Caprice and Rondo

  Kathi crossed the room and, sitting, put her arm round Anna’s shoulders. ‘He’ll get better,’ she said. ‘And we’ll keep these two villains apart, whether we have Gelis to help us or not. But don’t underrate what Nicholas offers. He can help you: he has a genius for business. And you might even come to help him. He needs a regulator. And Robin and I shan’t be here.’

  ‘You are fond of him,’ Anna said gently.

  ‘I used to be,’ Kathi said. ‘Half of me, I suppose, hasn’t stopped. The rest has suspended judgement: that’s Flemish caution for you. But he has taken this accident badly, and that’s a good sign, I suppose. Force him to stop and think, and not to escape sideways any more. I confide him to you.’ She halted and said, ‘Yes, I’m fond of him.’

  ‘I wish you were staying,’ Anna said.

  • • •

  THE DAY WENT ON, and Julius lived. In the house of the Burgundian envoy the horses and packmules were assembled, and bags and crates and baskets appeared in the hall. Adorne interviewed and rewarded his servants, aided by the two Danzigers and Robin. Kathi went and tapped on a shut door. Nicholas opened it.

  ‘You are leaving,’ he said, and jerked the door wider. She entered, with care.

  This was not the histrionic Nicholas of Mewe, with his wounding tongue and his single problematic relapse into tenderness. It was not, either, the crass intruder of yesterday’s games, where he had saved her uncle from ignominy — but only because it suited him, or so he had said. This was not even the person who, encouraged by Anna, had earlier sent to ask Kathi to see him. This man, wearily inviting her into his room with something almost like hatred, was demonstrating that he did not want to encounter any soul from his past, and especially a friend. She sat, and he said, ‘I have some wine, unless it is drugged.’

  And, having no wish, as it happened, to pursue that, she jettisoned her qualms, crossed her ankles, folded her hands and gazed at him critically. ‘Ludovico da Bologna?’ she said. ‘He always could produce this effect. Did he ask you if you meant to kill Julius?’

  He opened his fingers and let drop the wine-cup he was filling. He did it quite deliberately, under her eyes, and she watched the cup roll and dent, and the spilled wine grow bald and begin to outline the tiles of the floor like a Teutonic town grid. ‘Which means that he did,’ she concluded equably. ‘And perhaps you actually did give way to a sudden urge to get rid of Julius who, I agree, can be quite atrociously insensitive. So you shot him, and are now seized with terror, wondering what next your devil is going to allow you to do. Or …’

  She paused, and he took his hand away from the hour-glass he had just turned upside down, having refrained from dropping that, too, on the floor. ‘That is not very polite.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, with no appearance of it. He remained standing. She resumed speaking, her voice as bland as before.

  ‘Or perhaps you were simply drunk, or exhausted from divining —why did you so foolishly agree to do that? — and it has left you feeling as frightened of yourself as we are of you? I should like a glass of wine,’ she added, ‘if Jelita could bring you some more. Do you know what his name means?’

  He blinked. For a moment, what she was attempting hung in the balance. Then he cleared his throat. ‘He goes by the noble name of Bowel. Sally Jelita, I call him. Raging Bowel.’

  He went to the doorway and called the man, allowing Kathi to blow her nose quickly. As he came back she said, ‘They like intestinal jokes. They call watermills farters.’

  ‘He is a spy,’ Nicholas said. ‘Jelita. A palace spy.’

  She looked at him. ‘You didn’t warn us.’

  ‘He was and is spying on me, not on you. You had nothing to lose. Adorne never had a chance anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’ she said.

  ‘Because, obviously, I am in collusion against him. Hasn’t your uncle already told you?’

  ‘He said it was possible. He mentioned a few others with motives and influence, but I expect we could discount all those,’ Kathi said. She noticed that her fingers were white, and unclasped them.

  ‘Julius may die,’ he said suddenly. The tone of his voice was a rebuke.

  ‘But you didn’t mean to kill him,’ she said. She waited.

  ‘Of course I did,’ Nicholas said.

  Her heart ached. He moved restlessly, once, and then stopped. His gaze turned to the door.

  Kathi said slowly, ‘Is that why you do what you do?’

  ‘What do I do?’

