Caprice and Rondo

  Gelis said, ‘I wondered. He shot Julius because he had been drinking?’

  ‘It looked like that,’ Kathi said. ‘But he was upset as well: edgy and changeable. The way he looks when the pendulum has dragged him down.’

  ‘Had he been divining?’ Gelis said.

  ‘I’m sure he had, although I don’t know the reason. Perhaps Julius had been goading him recently, and he suddenly lost his head. Because Nicholas was so equable as a boy,’ Kathi said, ‘no one expects him to have a temper. But now, I suppose, he has a position in the world, and has learned to defend it by showing anger. Certainly he desperately regretted the shot. He collapsed when he saw what he had done. Thank God Julius didn’t die.’

  ‘I wish I had been there,’ Gelis said.

  ‘He hated me for seeing it,’ Kathi said quickly. ‘Anyway, you were doing something more useful. Tobie told me. You went to see Thibault de Fleury, and he wrote a letter. Nicholas will have it by now. He may even turn back and go to Montello?’

  ‘He couldn’t get there in time. And with his grandfather gone, he would have no motive for going,’ Gelis said flatly. ‘He doesn’t want to prove that he is Simon’s son, now. He wouldn’t even want to trace Adelina, if he thought she had proof.’

  ‘And you?’ Kathi said. ‘Would you prefer to discover the truth, even if no one ever knew what you found, even Nicholas?’

  Gelis was silent. Then she said, ‘I should like to have been able, one day, to go to Simon and his father and say, This man whose life you have made wretched from boyhood is Nicholas de St Pol of Kilmirren, your legitimate heir. But Nicholas would not want it. And I think they would kill him.’

  ‘Probably,’ Kathi said. ‘But is he a St Pol? Tobie didn’t think so, after what you both learned at Montello. So think of it the other way round. Prove that Nicholas is illegitimate, and you will solve all his problems, or some of them. Did you send Thibault music?’

  Gelis bent her neck. ‘Yes.’ It sounded curt. Then she added, ‘I had brought some from Scotland,’ and this time there was no mistaking the note in her voice.

  ‘The Play?’ Kathi said. ‘You gave him your copy of the music for the Nativity Play?’ She meant the play Nicholas had devised and produced, the one true, magnificent thing he had done in all his time in Scotland, for which Willie Roger had written the music. There would be other copies. But this was the one, filthy, dog-eared, annotated, which Willie, weeping, had pressed into Gelis’s hands at the end of that towering performance. And Gelis had kept it, ignorant of music as she was, divided from Nicholas as she was. And had given it now to the person whom Nicholas would most want to have it.

  Kathi said, with satisfaction, ‘Now I know why he married you!’ and Gelis looked up in tears.

  When Robin came home some hours later, his wife and Gelis van Borselen were still sitting talking together, this time on the same settle. Kathi looked reassuringly healthy and Gelis, rising swiftly, seemed less reserved than he had found her before, and almost happy to see him. Then Jodi came hurtling into the room, intent on finding and being reunited with his Robin, and had to be persuaded that Robin was not wholly his property and about to live in his house. In the end, Robin solved the dilemma by escorting Jodi and his mother in person back to the Bank. After all, they all lived in Spangnaerts Street. Then he returned.

  ‘Well? What did you think?’

  As once before, Kathi was painting a cradle, this time for herself. During the short time Robin had been gone, she had dragged it out, fetched her brushes and jars, and was now attempting to put on an apron. With some added string, it was just possible. ‘You’ll strangle him,’ Robin added, patting her fondly. The Berecrofts under the apron punched in return.

  ‘It’s the other way round,’ Kathi said in a grumbling voice. If Robin’s son was to be born in the land of his fathers, they would have to leave for Scotland quite soon, and she hadn’t got Gelis fully untangled as yet. She said, on that subject, ‘She’s dreadfully frightened, but she isn’t trying to supplant Nicholas, just put right what he did. She agrees he needs time, and Anna can probably help him. Gelis was astonished to hear of the gold.’

  ‘I’m sure she was,’ Robin said, picking up a dry brush. ‘I hope she thanked you for getting the truth out of Elzbiete.’

  ‘She was glad I told Anna. Otherwise Nicholas might have changed his mind, and gone sailing the seas with Paúel Benecke. Don’t do that!’

