Mary Gentle (53 page)

James leaned back in Captain Arnott’s great wooden chair, that was bolted to the deck, stroking his hand over his untrimmed beard. “But yon man Fludd’s skills—his calculations—are they not slow, cumbrous?”

“In detail, yes. In general, no. Besides, he may improve his skills, or be brought to teach others.” I pressed on to my conclusion. “But, your Majesty, all the while there exists Fludd, the last of those whom Sister Caterina calls—called—Bruno’s ‘Giordanisti,’ it’s my belief that France and England should share this resource.”

James Stuart’s chin lifted off his chest. He blinked at me in arrogant amazement. “Share?”

“Would it not be the choice you yourself would make, as a second Solomon—the object of our desires to be divided in two and shared between each?”

James chuckled, loudly and richly. “We perceive you haven’t wasted your time about court, Master de Rochefort. Solomon’s choice! Very well, very well…It’s true we British may take Doctor Fludd, but then true that you’ll know of his existence. What is it you wind your way towards, sir? Be straight with us.”

Putting all on the throw at hazard, I said plainly, “A treaty, sire. A secret treaty.”

He stared. “Go on.”

“No man
knows
truly if all the students that Bruno taught are dead or mad. Suppose, for a moment, that one or two of these Giordanisti still exist, in Madrid, or the Vatican, performing the same service for their masters there as you and Marie de Medici might have from Fludd.”

I let him consider it a moment.

“And if it’s not so.” I shrugged. “It may nonetheless be necessary to
act
as if it were.”

James lowered his chin to his chest again, in silence. The palms of my hands grew damp. I kept my expression mild, it being always a mistake in such negotiations to allow one’s personal stake to be seen.

Wind and wave brought the
Martha
creaking about on another tack, the sound of distant cries coming down from the rigging outside, and the crack of sail.

James raised his head. His blue-grey eyes appeared less watery, and more keen. “We have attempted peace, always. The desired marriages of our sons and daughter would mean all royal lineages of Europe linked by bonds of blood, and thus a little less ready to go to war…And now, you tell me that we may see into the future that God designs for us, and witness the success or failure of such a match. Avert the failures, beforehand….”

Sweetening the bait, I said briskly, “It would be necessary for Doctor Fludd to be kept in England. Else he’d burn, by the wish of the Church. Your Majesty might order him kept under covert arrest, and may also order such diplomatic visits by the Queen Regent’s ambassadors as you mutually arrange. Thus questions might be put to Doctor Fludd, and answers returned. Such a treaty might stipulate that Doctor Fludd divide his attentions equally between England and France, but that’s detail.”

James Stuart flicked his gaze from the stern casements and the sea to me, his expression astonishingly keen and sharp for such a flabby man. “And you, Master Rochefort? France would not be considered in this matter, were it not for you. What is it that you desire, from this?”

All the while the
Martha
had creaked and wallowed her way out of Bridgwater, and about the coast of Cornwall, I had kept myself solitary on the high deck, working my way through the implications of such an arrangement. The better part of two days so spent allowed me to hope I had considered most questions.

I leaned back in the stern window embrasure, and pushed the hair back from my face. My newly growing beard and moustaches did no more as yet than abrade my hand. I met James Stuart’s gaze. “First, sire—I understand that we count chickens when the eggs are not yet laid, never mind hatched.”

James chuckled gruffly, in a release of tension. “Ay. Well, such is often the case, in government. But assume we have our braw hens. What’s this arrangement to you, that you should suggest it?”

“My priorities are…different from yours, sire. My business, since I was forced to leave France, has been M. de Sully, and how I might assist in his affairs.”

He looked thoughtful. “Go on.”

“A treaty between England and France could not be decided nor drawn up in a moment. I hope, only, that your Majesty will consider the wisdom of such a thing, for when you are again in Whitehall-palace.”

I took a breath.

