Caprice and Rondo (33 page)

As soon as he started to move, he was made aware of the difference. The ring wasn’t whipping him this time. This time, all its fierceness subdued, it seemed full of an earnest solicitude, nudging, prompting, swaying, circling demurely. No, I do not wish to go through to the stockroom. Yes, this is the way I wish you to turn. Yes, I wish you to climb. No, I do not wish to go to the reception-room, to Herr Straube’s chamber, to the other guest-room, to the granary. Yes, again I wish you to climb. This is the place. This is the door. Go into this room.

It had brought him to his own chamber.

He stood inside the door. The cord shook itself suddenly. An end to pretence. The ring gave a harsh whisper. No more need for blandishments. He knew now what was going to happen; but he was not a minion, an echo. He would determine when and where he would cede. He stood in the doorway and, drawing on all his remaining strength, hurled his contrary demands, the will of the diviner crossing the will of the pendulum: self against self. You want me to go to the window? The candle-holder? The cupboard?

He was punished for it. This time, the answers were physical. The circling stone started to rise. The childish face, stony, smiling, passed his with increasing speed, its hiss changed to a snore. The cloth was snatched from his hand, and the ring, smoothly hurtling, seared the air with its rebuttals.
No
to the desk.
No
to the bed.
No! No! No!
to the prie-dieu. His wrist ached, with refusing to name what it wanted.

He went there, in the end. In the end, he said, in his mind, ‘To the table?’ And the stone pulled him there; converting itself, in a great convulsive leap, into the pendulum that answered him,
Yes!
Then it fell, and hung dangling, like the arm of a fighter which has just delivered the ultimate blow.

It had brought him to nothing very much, you would say. Made free of the whole country of Poland, the whole of Thorn, the whole of Friczo Straube’s fine house, the stone had brought him to nothing more sinister than this table, upon which rested a flat pewter dish, stained with black.

Nicholas stood. He was still standing when someone addressed him. The voice was quite near. ‘Pan Nikolás?’

Jelita, his servant, submissive as ever in his long coat and cap and soft boots. He was in the room. Perhaps he had been there for some time. He spoke once more. ‘My lord?’

Nicholas moved. He felt very stiff. He remembered being in a great haste about something. To find and talk to Katelijne while everyone was occupied at the games. His hand was sticky with blood; he saw the man looking, alarmed. Nicholas said, ‘It’s all right. The lady of Berecrofts. Did you find her?’

‘I came to tell you, my lord. She has gone to the contest with her husband and uncle. The merchants invited them. The Baron Cortachy is to leave Thorn, it appears, and the merchants wished to do him particular honour, not desiring him to think badly of them in the future. So they say, my lord.’

Nicholas gazed at him, vaguely surprised by the unaccustomed loquacity. He seemed to remember that Julius and Zeno were to attend the same gathering. Propriety would presumably prevent an explosion, and the presence of Anna would be conciliatory. He could not, at the moment, bring himself to think about it. He said, ‘Then I may see the lady Katelijne when she returns. There is no need for you to stay. Perhaps you would like to see the sport yourself.’

‘Everyone is going,’ the man said. ‘Thank you, my lord. Everyone wants to be there for the show Signor Zeno is to give at the end. Not being a friend of the Genoese, he’ll likely perform some great feats, so they say, just to flaunt the superiority of Venice. They say Signor Zeno is a great man with the Persian bow. Very dashing.’

And then, at last, Nicholas realised that something was being conveyed to him. He said, ‘What do you mean?’

The man looked abashed. ‘Why, nothing, my lord. Only they say that the Baron Cortachy and Signor Zeno dislike one another, and tempers might be lost. That is all.’

‘And you think I should do something about it?’ For once, he was unconditionally disagreeable.

‘I am sure I don’t know, my lord. Except that my lord knows them both. And an accident is always bad business, and harms trade for the foreigners that are left.’

‘I am sorry for them,’ Nicholas said. ‘But not perhaps quite sorry enough to go into battle on their behalf.’ He noticed that someone had refilled the wine-flask.

‘No, my lord,’ said Jelita, and bowed.

‘And before you go,’ Nicholas said, ‘take this platter. It is filthy, and should have been cleaned.’