  ‘Why not? In case my heir catapults out sneezing like Tobie?’ Robin put down the brush. ‘So what else?’

  She knew why he was restless. It was a hard time for him, and he kept himself busy, as a rule. Her heart ached, but she went on evenly talking and painting. She spoke of Thibault de Fleury at Montello, adding the little that Tobie had not already described. For the sake of the old man, no one was announcing his partial recovery. But for Anna, they would never have found him. Anna, whose daughter Bonne might be marrying either a bastard or the son of a bastard. Anna had nothing to gain by introducing Nicholas to his grandfather. She had put her own interests last, in order to secure a little happiness, perhaps, for the two men.

  Robin’s mind was in the same quarter. ‘And so what about this betrothal? The idea of reuniting the Bank by contracting Jodi to Bonne? Was Gelis alarmed, puzzled, pleased?’

  ‘She was surprised,’ Kathi said.

  It would take too long to describe, even to Robin, the stillness with which Gelis had received that information, or the long moment of silence while she considered it. Then Gelis had said, ‘I hadn’t heard. Whose idea was it? What did Nicholas think?’

  To which Kathi could only reply, however unwillingly, with the truth. ‘It was Nicholas, I believe, who suggested it.’

  ‘Really?’ said Gelis.

  ‘To combine the two inheritances, I suppose. The Bank was in pieces. Nicholas might have felt grateful to Julius, who had invited him to join his own company …’

  ‘And then Nicholas shot him?’ remarked Gelis, with not unreasonable scepticism.

  ‘Anna hasn’t withdrawn the idea of a union, that I know of. Of course, Jodi is young. No steps have been taken. Talks would have to take place. It was understood that your wishes would be fully consulted.’

  ‘When?’ Gelis had said. ‘Now that Julius is on his sickbed, and Anna and Nicholas are in Caffa?’ Her colour was suddenly flagrant.

  ‘Send and forbid it,’ Kathi had said. ‘If that’s what you want. Letters do get there eventually. And you can trust Nicholas, surely, in this. He would never commit Jodi to something as important as this unless you agreed. You know he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Do I?’ said Gelis.

  ‘Well, I do,’ Kathi had said. ‘What is it? You’re not concerned about Anna? She’s the sensible sister Nicholas ought to have had. And after what he did to Julius, Nicholas will treat her like the eleven thousand virgins all rolled into one. At least he still has the grace to be remorseful.’

  But Gelis had not immediately replied.

  ‘Well?’ Robin was saying now, persevering. His hand oscillated in front of her eyes. Blinking, Kathi directed her gaze at him. ‘What did Gelis think of the marriage proposal?’

  ‘Oh. That it’s ten years too early, of course. And privately, she must be afraid that it marks a rejection of Jodi. At any rate, she won’t take steps until she hears from Nicholas. She doesn’t want to write to him herself.’

  ‘In case he burns it,’ said Robin.

  Kathi laid down her brush. ‘Gelis didn’t know about that. A lot of friends are honoured with poems by Jodi: Anna must have picked up one of these, and thought it would overwhelm Nicholas with nostalgia and lead to a reunion.’

  ‘You told Gelis exactly what happened?’

  ‘I told her that he couldn’t bear to keep it, he missed Jodi so much. At least she would know, despite the marriage nonsense, that he wasn’t uncaring.’

  ‘You and Anna want Gelis to take Jodi and join him. It’s too soon, Kathi.’

  ‘I know that. Anywa
y, Gelis is determined to work for the Bank all this winter. Do you know what she is going to do?’

  ‘Diniz told me. He was stiff with anxiety, and Govaerts and Moriz weren’t much better. She’s going to consult with them in Bruges, and then go and join the Duchess’s household at Ghent. Gelis used to be maid of honour to Margaret of Burgundy. She can speak English. She can do what even Nicholas couldn’t. She can stay where the financial decisions are being taken — for the war, for the future of the towns and the Burgundian states. And she can act as the voice of the Bank.’

  ‘And the Bank’s army,’ Kathi said. ‘You know she’ll make her way to the war front. You know she’ll deal with Astorre, and talk to John, and work out their contracts. You ought to be in the field. It’s what Nicholas was training you for.’

