Caprice and Rondo

  Nicholas.

  She said, ‘I solved your grandfather’s code.’

  ‘I know. I felt it,’ he said. He spoke like a boy.

  The two men had left, and could be heard talking above. They sounded deferential. Someone new began to descend. Gelis did not even look up. She filled her eyes and heart with the sight of him: the low, calm brow and wide bones of his face, the stubborn hair, topiary-trimmed (by Adorne’s barber?) to cling to his throat; the length and bulk of his body, part hunting-cat and part bear. They had torn off his boots and cuirass and greaves, leaving him in a soiled jacket and hose. He had drawn up a knee, and was supporting his weight on one hip and his elbow. His wrists were shackled like hers, with a little slack, and his broad, craftsman’s hands were clasped lightly before him. She wondered, with a deep, lunatic pang of pure love, how he had managed to put the croak into the frog.

  Gelis looked up at his face, and said, ‘I would walk over, now.’

  The third visitor stepped down into the light and stood, looking down at them both. ‘We must arrange it,’ the newcomer said.

  It was not David de Salmeton; the man who had threatened her, who wanted Nicholas dead, and who bore a grudge against all who had slighted him. This was Julius’s wife, Anna von Hanseyck.

  Chapter 41

  FOR NICHOLAS, the materialisation of Anna von Hanseyck should have been fearful. He had expected de Salmeton, and a long, teasing exchange involving physical discomfort, probably imposed by David himself, artistically supported by henchmen. De Salmeton would, however, have been gallant to Gelis, and might even have spared her, at the end.

  Anna was different. She, too, would enjoy playing her fish before killing it, but she would make sure that Gelis would suffer as well. Also, she was who she was. Dealing with Anna would be far, far more difficult and delicate than dealing with a good-looking man whose hatred for Nicholas was rooted in envy. Nicholas should have been appalled, had he not possessed a boon which outweighed all these hazards.

  He was with Gelis again. She was not going to die: he would see to that. But even so, he had her avowal: he could see in her face the same smothered radiance that suffused him. Whatever came to them both, they were together. I would walk over now, she had said.

  But now, he must not look at Gelis; he must act. Nicholas sat up as best he could and, exhibiting incoherent amazement, exclaimed, ‘Anna!’ The name rang round the hold, and the cloaked woman standing alone on the decking before him smiled with pleasure and spoke.

  ‘Would you have preferred David de Salmeton? I am sorry. He has gone, I am told. Some unexpected change in his plans.’

  Gone? He could not ask where. This was not about David de Salmeton. He frowned at the mocking, shadowy face, and spoke sharply. ‘They were your men? But why?’ The chain clanked with his changing position and he gave it a short, angry tug, confronting her with his bound hands. ‘What’s this, Anna? Another performance? Is Julius coming to run me through, this time? And what is Gelis here for?’

  He glanced at Gelis when mentioning her name. She was pale, but watching him with composure. He was reminded that she was now a woman of business. In three years, she must have learned to recognise and deal with the critical opening moments of a negotiation. She had also worked with him before, on certain projects in Scotland. It might be enough. Anna and he had never performed together as part of a team. She would always either be her own mistress, or yours.

  Julius’s wife looked round for a box, pulled one forward, and sat on it. Beneath the cloak, she was wearing an exceptionally beautiful gown; as fine as the robe of occasion Gelis wore, and the cap confining her hair was decorated with jewels. Her smile, a little pitying, had widened.

  She said, ‘We have surprised one another. I didn’t expect you in Ghent. Julius has gone off to Bruges to challenge you to a fight to the death. I’m sorry, Nicholas, I’m afraid I had to tell him what you did to me.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’m sorry if you thought that an insult, but it isn’t Gelis’s fault. May she go?’

  ‘You haven’t been listening,’ said Anna. ‘I said that I thought you and Julius were in Bruges. It was Gelis I wanted. I didn’t know you would come rushing to trap David de Salmeton with a singularly feeble plan for a decoy. But now I have you both.’

  Gelis said, ‘Why do you want both of us?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to die together?’ said Anna.

