Caprice and Rondo

  The fingers unlaced. ‘Rich and charming and powerful?’ they said. The monk’s voice was flat, but the vicomte’s face expressed mockery. ‘But no longer lovable, because he kills rather too readily? Indirectly, you said.’

  ‘Not his family,’ Tobie said. The sick man’s eyes moved up to his face. Tobie said, ‘Jaak tried to kill Nicholas, and Nicholas only defended himself. He didn’t mean Esota to die. The St Pols have been consistently murderous, but in my opinion he has never plotted to kill them. He can be goaded. But I have seen him go to any lengths, face any danger, to avoid harming those he believes to be kin.’

  The vicomte’s gaze returned to Gelis. ‘Then,’ the fingers said, ‘my devil would be quite safe from you, would he not, if you were Nicholas?’

  Gelis’s eyes had grown very large. Tobie, watching her, was reminded abruptly of another sickbed, another time when he had stood and watched a duel like this, between a dying man and this obsessed woman, over Nicholas. Gelis said, ‘Your devil was Simon’s father, Jordan de Ribérac? Perhaps he came when you were ill. He denounced your daughter, and proclaimed her son as a bastard, and forbade you …’ She was reading his face. She said, ‘He forbade you to rear Nicholas, or have him fittingly educated? But you need not have obeyed him. Or your lawyers could have refused?’

  She was guessing. The vicomte lay, his hands disengaged, his lids heavy, and invited her by his stillness to continue. Tobie, leaning forward, laid his fingers on the arched wrist and the sick man looked up at him, fleetingly, with the shadowed traces of a half-smile. Gelis said slowly, ‘He threatened not you, then, but Nicholas? And perhaps your two daughters and later, Marian de Charetty? Bring up this boy as an underling, or I will hurt you?’

  The eyes assented.

  ‘And in any case, unable to speak, unable to write, you could do nothing. And now? Does he still threaten you?’

  The hands remained still. The monk said, ‘The vicomte de Ribérac does not know of this partial recovery. It is one reason why we are here, and why the Prior does not easily admit visitors. Were we to communicate with my lord Thibault’s family, both he and they might well suffer.’

  Gelis said, ‘Nicholas cannot suffer more than he has done already. It must be the same for Adelina. Can you hold a pen? Could you write to them? The Bank could try and trace Nicholas.’

  The sick man looked up at the monk. Brother Huon said, ‘My lord can write. It is slow. We have heard nothing of my lord’s younger daughter since she left her last convent many years ago.’

  ‘And where was that?’ Tobie said.

  The monk flushed. ‘I say “we” from habit, but indeed, it was before my lord and I knew one another. The address was written down, but one came seeking it later, and my lord did not deny them the paper, since it was useless to us, and the demoiselle Adelina was no longer there.’

  ‘Who took it?’ Tobie said. ‘Were you here by then?’

  ‘I was, but it was my rest day. I do not know. The man was not the vicomte de Ribérac. My lord received the impression that he was a servant of the nobleman Anselm Adorne.’

  Gelis rose and stood looking down. She said, ‘So you do not know where your own daughter might be.’

  The large eyes remained steady, then dropped. And the fingers stirred themselves this time to answer directly. ‘Adelina desires, she has told me, to be the Bride of Christ in place of the daughter of her father. She is probably right.’

  ‘She might be dead?’ Gelis said. ‘You would not even know? You have no other kinsfolk, and the girl has no other friends?’

  The fingers did not trouble to answer, but the vicomte cast a glance at the monk. Brother Huon said, ‘My lord’s first wife had a younger sister who also became a religious, and whom the demoiselle Adelina revered. If still alive, she would be the same age as my lord, or a little younger. We know where she might be found.’ He consulted the sick man with his eyes, and added, ‘I have the direction in a coffer, if you will allow me to bring it.’

  He hesitated and went. The vicomte’s eyes followed him. Tobie said, ‘You are fortunate to inspire such devotion. And I am sorry to have tired you. We wished to learn what we could for the child’s sake, and because Nicholas, although he is all that Gelis has said, is oppressed by his situation, and can fall into error. Otherwise, you could be proud of him, and the child is without flaw.’ He did not mention the boy’s name. He prayed that the vicomte would not ask it. The vicomte asked nothing, but lay looking not at Tobie, but at Gelis.

