she choked, and lightning flickered and swam through the air, showing her the bridge of the secrets again and again and again. The last time, it was empty.
She was halfway across when someone seized her, dragging her back. For a moment she fought, then saw it was Clémence, and obeyed. As she moved, the bridge broke where she had been, and loosed its planks in the water below. The nurse said, ‘Now. Now you can jump.’
It was possible. It was just possible, running, to launch oneself over that gap and reach the rest of the bridge: the stump that led to the far side of the room and the exit. There was no sign of Nicholas anywhere.
Her skirts were leaden with water. Gelis lifted them in both hands, threw back her soaked hair and, measuring, precipitated herself onwards and upwards and jumped. She landed staggering, clawing the rail. Then she turned, hands outstretched, and caught Clémence. They touched hands for a moment. Next, turning, Gelis slithered down from the bridge and led the way across the short stretch of polished wood to the door.
She didn’t know, then, what warned her. A small sound of some kind, a creak that hardly made itself heard against the relentless crash of the mechanical thunder and the hissing roar of the fall in the pool. She felt a movement. She saw Clémence plunging towards her. Gelis stopped and flung out her arm. She thrust the nurse to one side, following with her shoulder and the whole of her body; occupying the place where the woman had been. Clémence stumbled and knelt by the wall.
Beneath Gelis, a rectangle of floor thudded open. Below was nothing but space. She grasped air. Her arm seared against wood. She touched a bracket, and lost it. Her sleeve caught, then her skirt, and ripped free. Clémence flung out a hand, but it was beyond Gelis’s reach, and already her momentum was too great to check. So she fell.
Chapter 7
GELIS WOKE TO a sickening pain in her arm, and the sound of somebody screaming. A man.
She was in the sunlit guest-parlour in Hesdin. Her eyes, moving from her bound shoulder and arm and an unfamiliar robe, came to rest on the concerned, impatient face of the nurse. Mistress Clémence sitting wrapped in a cloak, and a gown beneath it which reached to her calves.
The rain. The rain, the deep pool, and the bridge; and the Master smiling upon it. Then she looked round.
Two strangers, both in armour, both looking angry. A man in court dress, his face pale. And Nicholas, standing half-turned as if stopped in mid-sentence, who made a furious, dismissive gesture and turned fully to her.
The men left. Nicholas stood looking down at her. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘The mattresses should have been there.’
His eyes were distended, as they had been on the bridge. He sounded childish, or mad. It occurred to her for the first time to wonder if he was mad. She said, ‘I am rather sorry as well.’ Outside, the screaming had started again.
‘You could have been killed, either of you,’ Nicholas said. He spoke as if answering some question. Then he dropped his eyes to her arm. ‘Mistress Clémence tended it for you. It should never have happened.’
Shivering, she tried to make him talk sense. She said, ‘But you meant me to fall.’
‘I explained that,’ he said.
‘So it has all turned out as you wanted. You have been abused. You have abused in return. I am forgiven. May I go now?’ Gelis said. ‘Or was there anything else?’
It was risky, but she wasn’t going to whine, or he would think he had won. Everything ached, and she couldn’t stop trembling. While she talked, she tried to assess the full extent of her hurts. She had fallen a long way, and there had been no mattresses. She wondered if she could run if he said she could go. Or if he didn’t.
‘No. That is, we are all leaving,’ he said. ‘There is a covered cart you can have. Mistress Clémence thinks it will be best for your arm. You think you can travel?’
‘Of course,’ Gelis said.
She felt sick. She was not sure if she could stand. With such coin she had purchased her freedom and, maybe, permission to rejoin her son. She thought, anger piercing the faintness, that, purged, she might at least be allowed to mention his name. She said, ‘And Jordan. Is it far to the camp?’
The nurse moved. Nicholas said with unusual irritation, ‘I told you. The boy is not at the camp.’
She stopped. ‘But you are bringing him there?’
‘He has left camp for good,’ Nicholas said. He sounded impatient. ‘You are not going to the camp. You are going with me to Scotland. That is why you left your maid and your bags at St Omer. You agreed. Or do you want a divorce?’
‘You lied. You said nothing of this. What is happening?’ she said. Turning painfully, she looked for Mistress Clémence.
The nurse, her hands folded, returned a calm gaze. Mistress Clémence said, ‘I had not been told either, my lady. All I know is that I stay with Pasque and the child.’
‘Then I stay,’ Gelis said. She could hear the hopelessness in her own voice. You won’t find him, he had said. She stared at him, her eyes dry, and then flinched.
He had done her no harm; simply dropped on the floor the glass beaker which had stood on the table. It broke not in fragments, but in half. He said, ‘Will it ever mend, or are you now an idiot for life? Have you followed nothing of what I have told you?’
She stared at him, shivering. Behind her, Mistress Clémence rose and placed a hand firmly on the shoulder that was unhurt. It felt reassuring and calm. Nicholas said, ‘I shall see you below,’ and went out.
The cavalcade was four times larger than she expected: a troop of glittering men-at-arms in the black and white unicorn livery of the Banco di Niccolò. There were some well-dressed riders among them, one a priest in black robes, one a man with an extravagant jewel in his hat. A chain of laden mules sagged behind that, and three disconnected baggage-carts to one side of a huddle of draught oxen chained to a gun-carriage. A team of four horses stamped and jingled before a long padded cart whose hooped cover was incongruously pinned with cheap streamers.