“That said, sire…then, this. I desire that any such treaty, when signed, should contain a clause in which all interested parties agree that the estates, offices, fortune, family, and life of the Duc de Sully are to be considered in-vulnerable and inviolate. Protected. And that no man—favourite, prince of the blood, or…other…shall be permitted to involve himself in M. de Sully’s political affairs, to M. de Sully’s detriment.”

I paused, and added:

“And, if this condition is broken, the right to Doctor Fludd’s information shall be instantly withdrawn.”

C
hance failed us, the winds falling at sunset, and keeping us becalmed all through the following day and the day after.

Not until the forenoon of the third day did the sails move, bellying out as the sea began to rise. I came out to lean against the rail and watch them. After an hour, and off the coast of
Kent
, the
Martha
hailed a chance-met brig coming south-east out of the Thames estuary. I heard the Englishman Arnott shout orders; men ran to take in sail and heave-to.

Is this my opportunity?

A man makes his opportunity, I decided, seeing a lowered boat from the
Martha
labouring over the sea to the merchant brig. It returned, with a man better-dressed than the usual run of mariners, who vanished into the master’s cabin with Arnott and James Stuart. As I expected, Mlle Dariole, disconsolate at being turned out, came onto the deck.

She stood gazing out over the rail at the waist of the ship; and, as I watched, took off her wool cap and ran her fingers through her short hair.

I walked down the steps from where I had been leaning against the
Martha
’s taffrail, and moved to stand beside her, on her right hand to avoid the scabbard of her rapier.

“I must speak with you, mademoiselle, I think; before we reach London.”

Dariole continued to gaze down from the rocking vessel at the green water, bare-headed, one hand stretched out in the attempt to feel sea-spray. She said nothing—which, in all honesty, I expected.

Wood creaked; sailors shouted in the rigging overhead. Dariole looked up, lifting her hand in recognition. The
Martha
’s crew, having begun by thinking Dariole a court flower and the King’s bum-boy, had been convinced otherwise when she went so far as to follow one in a chase up the rigging, and whip him down from the main-mast at the rope’s end. It had made me smile to see her get a respectful greeting from any of these men twice her age.

“I appreciate that you have nothing to say to me.” I turned about, leaning my back on the rail, so I might see her expression.

Her rigid control broke. “I’ve got a lot of things to say to you, Rochefort, but trust me, you don’t want to hear them!”

Clear-skinned, clean-shaven, she still might have been a boy of twenty. That sorted oddly with the dirt-smudged linen doublet and red slops, which gave her even more the appearance of a gutter-bred thug. To know that the slim waist about which the sword-belt is buckled is also that of a young woman….

She turned her head, finally, to look at me. Her eyes blazed. “You think Fludd’s in London. You don’t say so, but I know you do. His Henry the Ninth, his first of the line of eternal kings, like Caterina said—he’ll be here. And
you
think I’m going to leave him alive!”

Frustrated, losing my prepared train of thought, I broke out in a temper. “Mademoiselle, it was
not
he who abused you! Why not desire to kill his servants? You might stand a better chance at finding John or Luke; whichever man it was of them that—”

I could not find words to phrase it without both causing her pain, and making me rigid with anger.

“I wonder you blame Robert Fludd for all! He only stood back. It was his man who made you spoiled—that is, despoiled you.”

She stood up from the rail. Her eyes stood out dark in a face gone completely pale. “‘Spoiled goods’? Is that it, messire? Is that what I am?”

“Mademoiselle!” I protested.

She turned about and stalked off down the deck. I gazed down at my knuckles, seeing how tight the kidskin gloves pulled across them. The flesh under the gloves will be white.

“Dear God!” I muttered aloud.
Why can I say nothing to her as I mean it!

I found her sitting on the cover of the hold, towards the
Martha
’s prow, her legs folded up under her; her eyes fixed on the shifting horizon of the Essex coast as we tacked north-west.

She lifted her chin off her hand but didn’t speak.