  In recent times, with mild horror, she occasionally heard herself giving voice to some feminine plea of this kind. It was unfair, for he couldn’t give way. Robin was a conscientious young merchant, worthy successor to the business and lands of his family. However poor the country might be, fatherhood called him to Scotland and duty would chain him there: cheap fanfares of renunciation wouldn’t help him at present.

  The fact remained that the brief training for war under Nicholas had shown Robin to be ideally suited to the chivalrous arts. It had been one of the happiest times of his life. Even the military structure of Poland had entranced him. After this baby was born, she must release him for a little, to put some of his youth and talents at venture, so that he would return yet more skilled, yet more robust. He was Robin of Berecrofts, whom she was refining for Scotland because she, too, felt that she should have foreseen and stopped what her friend, her other friend, her mortifying other friend had accomplished. Anna would have forced Nicholas to stop.

  Anna didn’t have Robin. Anna only had Julius.

  ‘I can’t go to Neuss. I don’t want to. What are you thinking of?’ Robin said.

  ‘That I’m tired of painting,’ said Kathi with infinite pathos.

  Chapter 22

  BY DECEMBER, winter had fallen with unusual severity on the merchant city of Caffa, fraying the palm trees and congealing the seas to the north. Although daily awaited, no message arrived from the seamaster Ochoa de Marchena. The lost gold remained lost. After some weeks of deepening anxiety, Anna von Hanseyck cornered her elusive Circassian steward. ‘You have been divining.’

  He wondered how she had guessed, for his hands were unmarked and he worked only at night, when the toll it took would not be obvious. Now he did not deny it, but told her the truth. ‘I didn’t want to distress you or the Patriarch. I did think I ought to try, for Ochoa’s sake. He is alive, but not near.’

  Her voice, striving for calm, sounded strained. ‘You will harm yourself with that pendulum more than you harm either of us. So now you have found him, can you stop?’

  ‘For a bit. The occasional question won’t kill me. He’s on the other side of the Black Sea, probably waiting to sail when the weather clears.’ He smiled. ‘What will you do when you are rich again? Buy an estate and become a great lady, with Julius? Give up the business and raise children, and teach them to sing?’

  ‘What will you do?’ she said.

  ‘What would you have me do?’ He tried to speak to her with his eyes.

  For a space, she made no reply. Then she said, ‘Send for Gelis. That is what we have told you from the beginning. Send for Gelis and Jodi.’ With whatever effort, her manner was normal, even admonitory. But her amazing eyes, scanning his, now held pain.

  Enclosed in an alien place in one house with this remarkable woman, Nicholas had never thought it would be easy to keep the promise he had made to himself. He had not anticipated its effect upon her.

  The mansion, in itself, was the best managed he had ever lived in: everything in it formed for comfort and striking in its simplicity. The staff, all of them good Christians chosen by Brygidy, had learned to treat Nicholas, when alone, as their master, since it was impossible to maintain his pretended race at close quarters for so long. Yet in all that time, he had never touched Anna. So far.

  He managed it partly by absence. Fortified now by the coins from Qirq-yer, he was free to explore at least some of the business openings he was seeking for Julius. It had helped to authenticate his reasons for remaining so long with the Khan. The threatened meeting with Squarciafico and the Genoese consul had not been unreservedly pleasant but Nicholas had convinced them, he thought, that he had been lustfully revelling in the stews of Qirq-yer, rather than interfering with the Tuduns of Caffa. He had taken the consul some fermented liquor, and gratified him, as they drank, with a number of tales of a breathtakingly physical character, some of them true. When he left, Squarciafico was sweating.

  To Father Ludovico da Bologna, on the other hand, he told everything.

  The Patriarch listened. At first, his comments were purely political. He turned to the personal later. ‘Russia. The Tartar-Muscovite betrothal seems likely. Your pretty lady may well get her furs, but you would have to prepare the way first. Confess to Dymitr Wiśniowiecki that you are not a Circassian. He may betray you to the Genoese, but I rather think not. If he is sufficiently pleased, he will support the Khan’s Tudun when he comes. The pretty lady in the meantime should know nothing. Joy is an uncertain emotion, always indiscreet and often short-lived.’

  ‘I must remember,’ Nicholas had said. ‘Shall I tell her about the gold?’