  ‘Die?’ said Gelis. She sounded disbelieving, but not entirely unfriendly, as a well-brought-up young woman would, on finding another in the grip of sick fantasies. Gelis said, ‘Is it because I didn’t come to Caffa, with Jodi? You felt we all expected too much of you, alone in the Crimea with Nicholas. And it was his fault that Julius was hurt and couldn’t be there.’ She paused and said, ‘I can see that. I’m sorry.’

  Anna’s eyes were on Nicholas. ‘And you? Can you imagine why I should want you both dead?’

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ Nicholas said. ‘Wouldn’t it make life rather dull?’

  Anna laughed. Her cloak, already unhooked, slipped from her shoulders, and she let it fall. She said, ‘When I heard they had captured you both, I thought I’d dress for you. I even washed out my hair.’ And she raised her hands and unpinned and drew off her cap.

  The hair that fell to her shoulders was not black. The strands that coiled, damp still, over her breast and her back were of a colour that even a dyer’s apprentice would find hard to compose, although a jeweller might. Her hair was not red. Blood was red. This was the vermilion of a cardinal’s tassels, seen through an eyeglass of amber.

  Within this cascade of fire, Anna’s eyes had remained fixed and distended on his. ‘Well?’

  Well, indeed. The opening gambit was over, and she had forced the real game to begin. Look at me. I have fooled you. I have won.

  Gelis could have told her. There is more to a contest than that.

  Nicholas released his breath, slowly and soundlessly. He wished that Gelis were not here and then cancelled the wish, for to have her here was the ultimate privilege. In any case, she seemed to have sensed what he wanted. Since she could not leave, she had sunk back from the light and was crouching motionless on the dusty floor, watching.

  Nicholas said, ‘I knew, Adelina.’

  She must have heard him. She continued as if he had not spoken. She said, ‘Shall I tell you who I am, Nicholas? I am not Anna von Hanseyck. My name is not even Anna. The woman you kissed, the woman you stared at so lasciviously in the tent — how foolish you looked! — is your own blood-relation. I am Adelina, the child who grew up with you. I am the child you allowed your great-uncle to take to his bed. I am the child who was left with no family, while you married and married again, taking your pleasure, wringing money out of all your women, using and discarding your mistresses. I am Adelina de Fleury, your grandfather’s daughter.’

  ‘I know,’ he said again.

  Her smile, full of triumph, gave way to a flicker of impatience. ‘You can’t know. Shall I say it again? I am—’

  ‘Adelina de Fleury. I know,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have always known, ever since I set eyes on you in Bruges. Ever since you persuaded Julius to marry you, just for this day.’

  Anna faced him. Behind her, Gelis was rigid with tension but did not pretend to surprise. He was a company project; he had no secrets now. Water lapped. The lanterns stirred, and muffled footsteps above told where the two henchmen were waiting. A stifled bell clanged, once, in the fog.

  Anna said, ‘You don’t like being deceived by a woman. You can’t even admit it.’ Within the blazing hair, her face was austere. She added scathingly, ‘You couldn’t have known.’

  Again, he wished he and she were alone; that this did not have to take place before Gelis.

  As it was: ‘Why not?’ Nicholas said quietly. ‘Because I didn’t denounce you? Because I didn’t tell anyone what Moriz found out about your finances? Because I didn’t show I knew that you were coming to Caffa only
in the hope of getting my gold? Do you think I didn’t want Gelis, or my son? Why do you think I never sent for them, except that I knew you only wanted to kill them?’

  He had supposed Gelis to have realised that, but he must have been wrong, for she gasped. Anna heard it, and swung round. ‘You knew nothing of this?’

  At Anna’s back, Nicholas made the faintest of movements. Gelis said, ‘Some of us had begun to suspect, Adelina, but not because Nicholas told us. Until today, he has never mentioned your name.’

  ‘Because until today, he didn’t know,’ Anna said. ‘Now he is cringing, I trust, at the thought of what passed between us. How sad! To die branded as a lecherous rascal! To leave me rich as I should have been rich!’ She blazed at him, still resolutely triumphant.