The wind coming fresh blew my hair forward, and ruffled the plumes of my hat—Bridgwater having shops enough to make me look the gentleman again.

I put off my hat and went down on one knee before her, in a courtier’s bow.

Before she could react, I took hold of the foot of hers that was nearest me, where she sat, and bent my head down and kissed the leather upper of her boot.

“Messire!”

“There are things which cannot be said—can only be demonstrated.” I remained on one knee, looking up at her. “I do not, and I never will, regard you as spoiled goods. I kiss your hands and feet, and humbly beg you to pardon me that I did not at once say so.”

As if she were in a daze, she moved the arm that she leaned on, and extended it towards me. I took it, and kissed her bare, scarred fingers.

“You hate me, that I desire you not to kill Fludd. But, oh dear God, mademoiselle, I
want
you to! If it were only possible.
I
desire to kill him.”

Her eyes, watching me, were cold and adult.

Her hand closed compulsively over mine.

“Why?”

She implied more than she said; so much became clear to me. My hand may have quivered; or it may have been hers. Kneeling like the gentleman I have not been in two decades, I said, “Why do I say this, instead of rejoicing in your hurt and humiliation? Why, when in Paris I would have killed you? Why have I desired to help you, even if I cannot?”

Her lips pressed together, hard. She nodded. “That’ll do.”

Trying for something of the eloquent speeches that had come to me these last few days, when I considered this moment, I ended only with a sigh.

“Think of it as a joke, upon me,” I said. “Monsieur Rochefort, who was your enemy, is—as concerned for your welfare as you are yourself. You have no cause to think anything good of me. I am the man who would have killed you. But if I could help you to your revenge, if it were only possible, then I would. With my sword or my wits, or what of my profession I can use to aid you. Believe me.”

She took her hand back from me, and moved, slowly; sliding her legs around, and slipping down from the hatch-cover to the deck.

She moved again, too quick for my reaction; bending over, and thrusting her free hand into the voluminous material at the front of my slops.

I inelegantly yelped. “Mademoiselle!”

Dariole let go of me, straightening up.

“I would have sworn you couldn’t kneel down without getting a stiff privy member. I didn’t think you could say what you just said with a straight face. I guess I was wrong on both counts.” She gazed at me with an expression between confusion and frustration.

Giving way to the impulse that had moved me every day of our voyage on this ship, I stood up and put my hands about her shoulders.

She flinched back on the instant, catching herself against the hold-cover and sprawling back on it. The chape of her scabbard scraped the wood.

I reached a hand to help her.

She scrambled away, up in a crouch, hand by her dagger-hilt. Her eyes narrowed against the sunlight. She snapped, “You can say all that! And
still
ask me not to kill the man who raped me! Why?”

Can I not tell you?
So I had often asked myself, these three nights, leaning on the
Martha
’s taffrail and gazing at our wake.

Dariole stood and stepped down off the hatch again to the deck, lifting her chin to glare at me.

“You given up on Sully, have you? Decided you’ll creep up Jamie Stuart’s arse instead? Make yourself
his
pimp, with Fludd?”

There was a time when such foolish remarks would have brought a flush to my cheek. I merely bowed impassively and put on my hat again, boiling inside.

Such a business as this would put her in danger, should she be told of it.
James Stuart will wish it kept secret, Marie de Medici the same, and the Medici has made more than one attempt at murder as it stands.

No: if this treaty is to be kept secret at the highest level, kept between the very few most trusted advisors of James Stuart and the Queen Regent….

I gazed down at her fierce face.

Who has the right to know, if not you?

“I’ll tell you, mademoiselle,” I said, and watched her expression change.

A very few words sufficed, as it turned out.

“Sully.” Dariole, when I ended, spoke a wealth of meaning with that one name; and not merely because she said it with no venom or resentment. Her eyes squinted against the sun, looking up at me, until the shadow of a sail fell across her face.

More awkwardly than a man would hope, I said, “You understand why I must do this, now?”