  She said, ‘That is true. He has a fine nurse, from Chouzy. Nicholas took him to see where his mother your daughter was buried: she shares a vault with Marian de Charetty, and the priest is paid to care for the tombs. Nicholas is very like you, and so is our son. I am sorry I have no likeness to show you, or anything …’ She stopped, but got no further, for the monk had come back, bearing a basket which he laid on the table and proceeded to empty, glancing at the vicomte between every phrase.

  ‘The direction of the sister of the lady Josine, the first wife of my lord. A penner and paper, should my lord wish to write to his grandson. And the correspondence, my lord Thibault, that still awaits your attention.’

  His tone was one of mock reprimand, and the vicomte smiled, lifting his hand for the bundle of papers. Tobie glanced at them, curious to know the nature of the old man’s correspondents, and saw that the pages, in their differing inks, were filled, not with rambling reminiscences, but with cramped and closely written symbols, drawings, numbers, designs.

  The monk said, ‘My lord is a mathematician, and dabbles in music. Many write, and many come to compare theories. Cardinal Bessarion has sat with us here, and many great men from the Court of Ferrara, where we exchange monks with the Duke’s great Certosa.’ He smiled, the laughter lines radiating over his wrinkled cheeks and the vicomte smiled at him in return from where he lay. Brother Huon said, ‘We have even had a visit from Father Ludovico da Bologna, the Patriarch of Antioch, whose family supply timber from Ferrara, of course, to the Arsenal. You would think, with his knowledge, that he would be ready to find faults with our forest, but he seems, so far, to have vouchsafed no complaints.’

  ‘You should be glad,’ Tobie said, his air serious. He was watching the vicomte, who had made a small sign.

  ‘We are,’ said the monk, without hurry. ‘And now, in order that my lord may not weary you while he writes, perhaps the lady would enter our house with the doctor, and take a glass of wine, and gratify my poor ears with a discourse on the doctor’s revered uncle, Giammatteo Ferrari da Grado, that great physician?’

  Despite its subject, the discourse was pleasant enough, and the wine good. He and Gelis had no chance to confer, but he thought needed none. At the end, they found themselves once more out at the arbour, where a packet had been placed, sealed, on the table by the pillow on which the vicomte now lay back. It was thick: thick enough to contain a letter of several pages, and perhaps some enclosures. For the first time, now, Thibault de Fleury looked frail.

  Tobie said, ‘It has been too much. Take some wine. Attempt no more letters.’

  ‘I do not intend to. It is done,’ the vicomte said through his fingers. On the missive he had closed was a seal, and Nicholas’s name, written in his grandfather’s hand. The same hand lifted the missive and held it to Gelis, who took it. The fingers put a last question. ‘You can find him?’

  ‘I think so.’ Her eyes were on the paper she held. Then with her other hand, she felt for the purse that hung at her girdle and, hardly requiring to search, drew from it a much shorter paper bearing no seal, but closely covered with swift, confident writing, of the kind used at the desks of the Curia. She said, ‘It is not the same handwriting as yours, for he had himself specially taught. But it might tell you something.’

  Tobie stared at her, and at the document, which the old man received and, unfolding, started to read. He made the sound which Tobie now knew for laughter and looked up, his eyes bright, at the girl. Tobie said, ‘From Nicholas?’ It was
hardly creased. It was addressed to Gregorio and unsigned. The courier’s mark showed that it had travelled through Danzig.

  Gelis said, ‘He sends anonymous reports, not to me. I hope you will not repeat the contents, which are serious. His choice of language is not.’

  The fingers stirred. ‘No. I know the end of that quotation, but hope that you do not.’ He read it through to the end, and then again, and then folded it and returned it with care. ‘I should like to keep it, but it is better with you. Perhaps one day —’ The fingers stopped, and the monk looked at them both.

  Gelis said, ‘Nicholas is a long way away. Perhaps one day, he will come.’