T
HE
AFTERNOON
TOOK
its predestined course. The archers of the Confrérie of St George, pleasantly replete from their meal at the Artushof, lethargically competed against one another in the charming
meadow which currently formed their arena. Pole shooting, target shooting, distance shooting engendered a few disputes and a good deal of loyal endorsement from wives and parents. It rained, causing a short intermission. The sun shone, upon which the bows came out again. The royal princes, who entered and won two competitions, were plied with sweetmeats and talked, shrill and croaking, together. Robin kept clear of them. It was bad enough trying to look happy. The wretched day was almost complete, release was almost at hand when, amid the shouting, the drumming of hooves, the screams of the triumphant contestants, the little prince Zygmunt sprang to his feet, drawing Robin’s attention. The boy was watching a belated arrival: a rider who materialised unattended, and then guided his horse to the far end of the arena where, having rested his gloved hands on its neck, he paused and looked hazily round.

Robin said,
‘Kathi.’
And Katelijne Sersanders, at this low moment in the lowest of days, lifted her eyes with misgiving and trained them, with rising anger, on the distant, disruptive person of Nicholas de Fleury.

F
OR
K
ATELIJNE
, lady of Berecrofts, the misery had started that morning, with the message which confirmed all her uncle’s suspicions. The King had gone. His official audience was cancelled. And it now became clear that it had never been the King’s intention to receive the Burgundian embassy. Whatever the excuse — affairs of state, illness, a family crisis — the effect was an insult. To Anselm Adorne, experienced diplomat though he was, it was a humiliation he could not forgive. He had begun by refusing, point-blank, the Confrérie’s repeated invitation to be their guest at these games. It had been Jerzy Bock, spokesman for the Danzig merchants and a St George’s Elder himself, who persuaded him to agree. ‘They wish to show that their esteem is not tainted by politics. Royal Prussia will be your friend, whatever Royal Poland may do.’

So Adorne had come, bringing his entourage with him, but leaving no instructions to pack. He had been obdurate. If the King wished to move, Anselm Adorne would follow.

‘How can he be so blind!’ Kathi had wailed to Robin.

‘He is not blind. He has been slighted. He needs to recover. Give him time,’ Robin had said. Robin was usually right.

Even so, the subsequent day had been miserable. The ceremonial ride to the ground had been disrupted by showers, the horses bucking and flying amid the rods of water discharged from the roof gargoyles. The street gutters flooded. Every other man told her, as men will, of the great plans to drain the moat and build a summer hostel for the Confrérie; but meanwhile they had to ride over the drawbridges and through
the suburbs and past the watermills and the breweries to the edge of the vineyards, where the archery ground had been laid out.

This was simple enough, consisting of an oblong of grass upon which had been set a shooting-mast, a series of wands for field archery and, distantly, a mud wall on which targets had been fixed. Beyond that, there was space for flight shooting. There was a grassy bank on either side for the spectators, each fronted by a row of benches under an awning. The Confrérie officials occupied one of these, with her uncle and the Danzig merchants beside them. On the other was the palace party, consisting of the three youngest princes with their household officials and servants. The other foreign representatives, such as the Florentines, were seated some distance away. They had kept their distance, too, in the procession: no one wanted to catch the Burgundian infection. The papal nuncio, who had also been invited, was missing. The Patriarch had been with the King, they were told. The Patriarch, abandoning them, was possibly already on his way east and south to Caffa, and to Tabriz.

It had seemed merely an aggravation of all they were suffering when, once they were seated, their nearest neighbour proved to be Julius of Bologna. Adorne had barely responded to his bow, and had conveyed coolness, rising, when his German wife Anna approached. But no man with blood in his veins could long withstand that level, deep gaze. ‘My lord, may I speak for my husband? He wished me to say that we have nothing but friendship for you, and hoped you would forgive us our loyalty to a still older friend, Nicholas de Fleury.’

Kathi, listening, thought how fortunate Julius was, and felt a surge of love for her uncle who, taking the girl’s fingers in his, did not hesitate. ‘Gräfin, of course. It is not for me to say where your husband’s loyalties should lie. I know you have been kind to my niece.’ And, making a space, ‘Will you give us your company for a little?’

She sat as he asked, her eyes holding his. She said, ‘There is something else. It has become necessary for Julius to settle a dispute in the Genoese colony at Caffa. It is between his branch of the Bank and the notary of a man who is dying. Of course, we shall not travel at the same time as you — we have to move fast, and at once — but it is not impossible that we shall meet when you come. We should try not to trouble you.’