Dariole still kept her hand near her dagger, but only so that she might tuck her thumb under her sword-belt. She leaned herself back against the ship’s rail, reaching up with her other hand to feel the salt-crusted rigging, gazing at the milky haze of the sky.

“I understand why you
think
you have to.” She dropped her gaze to me, suddenly. “I’m not stupid, messire. Sully’s been your patron for—”

What might have been the beginning of a smile touched her lips.

“—
nearly
longer than I’ve been alive.”

The look of disdain I gave her, I hoped might restore our relationship to something of its old footing. She did smile as she pushed herself off the rail and stood looking up into my face.

“I’m
not
stupid. You make out you’re Sully’s dog—but I’ve seen how you fight for him, messire. How you hate the Medici because of what she did. And how this works…I see why you’d want to do this.”

The smile faded slowly from her face. I confess I felt dazed, looking down at her. “Mademoiselle, I did not suppose you to understand—I thought you would…”

“I think you’re wrong.” Her tone remained even. “Don’t make a mistake about that: I think you’re wrong. I need Fludd dead. That doesn’t mean I can’t…I
understand,
you and Sully. I see that.”

The look in her eyes was very close to sympathy. I found my mouth open, and closed it. The emotion that coursed through me, I managed to identify. Shame. “Mademoiselle, I apologise—I had thought you would…act rather differently.”

Her shoulder lifted. “We still have a problem, messire.”

A voice bellowed from the stern.

“Hai! Rosh’-fu’!”

I turned to see Tanaka Saburo out on deck, outside the cabin. He strode towards us, across the ship’s mid-parts, and bowed to me and to Mlle Dariole.

“King got news of Lon-donnu!”

London,
I made out, still thrown into confusion. Dariole shot me a look of what I would have sworn to be rueful amusement.

“The King-Emperor has spoke with the vessel-master.” Saburo nodded at our port side. I saw the small boat being rowed back towards the merchant brig.

Saburo walked forward, between Dariole and myself, his hands clasped on the cloth belt that wrapped him several times around, his bare feet flat and sure on the shifting deck.

“I tell him, if it was in my country, his enemies would wipe out his clan, down to the last child at mother’s tit. King-Emperor has wife and other son, and daughters. Good thing is, Furada has no sons, he can’t take the throne for his clan.”

Solving M. Saburo’s mind is a problem for philosophers!
I thought. “I don’t believe Fludd has a clan, as such. Northumberland has a brood, like all these English earls, but I suppose him Fludd’s fool, rather than the other way about.”

“Maybe.” Saburo seemed dismissive. “Furada think so too, maybe.”

I considered that, and the power of some noblemen, even out of favour and in prison. I should not necessarily underestimate this Northumberland….

The shifting wind put a faint spray into my face. The merchant ship tacked away. At the same time that I watched it, I was conscious of Dariole, not a yard from me: her warmth, the scent of her unperfumed body—as unperfumed as a man, but delicate, and with a power to rouse me stiff as the ship’s mast if I considered it closely.

The deck tilted and a man stumbled across the ship’s waist and plummeted past me; slamming into the rail all but hard enough to fly over it.

Startled, I recognised the bulk of his Majesty James Stuart. Grabbing him about the chest, I arrested his progress.

“Rochefort, man!” he protested, his agitation such that I could hardly understand his speech.

“Sire?”

James Stuart jammed his ungainly body between me and the ship’s rail. He stuttered unintelligible thick Scots. M. Saburo shrugged as I caught his eye, showing me how adept he was becoming with European gestures, but otherwise being of no assistance.

The water became choppier as we sailed towards the land. I stood ready to grasp the belt James wore, or his doublet collar, in case he should plummet overboard. “Sire?” I repeated.

Shadows of the sails passed over us, and the sun came over our other hand as we tacked in towards the estuary of the Thames-river.

The Scotsman spoke fiercely. “They tell us,
all
ships are leaving London!”