  His lids had closed. They took their leave, saying only what was commonplace, and walked down to the Prior’s house with the monk. Brother Huon said, ‘He bears it all with such patience. Is there anything more that can be done?’

  ‘For his health, no,’ Tobie said. ‘Were he anywhere else in the world, he could have no better treatment: peace and beauty and loving attention, and the mental stimulation of his peers.’

  ‘He misses music,’ the monk said. ‘The order enjoins silence, and is sparing in its use of liturgy. I sing to him, when I can, and when the wind blows from the south. And he reads his music, and imagines it. When you have passed years of paralysis, much of your world is in your mind.’

  ‘I shall send you music,’ Gelis said. ‘I am going to see the Prior now, to make sure that you have all the help and comforts you need. And meanwhile, I want you to have this.’ It was the reliquary brooch from her cloak. The monk protested but eventually took it, his face shining. Then they parted from him, and Gelis went to the Prior.

  Tobie was drinking milk in the dairy when they sent to tell him the Lady was leaving. Breaking off his illicit talk, he emerged to take his own leave of the Prior, who was flushed, as Brother Huon had been, and accompanied them as far as the gate. There their escort was waiting, the better for bread and ale sent out to them by the monks. They set off to return to Treviso, riding in silence.

  There was everything and nothing to say. The visit had failed to clear the doubts about Nicholas’s birth, but had rather confirmed them: his father could not have been Simon de St Pol; his grandfather was not Jordan de Ribérac. Tobie had wondered, now and then, whether this was not the conclusion which Gelis had hoped for. Once, her sister had been married to Simon. If Nicholas had proved to be Simon’s son, then his marriage to Gelis was illegal, and his own son had been born out of wedlock. Nicholas himself would not want that. It explained, perhaps, why he had dropped his early desperate campaign to force Simon to acknowledge him. It explained also, perhaps, why he had left Thibault alone.

  Thibault de Fleury. Seeing, communicating with the living man whom they had expected to find a senile invalid; witnessing the stubborn remnants of a fine physique and uncommon gifts, Tobie had been moved as he knew Gelis had been affected by the death-bed of their priest and friend Godscalc. On that day five years ago, Godscalc had exacted a promise which Nicholas had surprisingly honoured, and which had kept him from Scotland for two years. Until the catastrophe at Trèves, no one had understood why. Now Tobie saw that already, Godscalc had read the other man’s mind and, dying, agonised, had tried to protect Nicholas from himself, and Scotland from his machinations.

  All that had to be remembered. Today, he and Gelis had experienced pity, but had learned nothing that should alter their opinion of what Nicholas had done, or become. Tobie had once had the confidence of the old maidservant called Tasse. He knew what had occurred in that sombre house in Geneva, whose owners did not survive. Equally, the viciousness of that gross bully Jordan de Ribérac had always explained, if not excused, some of Nicholas’s behaviour, and the news of Jordan’s earlier perfidy changed nothing now. De Ribérac was in exile in Madeira with his exquisite son Simon, and Henry, his brat of a grandson. Again, Nicholas had devastated all those who crossed him. And yet …

  And yet, seated alone with Gelis at supper that night, Tobie saw that she had been weeping, and understood why. Like her, he did not want to forgive Nicholas yet again. Nicholas did not deserve it. At last he spoke.

  ‘It distressed you. I’m sorry.’

  She said, ‘They have the same eyes. If the old man had been as fit as de Ribérac …’

  ‘It might not have made very much difference. De Ribérac is a man of action, and Thibault is and was a dreamer, I think.’

  Silence fell. Gelis said, ‘I didn’t know that Nicholas grew up in the midst of that sort of hatred. He was so brash, so clever, so —’ She broke off.

  ‘He received quite a lot of affection, too, and learned to inspire it. That has been the secret, if you like, of his survival, as well as the worst aspect of his plots. He cannot help making friends, whatever act of destruction he may be planning.’

  ‘Friends of a sort,’ Gelis said. ‘He makes and loses them with equal indifference, it seems. It is reassuring, I suppose, how he has contrived that nothing affects him.’