And her uncle, after a moment’s silence, had looked into those wonderful, dark blue eyes and said gently, ‘You need have no fears. As it happens, my own journey is in doubt. The King has left Thorn, and all my plans are suspended. Even if de Fleury were with you, our paths would hardly cross.’

Anna’s eyes were wide with concern. She answered, half automatically, ‘Nicholas? Oh, we expect him to stay, working for us, or the Queen. But do you mean it, my lord? The King has gone! What will you do?’

The solicitude of a pretty woman worked its charm. Adorne’s face softened. He said, ‘There are various possible courses. One cannot quite brush aside an accredited ambassador. But none of that need concern you.’ Then he paused. ‘You say de Fleury may work for the
Queen
?’

It had startled Kathi as well. Beside her, she could feel Robin’s stillness. The Gräfin said quickly, ‘You hadn’t heard? Then I may be quite wrong. But he spent the morning, I’m told, at the Burgh Halls with the Queen and Callimaco and the Venetian envoy. Someone claimed that money changed hands. Julius hoped he might choose to work with us, but others, of course, could offer more. My lord, might I bring Julius to speak, once the shooting is over? He has always admired you, and would not wish to be estranged.’ She turned a little. ‘Kathi and Robin would not mind?’

Kathi shook her head, hearing her uncle agree. She did not mind. This winter, however shallow his motives might be, Julius had stood by Nicholas de Fleury, as he had many times in the past. He had upheld him at Berecrofts five years ago, when a young woman died in the ice of a dark Scottish river, and Nicholas had been blamed. Anna, she thought, had a right to learn some of that, if not all.

She knew a little already, and Kathi answered her questions as the guild’s heralds blew their flourish, and the contestants strode out, and the long, worthy succession of archers began to take shots at the papingo. Speaking like this, as she seldom did, it was clearer than ever to Kathi how much of Nicholas’s character could be explained by his birth; with the repudiation of his mother by Simon her husband, and by Simon’s subsequent vicious vendetta. She thought that Anna, too, might begin to interest herself in the enigma, even though she said very little, and that was mostly about Gelis, whom she admired. How had Gelis van Borselen come to marry a landless man born out of wedlock? Perhaps Nicholas had hoped to prove his legitimacy?

Kathi stared at her, and then fell back on modified discretion. ‘You’d have to ask Julius. It would have been a good match, of course, if he’d been Simon’s son. He would have had lands and a title in Scotland, and another title in France: his maternal grandfather was the vicomte de Fleury. But I rather think they married for love.’

And Anna had laughed and said, ‘I think there is no doubt about that. She is ravishing. But there is a son, and I wondered if, for his sake … Kathi? May I confide in you?’

Kathi glanced round. Their voices had been low, and were now further drowned by the roar as someone brought down the second-last bit of the parrot. She saw without surprise that the marksman was Julius, and that Robin’s seat now lay vacant beside her. Men. She turned back. ‘I don’t know very much about Nicholas.’

Anna said, ‘I should never want you to say more than you wanted. But I am a little bewildered. Nicholas has asked if, one day, his son might marry my daughter.’

‘Bonne?’ Kathi said. Only the fastest of wits kept her voice level.

‘Or, perhaps, any daughter Julius and I might have. I feel,’ said Anna wryly, ‘rather like Gelis’s family must have felt at her betrothal. Of course we are fond of Nicholas too, but I wish I could see his future more clearly. If I ask you about him, that is why.’ She broke off. ‘That is all I wanted to say. Look! Robin is going to shoot!’

Kathi gazed at the field, her eyes blind. She realised that they were blinded not only by amazement but by the bulky forms of two men who had just arrived in front of her uncle. One was familiar: a servant from their own house in Thorn. And the stranger accompanying him was a courier whose travel-stained dress bore the badges of Burgundy. The stranger knelt, and her uncle took the packet he proffered.

It was wrapped in wax cloth, which he opened. Kathi saw that the papers within bore a seal, which looked to her like the great seal of Burgundy. Adorne’s fingers hovered over it. On the field there was a roar of approval for whatever Robin had done that she would now never see. Under the awning, heads had turned, including those of Jerzy Bock and Jan Sidinghusen. Word was flying from one end of the ground to the other.
Charles of Burgundy has rushed a letter to Anselm Adorne, his ambassador. Will you take a wager on what it says? No?