  Nicholas waited. The echoes died. He schooled his voice to the same level tone. ‘I was eight when we parted. Too young to understand, or to help, but not too young to remember. Your eyes were the same then, as now. I have never seen their like anywhere else. The colour; and the misery of the putoduli.’

  Gelis looked down.

  Adelina de Fleury said in a low voice, ‘You wanted me. You can’t deny it. But for Julius, you would have been in my bed. You took me everywhere. I was the chosen person to whom you prated about your feelings, your beliefs. You didn’t know who I was; or how I despised you.’ She had risen.

  And again, he repeated his affirmation. ‘I knew,’ Nicholas said. ‘I thought I could teach you that life held more than resentment, or money, or revenge. I thought I might leave you with a flourishing business and we might part, with nothing said. But that was all. I spoke of friendship, but did you hear me speak of love? Did you hear me mention the name of my wife or my son, or anything or anyone close to me? I try to forgive you, for at times, I have been no better than you have. I do understand. I ache for the waste and the misery in your life, but nothing would have brought me to confide in you.’

  ‘You are lying,’ Anna said, with sudden high fury. He understood all that she felt. Gelis, too, would understand, for he had once done this to her. In Trèves three years before, she had supposed herself to have won their long contest, only to find that he held all her secrets. In Trèves, he had spared Gelis that knowledge, until compelled to admit it by Jordan de Ribérac. Here, he was using the same device against Adelina with deliberate cruelty. He wanted, as he had never wanted with Gelis, to deprive this woman of her planned victory. He also wished to win time, in order to find a way to survive. He had laid plans. But in a fog like this, no plans were secure.

  And still it was working, for even yet, with both of them in her power, Anna could not bear to continue until she had wrung a retraction from Nicholas. She repeated, fiercely, ‘You are lying. You didn’t know. You wanted Bonne to marry your son.’

  For a moment, his gaze passed the woman before him, and rested on Gelis. He saw she was smiling, and happiness, yet again, overwhelmed the misery and the pain. Nicholas said, ‘Because I had to make sure, in the short term, that Jodi and Gelis would live. Gelis is wealthy. Anything I had she would also inherit. She is still my wife.’

  He had let his eyes speak, and Anna had seen it. She turned, and then whirled again back to Nicholas. She cried, ‘You did know. You both knew.’

  And now he wished he had not chosen to tell her. In a moment, she would let herself think of all that had happened between them, and realise finally how he had deceived her. In a moment, she would return to her purpose, and there would be no more time to win.

  Anna stood, watching him; trying to imagine, he supposed, what precise degree of punishment he deserved of her, now. And Gelis. Oh God, he had to save Gelis. Anna said, ‘You think you know yourself, Nicholas de Fleury. You think you know the harm you can do, and have done. You know nothing.’

  He had thought she would call for her men. He had not dreamed that a few words could so infect him with dread. And to make matters worse, Gelis suddenly chose to address Adelina harshly.

  ‘So what do you mean to do? What about Julius? If you harm either of us, the whole of Flanders would hound you!’ She kept her eyes on Anna, who turned to her slowly.

  Anna said, ‘People drown in these waters, especially in fog. You will be found in the silt, close to where you strayed from your wagon. Julius will not especially mourn you. He expected to discover Nicholas in Bruges, and to challenge and kill him in defence of my honour. As it is, he will come back to find Nicholas dead. Another drowning, or caught in some drunken brawl. There will be nothing to show how it happened. Are you not sorry?’ she said, looking at Nicholas. ‘Are you not sorry you did not think more of me?’

  She was standing close to him.

  ‘I am only sorry,’ Nicholas said, ‘that I had to make believe that I wanted you. Did you think, that day unclothed in the tent, that the sight of you was alluring? With your ageing body and badly dyed hair, that smeared even your under-linen? You may have been well enough as a child,’ Anna’s nephew observed, ‘but I didn’t want my great-uncle’s leavings.’

  Her arm rose and swept down. He rocked with the blow, like the practised wrestler he was, and counter-attacked well enough, using his own momentum and Anna’s precarious balance to kick her feet from under her, locking her with his knee and trapping her as she fell. His hands circled once, looping a length of chain round her throat. Then he pulled himself back to the wall like a swimmer saving another, and stopped, breathing fast. He had enough strength for that, but less than he wished.