  Tobie was silent. However adroit he might be at dissembling, Nicholas had not been impervious to the loss of his early friends — Godscalc, Umar. Gelis knew that. And my God, he had not shown indifference on learning, as he believed, of the death of Gelis herself. Even now, remembering that night, Tobie shivered. You could condemn Nicholas with every justification but you could never claim, as Gelis was trying to do, that he was immune to hurt. Kathi and young Robin knew as much: it was that knowledge which had sent them to Poland. But, found, Nicholas had shown — or allowed to appear — no remorse, no compunction. He had left for the Black Sea with Anna, after an incident which brought Julius close to death. He might be protecting her. He might be advising the Bank — how extraordinary! — from a stricken conscience. He might be misleading them or — in remorseless pattern — himself. But Gelis had obtained and was keeping his notes.

  Tobie said, ‘Send him his grandfather’s letter. It may cut the knot, free him from the past, let him devise a new life, wherever he is.’

  ‘Perhaps Anna will convert him,’ she said.

  Later, when she had retired, Tobie sat for a long time under the single lamp, thinking of all he might have said to Thibault de Fleury, had there been no intermediary. Monks in silent orders were, of course, adept in the secret signs of the deaf. He knew a little himself: enough to tell how accurate Huon’s interpretation had been; but he did not have the speed or the finesse for the great questions he longed to have answered. Did you never love him? Why not? He had not asked, either, about the source of the gift of divining.

  Perhaps it was as well. The span remaining to Thibault de Fleury was short — shorter than he had let Huon think; and a life-long invalid deserved peace at the close. Today had been their first and last chance to learn something, and for his grandson, half a world distant, there was no chance at all.

  Tobias Beventini heard again the sounds of Montello as they had accompanied his departure: the tessitura of leaves and the lowing of cattle and the syncopated drone of responses and prayer from the monastery. And remote behind these, the singing voice of one man lulling another to sleep. A melodious voice in its day, that of Huon; and pleasing to Thibault de Fleury, as he lay speechless under the vine leaves, never knowing the incomparable voice he had missed.

  Chapter 16

  DO THAT once more,’ said the Lady, ‘and I shall have you thrashed.

  Why shall I have you thrashed?’

  ‘Because I didn’t come when you called,’ said Nicholas miserably. He stood drooping, his prayer mat half rolled in his fists.

  ‘What?’ said Anna von Hanseyck.

  ‘Khatun. Because, Khatun, I didn’t come when you called,’ said Nicholas hurriedly. He knew, without looking, that there was a gleam in her eye. It had been there ever since they had left the fondaco at Bielogrod and adopted their present guise of woman trader and Mameluke secretary. It was (Anna decreed) how they must now appear, up to their arrival in Caffa and all through their stay there. She was not in danger, bein
g German, but he was. They had been three weeks on the road, and were at best three-quarters of the way to their destination.

  Not unaccustomed to travelling with piquant, competent women, Nicholas had still found the journey surprising. It had begun, for him, with a sense of turmoil: the parting with Julius and the proximity of Anna and the black confusion which obscured the future. He had not been present, of course, at the leave-taking between Anna and Julius, but his own had been relatively easy: Julius, weak but no longer voiceless, had given him the tongue-lashing he deserved and had informed him that if he laid a finger on Anna he would kill him. He had then given him an amiable farewell, in the expectation of following them, once he could travel. Julius, the survivor, had survived.

  The subsequent journey across Greater Poland had been eventful and strenuous enough, but the heat of July had been tempered by the green shade of the forests they passed through, and they had travelled in convoy, picking up motley bands of churchmen and smiths, dish-sellers and traders and horse-dealers passing from one hamlet or town to the next and, armed with letters from Straube, unloading their wagon of mattresses at those houses where Julius’s agent was known. Once, led astray, they all had to camp in the open, with guards to keep off wild beasts and marauders. And once they had lodged very grandly indeed, in the Archbishop’s palace at Dunajow, where Gregory of Sanok, professor of Italian literature and earliest patron in Poland of Filippo Buonaccorsi, sat surrounded by poets and scholars and exacted an intellectual fee for his hospitality.