  ‘Oh yes, you wish me to congratulate you on your fiendish divining. You also remind me that the gold is your fee. Leave her in the belief that the shipmaster is where you have said. It is safer for her. Given the chance, the Genoese would claim both Ochoa de Marchena and his gold. Do you want me to tell you that I find your assistance quite useful?’

  ‘It would worry me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was coming anyway, for the gold.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ the Patriarch said.

  Hence Nicholas for several weeks had found an easy excuse to be absent, as Anna, too, was seldom at home, having occasion to visit Sinbaldo her agent, and cultivate those merchants and shippers she knew. Winter in the Crimea was normally sociable for, isolated by ice and by storms, the permanent groups within the colony took leisure to renew their communal bonds. The Christian lawyers and agents in Caffa were married members of a complex community, tracing their presence back for over three hundred years. The high officials were appointed, on the contrary, for a single short term, and seldom imported their families. As a result, the Caffa brothels were of exceptional quality, as were the courtesans who fulfilled the functions of wives. But to a man such as the Genoese consul, vanity required that he dazzle his guests with a truly blue-blooded hostess — no less than the gracious Contessa Anna von Hanseyck. Nor did Anna object. It led to introductions, and knowledge, and social credit which in due course she could transfer to Julius.

  Once, escorting her home from the castle at night, her servants had led her past the quiet, discreet street of the baths, and their lantern had glanced on a face that she knew. Warm with wine and laughter and civilised company she had slid from her horse and, catching her veil, had called after him softly. But Nicholas turned on his heel, and had vanished before she could reach him.

  The days passed. The Feast of St Nicholas came and went unremarked, for Mameluke servants did not celebrate such anniversaries. Nicholas was thirty-four years of age, and since the Feast of St Catherine, Kathi had been twenty-one. She was no longer in Bruges. Nicholas thought she and Robin had travelled to Scotland, but for some time was not perfectly sure, as he preferred to limit the hours of his divining.

  He did not know if Kathi’s baby was born. He did know that Julius was still alive, and in Thorn. He knew all the time that Gelis and Jodi were well, through Mistress Clémence. It was through Mistress Clémence that he finally learned that Gelis had gone to Ghent, and that Jodi was travelling with Kathi and Robin to Scotland. Tobie and the nurse were going with them.

  It meant that Clémence w
as no longer with Gelis, and that his bodyguards, from what she hinted, had been split. He did not know whether or not to be afraid, but forced himself not to misuse the pendulum, for Gelis had learned to tell when he was tracing her, and he did not want her to be troubled. Gelis, or anyone else. These people were nothing to do with him, now. He must not shackle them. And he had other things to think of soon enough, from the moment that the Khan’s secretary Karaï Mirza made his promised visit to Caffa.

  Nicholas was playing argumentative chess with Dymitr in the Russian quarter when the man from Qirq-yer, heavily muffled, was ushered into the low-ceilinged room. There was a second man with him. Karaï Mirza threw off his cloak, and Nicholas leaped up, filled with unexpected pleasure at the sight of the broad Tartar face with its smiling cheekbones. They embraced, and Dymitr strode up to shake hands, while the stranger unfastened his great hooded cloak. Beneath it, he wore the robes and turban of an Islamic religious teacher, a jurist, an imam.

  … As some visiting teacher from Cairo might commend you to those of Muslim faith.

  Nicholas stood still while the Tartar, his smile deepening, introduced him. The man’s name was Ibrahiim. He bowed to Dymitr his host, but addressed Nicholas in Arabic. ‘Misra Niqula. The professors of al-Azhar know of you.’

  Misra Niqula: Egyptian Niccolò. ‘You come from Cairo?’ Nicholas asked. The grave, bearded face of the imam was brown and not black, and wholly unlike that of the pedagogue best known to him, unless you counted a sense of stillness, of composure, of peace that had been Katib Musa’s as well.

  ‘He has come here to teach for the winter,’ said Karaï Mirza, answering for the imam as they sat. ‘You may visit him in any of the towns where his classes are held. As for me, my stay will be shorter, and we should not be seen together in public: I have imposed myself on our good friend Dymitr simply to tell you that I have great hopes of obtaining your furs, but success will largely depend on which Tudun will be chosen to rule in the Khan’s name in Caffa. So tell me. What views have you heard expressed?’