  Anna lay in his arms, looking up at him, with her breath throttled shut. He tightened his hands under her chin, until her back arched. ‘Drop the knife,’ Nicholas said. She made a guttural sound, and her arms fell back, her hands opening. Something bright glinted among the twists of delicate silk and dropped aside to the deck. He freed a heel and kicked it sideways, before immobilising her whole lower body again. Her scent, released by the pressure, filled the air. Footsteps sounded above. The hatch opened, and one of the henchmen looked down.

  ‘I have your mistress,’ Nicholas said. ‘Do as I say, and I’ll double your money. Don’t, and I’ll kill her.’ His voice continued, unemotionally issuing instructions. The two men ran down the stairs, unbuckling their belts, and threw down their swords. Anna’s face had become suffused, and her body began to grow lax.

  Nicholas said, ‘One of you unshackle that lady.’

  One of the men crossed to Gelis. Gripping Anna, Nicholas watched him intently. It was possible to guess from his manner that this was not a common hireling, content to be purchased. Anna had the kind of beauty that quickly found slaves, and slaves would not let her die. In his present mood, Nicholas would not place himself in quite the same category. As Gelis was freed, Nicholas deliberately tightened his garrotting grip to render Anna unconscious. Then Gelis said, ‘Nicholas!’ and he saw, looking down, that his fingers for once had obeyed his emotions instead of his brain. Anna’s eyes were shut, her colour altered, her whole body frighteningly limp.

  Nicholas loosened his hands. Beneath them, Anna’s throat worked, drawing in air like a scream. Her eyes opened, wide and alert. Her hands, darting upwards, clawed at his skin and the chain, while she hurled her body aside, kicking and thrusting. He closed his arm round her neck, but her hands were both free, and a few raucous snatches of air allowed her enough strength to use them before he could again press her into submission. It gave her bodyguards just time enough. While he fought her, the two men flung themselves on him, and dragged their mistress free.

  Gelis cast a single calculating glance at Nicholas, and plunged to the foot of the steps. She had swept up one of the scabbards when it was wrenched out of her hand, and she was pinioned by the arms. The second soldier snatched up the other, and unsheathed his sword with a whine, looking at Anna. Adelina de Fleury leaned gasping against the bulwark of the barge, one hand to her throat. Her hair, incandescent in the lamplight, mantled her torn and soiled gown, and there was a great, swollen ridge at her neck, where her skin was as fair as John le Gran
t’s, with a suggestion of freckles. Nicholas sat untidily where he had been chained, panting and dizzy, but capable of thinking, at least. He trusted no one would notice that the knife was no longer where he had kicked it.

  One of the two men lifted his sword. ‘Now we kill them, Gräfin?’

  He had been right. Slaves, not hirelings. The van Borselen name would make no difference here.

  Adelina said, ‘Now we kill them. But with cunning, my friend. The woman drowns. The man is beaten to death by footpads. Let him watch the woman die, first.’

  Gelis said, ‘Just now, he had the chance to strangle you, and didn’t.’

  ‘You distracted him,’ Anna said. ‘That is all. How sad your little son is going to be. But Bonne will comfort him, and I shall be an excellent guardian, having care for all his great inheritance, those precious shares in the Bank; perhaps even the Fleury estates, restored, one of these days. What a pity my father could not have lived to see how his scheme failed. He did not destroy me after all.’

  Gelis, held fast, could not have spoken, but Nicholas did. ‘It was not his fault,’ he said. ‘It was terrible, but it was not the fault of Thibault de Fleury, or of anyone else. There is no reason to do such harm. You will have to be on your guard for the rest of your life. You will weary.’

  ‘I shall revel in it,’ Anna said.

  There was a water tank, in another compartment of the hold. They harnessed Gelis again to her staple while the two men went off to fetch it. Anna walked with them, holding the lantern. There were buckets to fill it with. Reduced to one source of light, the prisoners could just see one another.