  He was still watching the door. Sally Bowel. His profile looked grey. Steadily, she gave him answer. ‘Commit perpetual follies, to deserve perpetual punishment?’

  He turned. For a fraction of time he looked into her eyes. Then a dimple slowly appeared and, with a stifled sound of amusement, he set to his desultory pacing again. ‘No one has accused me of being crazy before. A life dedicated to misery? Really?’

  ‘People feel guilty,’ she said. ‘Sometimes with cause, sometimes not. Sometimes they don’t even know why, because they don’t want to remember. Anna would never believe you’d harm Julius.’

  ‘Will you tell her?’ He was looking at her.

  She took her time. ‘No. You won’t do it again. But you weren’t really thinking of Anna, were you; only of Julius and yourself?’ She broke off. She said. ‘You should try to see behind all that self-possession. Anna is kind. She cares, like Bel. You do like her?’

  ‘I like Bel,’ he said. ‘I’ll take your word about Anna. You are saying I ought to confide in her?’

  He hadn’t said he didn’t like Anna. He must have noticed how lovely she was. He hadn’t had, as yet, much chance to discover anything else. Then she remembered something promising, in that respect anyway. ‘You must like her,’ Kathi said, ‘if you want Jodi to marry her daughter. Or perhaps you were just tormenting Julius and never meant it at all.’ She wished he would sit down.

  Suddenly, he did. ‘She told you? And you disapprove because of Jodi’s youth? But it isn’t more than a suggestion. It would unite two parts of the Bank. Gelis would first have to agree.’

  She was relieved. She said, ‘Anna would help. She would do anything to see you together with Gelis.’ She hesitated. ‘She told me about Montello.’

  He stopped breathing. She saw it. Then he said, ‘What about Montello?’

  ‘Julius heard that the vicomte de Fleury — that your grandfather was being nursed in the Carthusian monastery there. One of my uncles died in the same place. It’s just outside Venice. Jan went there with his father three years ago. I didn’t know the connection. I don’t think Uncle Anselm did either. But you did?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Naturally, he had to be paid for.’

  She wished she had never opened the subject. She said, ‘Anna thought Gelis ought to be told. She thought the old man might throw light on your … You might learn finally the truth of your birth. But you must know all he could tell you already.’

  ‘No. I have never spoken to him,’ Nicholas said. ‘No one has. He is paralysed. There is no point in Gelis or anyone else visiting him, even with the lure of becoming mother to the next landless and penniless vicomte de Fleury. I’m sorry. You and Anna have clearly discussed the matter in depth.’

  ‘I thought you would want it for Jodi,’ Kathi said sharply. ‘I heard about the poem you burned.’

  The door opened. ‘You did?’ Nicholas said. Jelita came in and, receiving permission, crossed and prepared to pour out fresh wine.

  Kathi hid her hands in her sleeves. She said, ‘Anna told me. It wasn’t hard to guess why you did it.’

  A tray appeared, and she took a cup from it, as did Nicholas. Jelita bowed and departed. A few moments before, she had tried to joke about his name. Before the door had time to close, Nicholas had again disposed of his wine with a flourish, but this time down his throat. After that, he lifted the wine-flask, and refilled his own cup. Hers was untouched.

  He said, ‘There is poetry and poetry. Posterity, I assure you, lost noth
ing in that piece. Indeed, this time’ — he emptied the goblet once again — ‘not even the ashes complained.’ The grey eyes, returning, contemplated her. ‘Will two cups be enough? What else did you want me to tell you?’

  He had guessed, although Jelita, bringing the wine-flask, had not. The drug this time had been light; enough, she had thought, to smooth this parting, and to give him ease afterwards. She had not expected confidences, although he had made her some without wine, and what he had withheld then, she suspected he would withhold now. She began, none the less, by simply repeating his last words. ‘This time, not even the ashes complained? What happened the other time, Nicholas?’

  He answered with no hesitation, slurring slightly. The readiness itself was a mockery. ‘Gelis once burned a toy and it screamed. She wanted to stop me divining where Jodi was. But of course, even ash is enough.’