The man with the jewel in his hat was John le Grant, whom she had last seen at Innsbruck, and who had shown her courtesy but little else. The priest was Father Moriz the German, who had also been in the Tyrol. She had received a homily from him on her departure, but he had not been unsympathetic; he might help. Especially now, when she saw that he seemd to be disputing with Nicholas. Then Nicholas himself turned, and came over.
She had recovered enough to need only a groom at her elbow. Mistress Clémence stood at her side. Nicholas, ignoring them both, jerked his head at the groom, saying ‘There!’
He had indicated the wagon. Gelis said, ‘You owe me a little. May we speak?’
He looked at her. ‘Later, of course. Can you climb, or may we lift you into the wagon?’
‘I can climb,’ Gelis said. The groom, none the less, took her arm.
Dust eddied and rose. Men scurried over the cobbles; a horse staled; a mélange of eye-watering odours hung in the air, accompanied by a cacophony of human and animal voices. The hall of Medea, al fresco. The hooded cart, as she drew near, rocked as if crammed with vigorous passengers. Vigorous, talkative passengers, of which one at least was a woman.
The camp followers. Captain Astorre, come to escort his patron to the coast, had brought his women, and she, Gelis, was expected to travel with them. She would rather ride, broken arm and bruises or no. Gelis halted again. Up in the cart, a flurry of activity culminated in a view of a woman backing out from under the canopy, scolding. It was not a camp follower. It was a woman no camp would have invited to follow. It was Pasque.
Astonishing her groom, Gelis thrust him from her and began to limp to the cart. She was halfway there when Pasque saw her, and dropped her jaw with its yellow-pegged teeth. She had almost arrived at the wheels when the person Pasque had been admonishing scrambled out from the hood and stood, viewing the scene with delight. The childish brow, stuck with brown hair, was unchanged, but in nearly five months the soft lips had firmed; the nose and chin had wickedly redefined themselves.
Here; here; here, Jordan her son. Jordan her son, not in camp, not in hiding but here. She stood gasping, her heart leaping and failing within her. Jordan her son, last seen in Venice, with twenty weeks’ worth of living that she would never know lying between them. Jordan, son of his father.
Then the grey gaze swept round and opened, and the lips parted, and the dimples, black as devils, flew into the round cheeks. ‘Maman!’ cried Jordan de Fleury, his voice rising in delight. ‘Maman! R’garde!’
‘I see you,’ said Gelis, and set foot on the step, and received the rush of his body in her arms, hardly marking the pain.
Nicholas de Fleury turned away, and then stopped, because Mistress Clémence’s iron hand was clamped round his wrist. He had apologised to her. He had been, in fact, royally generous. She said, ‘If you went forward now, it would be better.’
His eyes reflected the light, bright as mirrors. He said, ‘I have to lead this party to Calais, Mistress Clémence.’
Mistress Clémence dropped her hand. ‘You need not stay with him long. You are …’ She hesitated, then went on: ‘You are a new possession to the child. He will continuously ask. It can cause jealousy.’
M. de Fleury went forward without further comment. She followed. The child saw her first, and looked pleased if not overwhelmed: with Pasque at his side it was axiomatic that the other half of his household would follow. Then he saw his father and cried out again. In front of his mother, the cry was a trifle theatrical: Clémence sighed. Then M. de Fleury spoke to his son, and to his wife, and after a reasonable time, took his leave and turned back. He did not go near Clémence again.
It had been necessary. Anyone would agree who knew something of chil
dren. These three were going to Scotland together. They had to establish some sort of surface relationship, or the situation would be worse than before. And he himself had, after all, taken some trouble to lay the foundations.
‘… And so he hates his wife,’ said Pasque indulgently that night, sharing a bed at St Omer with her superior, their shifts decorously side by side on a coffer. ‘To subject her to that! She might have been killed! Well might he have the man whipped for forgetting the mattresses. And she! What wife will she make to him now, compelled out of her country, frightened out of her wits! I tell you, you and I will have our work cut out to bring up that child.’
Mistress Clémence lay as if asleep. In many ways, old Pasque was right. Stubborn, bitter and devious, the family they were now to accompany to Scotland offered small prospect of happiness or normality to themselves or to those who lived with them.
Nevertheless …
Nevertheless, why, subjecting his wife to this trial, had the sieur de Fleury also put at risk the child’s nurse, upon whom depended the boy’s whole security?
Mistress Clémence de Coulanges would not say to Pasque what she thought the real test had been. She would not say to Pasque that she had seen a man whipped almost to flaying because he might have killed Mistress Clémence, as much as his wife. She would not say that the lady Gelis had, in the end, been allowed to hold her son in her arms because, in the face of hurt and possible death, she had put her son first. She had pushed Clémence aside from that trap so that Clémence would live, no matter what happened. And because of that, she was here with her child.
Hatred? Perhaps. She had seldom seen husband and wife behave as relentlessly as these two had, in that unchivalrous cavern of artifice. The mother had not given way, and the so-called mishap had followed at once.
Yet in falling – to her death, she would think – the girl had cried only one name, and that in anguish, not anger. And the man so entreated had moved faster than thought: had been first to sink to her side; first to touch her brow and her hair; first to gather her up, until others came to carry her out. Then had come the annihilating explosion of anger.