  He stopped, lifting a self-admonitory finger. Then he unfolded his other hand with the cup. ‘Shall I drop it again? Now you can guess all that happened.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Kathi said. She could guess. Destroying the poem, he must have thought it was over; the single agonising effort to make bearable the unbearable loss. But then he had found himself divining for Zygmunt, and the hungry spirit had abandoned the lesser child in its burning desire for a trace of his own. Eternal folly. Eternal punishment. She said, ‘You want to see Jodi again. You want Gelis. You aren’t really indifferent to Whistle Willie, to Tobie, to John. Use your brain.’

  ‘I did,’ he said. ‘Look what happened.’

  She was exasperated. ‘Then take advice.’

  ‘Anna’s?’

  ‘If you are going where she goes. Or you have talked to Cailimaco.’

  ‘The hyacinth of Cracow.’

  ‘All right. But a learned man with a circle of sages and writers and artists who speak the same language as you. Nicholas, you see how they are struggling to find a new régime after the Knights. They have to teach these young boys how to rule, and keep their frontiers safe against all their neighbours. You could advise them.’

  He was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed and both dimples showing. ‘Redeeming my soul after ruining Scotland?’

  ‘If you like.’ She wanted to groan.

  ‘Or ruining Poland? I might.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘If you can’t control your own whims, then you might. In which case, you had better go off to Tabriz with the Patriarch, and give Jodi up. By the way, if he loses his mother, what then?’

  ‘Bel would take care of him,’ he said. ‘Or the van Borselen. Or you and Robin might, if you would. But you will have your own.’

  ‘If need be, we should make him our own,’ Kathi said. Looking at him, she found herself swept by inappropriate pity. She said gently, ‘You were not much older, were you, when your mother died? How did she die?’

  His eyes were still shut. He had been seven years old, she had heard, when his grandfather had sent him to Jaak de Fleury. De Fleury and his wife had since been killed, and the grandfather ruined. The paralysed grandfather who had to be paid for.

  Watching him, the closed eyes, the closed face, Kathi thought of her own mother, lost early to illness, but leaving her daughter and son tended and happy under the tutelage of their godfather Anselm Adorne. Nicholas had exchanged his mother’s home for something much harsher, had heard his mother reviled as a whore and repudiated by Simon, her fine Scottish husband. Small wonder that it had led to this: talents squandered, friendships in ruin, love cast away. And now, by the depth of the silence, she realised that she had asked a question of greater weight than even she might have guessed. How did she die, Sophie de Fleury, when just a year older than this, her second and only living son?

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Nicholas said, as if she had repeated her question. He opened his eyes. ‘I should make you drink your own wine.’ Curiously, his face, although hollow, was serene. He added, ‘Or would you then give birth to Endymion? Robin wouldn’t mind. I have never seen a sane man in such a state of ecstasy. Have you chosen a name? Robert? Archibald? Anselm?’

  The wine had worked, she saw, as she intended. He would sleep when she had gone. She said, smiling, ‘Or Margriet or Katelijne or Louise. Or what do you think of Aerendtken?’

  ‘Ask the Patriarch,’ Nicholas said. ‘He’ll tell you to wait till it’s ripe, and then boil it through twelve Ave Marias. Oh Christ, I’m going to sleep and I haven’t said what I wanted to say.’

  ‘Then say it,’ she said. She rose and came to him, sinking down by his chair, and trapping his hand in both her own before he could stir. ‘What was it?’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘That was all. I am sorry. I am sorry.’

  She swallowed. ‘I think you ought to be. But show me, don’t tell me. Show Anna. You have a great deal to make up to Anna for. Nicholas?’

  He opened his eyes.

  She said, ‘I have something to tell you. Nicholas!’

  He smiled, his eyes closing again. ‘Tell me tomorrow. Kochajmy się,’ was all she caught.

  Having brought him the respite, it seemed unfair to attempt to disrupt it. She kept his hand for a while, contemplating the broad palm and strong fingers that could both preserve life and take it away. She wondered if he would adopt her advice, or even remember it. She thought that she would knit him a glove with two thumbs, if he did. She gave him back his warm hand and walked away, turning at the door to scan him for the last time. He was wholly asleep by then, and no longer smiling.

  SHE DID NOT TELL HIM the next day, or ever, for that night Julius sank, and Nicholas spent all its hours by his bedside, silently watching with Anna. Then, when the sky paled and the house-signs creaked in the dawn wind, it was young Berecrofts who came to Straube’s door to say that the Burgundian envoy was leaving, and would presently call. Robin was standing alone in the hall when he heard the measured tread on the stairs, and saw that the man coming towards him in the half-light was Nicholas. He looked grey, as Kathi had said. Robin said, ‘Sir? They say he is still holding on.’

  ‘He is strong,’ Nicholas said. ‘Adorne is coming?’

  ‘He wanted to see you.’ Robin looked at him in distress. ‘Kathi and I wanted to stay. I meant to go with you.’

  ‘I know. You meant well, but it might not have been worth it. As it is, Kathi seems to think I should remain and rehabilitate Poland, in my customary manner.’

  Robin felt himself flush. He said, ‘It was one choice we both knew you had. Or to help the Gräfin with her business, here or elsewhere. Kathi felt you might think she favoured one course over the other. She gave me a letter.’ He held it out.

  In the growing light, he could see nothing but mockery. Nicholas said, ‘She suddenly realised she had compromised the entire future of Royal Poland and Royal Prussia by exposing both to my volatile nature? Let me see.’ And he took the letter across to the lamp, where he opened and read it at a glance. He looked across. ‘You know what this says?’

  ‘She told me,’ said Robin. ‘She tried to tell you herself, but …’

  ‘But she had misjudged the dosage. You will have to watch her,’ Nicholas said. ‘You may find you are conducting your entire family life from your bed. Will she drug the children, do you think?’

  He had been awake all through the night by the bed of the man he had shot, perhaps killed. The words were random. Robin said, ‘I wish we could have helped. You may be better without us. Listen to Anna. We could write to you, if you tell us where you are. And if you have any …’ His voice faded.

  ‘Messages? No.’ Nicholas was burning the note. The light hardly reached under his lids. ‘Does anyone else know about this? Apart from Elzbiete and Paúel and, I suppose, the semi-bereaved Anna? Yes, certainly Anna. This longing to have her appointed my nursemaid.’ He looked up from crushing the ash. ‘Doesn’t anyone worry in case I take Anna, too, on to a raft?’

  Robin sank his teeth in his lip. Then Nicholas flung down the platter and said, ‘Kathi was right to ke
ep me speechless. You can’t possibly understand. All I can say is what I said to her. I am sorry. Go away. Expect nothing. But believe that I am sorry’

  Robin had begun to move forward, saying something, when the main doors clattered open and men began to come in, escorting Kathi’s uncle, come to take his leave of Herr Straube, and visit the sick man and his wife. And, briefly and finally, to part from Nicholas de Fleury of Beltrees.

  It did not take long. Formal words were exchanged, ending in bows. Nicholas was a disgraced man in exile, who had betrayed the Burgundian trust in a country of moment to Adorne as well as himself. He was the man who, very possibly, had engineered the Polish rejection which had led to Adorne’s recall. Against that, his gesture in the sports field had very probably been no more than the act of self-interest he had called it. If Adorne were returning in anger, then at least his niece and nephew were also withdrawing unharmed from the orbit of this extraordinary man, in whom charisma and evil were so fatally mixed.

  Adorne left, and Robin clasped hands and followed him. Nicholas watched them both out of sight.

  JULIUS LIVED THROUGH all that day and the next. On the third, Nicholas returned to the empty house that had contained Anselm Adorne, his young married kinsmen and the two sobered Danzig councillors, and was visited by the Patriarch of Antioch, also preparing to leave.

  ‘So!’ said the priest. ‘You’ve had your mind made up for you, I hope. Caffa and Tabriz.’ The energy vibrated into the room, released by the impending journey, rocketing papal and Imperial commands into the ether. He paused. ‘What’s the matter? The man’s recovering. The girl will set out on her own. You’ll follow me with her. You’ll try to bed her, if I know you.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘You won’t succeed. She’s as capable as you are, behind all those pretty manners. I don’t know why she ever married that fancy lawyer: you may have done her a favour,’ said Ludovico da Bologna. ‘So why not come and enjoy yourself?’ His words, although encouraging, were accompanied by a perfunctory glare.