Caprice and Rondo (28 page)

‘No,’ said Julius happily. ‘Also, you’ve to stop swilling wine. I hope she told you.’

‘She did, but I’m not married to her,’ Nicholas said. ‘And not even allowed to receive favours. Therefore I shall succumb to
diabetica passione
all by myself, and you will drink water. Tell me about Bonne.’

Julius was first startled, then peeved. ‘You know about Bonne. Anna’s daughter.’

‘I know she has a daughter, natural, adopted or prematurely installed by some well-plotted design of the Graf’s. I need to know more, if Jodi’s to marry her.’

Julius sat up. ‘What?’

‘Your wine has spilled. Anna doesn’t seem to object. But it’s a long way ahead: he’s still young. Who is Bonne’s father?’

Julius gazed at him. ‘I thought you knew. You just said. The Graf Wenzel, Anna’s late husband. Anna’s mother told me herself. Bonne was born to Anna in Augsburg while Wenzel’s first wife was still alive, and Anna’s parents looked after the baby. Then, when Wenzel married Anna, he adopted their love-child.’ He paused, and said, ‘She is illegitimate, but you couldn’t fault her bloodline. But, Nicholas? She is eleven, and Jodi is five?’

‘I’m not suggesting that we draw up contracts yet,’ Nicholas said. ‘You and Anna might have a daughter yourselves. Come to think of it, what’s the delay?’

Julius supplied an acid answer; Nicholas laughed and rose, saying something, and that, Jesus be praised, was the end of it. Julius had no desire to dwell upon the delay. Anna’s failure to conceive continued to be a surprise and a disappointment to her husband. Naturally, he hoped for an heir, but that was not quite all. In the various theatres that made up his life, Julius preferred the occasional exquisite performance to the predictable and diligent routine. When Anna bent over and touched him, smiling, at bedtime, he responded, of course, but not at once. Yet he had no real complaint, my God no. He was the envy of every man he met. And while they awaited their child, she was his.

Before the repast was over, Julius did however find her and draw her aside. ‘Nicholas spoke to you about Jodi and Bonne?’

Her lips parted. ‘I thought he was teasing. Does he mean it?’ In the
open air, she had never looked lovelier, with the colour roused in her skin and her eyes glowing and brilliant as lapis. Serious conversation suddenly appeared idiotic. Nevertheless, he persevered.

‘Unless we have a daughter,’ Julius said. ‘And, of course, Gelis might not agree.’

‘To a van Borselen-von Hanseyck betrothal? I think she might,’ Anna said gravely. ‘And I suppose Nicholas might really be serious. He is leading a dangerous life, and you have been his mentor for a long time, and the only person who hasn’t rejected him. Is that why?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Julius. He felt perplexed. ‘He’s never said this before.’

‘He’s never been so isolated before.’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘But what should we do? The boy is charming, of course, but his parents are parting, and Nicholas has nothing to leave.’

‘Or not yet,’ Julius said. ‘A lot may happen. Perhaps the annulment won’t take place. Or we have a child of our own. But you of course must decide about Bonne. You know what is best.’

He felt discomfort, as always, about Bonne, firmly lodged in her convent because Anna would not burden him with the presence of a thin, sullen child who had outgrown her strength. Anna’s daughter might not want to marry. She might want to become a nun, for all he knew. Anna said, ‘You are always so kind about Bonne. Let us wait and see. There is no hurry yet.’ Shortly afterwards, they all left for home.

Julius’s saddle-girth broke as they approached the town moat at full gallop, and he was cast rolling and tumbling among the pounding hooves and yelping, slavering hounds. Nicholas was the first to help him up and he was able, cursing, to remount. He had been lucky. And it was the last mishap between that day and Thursday, the day when Anselm Adorne rode into town with his married niece and the Patriarch and the Danzigers, followed almost at once by the King.

Chapter 8

B
LESSED
AS
Anna von Hanseyck was not, the Burgundian Ambassador’s niece participated in his ceremonial entry to Thorn, deeply thankful that it wasn’t timed for the morning. Kathi was sick in the mornings.

She had told Nicholas that she wished to be sure, and now she was. She had not told her husband. It was fairly typical, she thought, that the first high-water mark of her family life should be disrupted by a riverside brawl. The Danzigers had gone to stay at the Artushof. Dismounting at the handsome house they’d been allotted next door, she observed that Robin looked grim, the Patriarch smug and her uncle superbly composed. Of course, the papal nuncio was well known: his voice exploded in sonorous syllables from a raceme of tonsures, birettas and mitres. But Anselm Adorne, too, was acquainted with some of these officers. He was accustomed to occasions of state. And he was here to conclude at least part of his mission: to present and have answered his Duke’s personal message to the King. The King who was arriving tomorrow, and who might, among other things, overrule decisions made or not made further north.

Before nightfall, she had found out where Nicholas was. Ludovico da Bologna had informed her, taking her up to the top of the house and pointing out the Market Square she had just left, its bunting obscuring the vacant trestles and stalls and the arched entrance of the vast quadrilateral edifice at its centre, where the Mayor and Council would receive the King, and the King would receive Anselm Adorne and his Mission this Pentecost. The rain poured down, and a sodden triangle flicked in the wind, striping a passing dog yellow. The Patriarch said, ‘You are facing north. Half the merchants and most of the officials of Thorn stay in the residences lining this square. Look to the east, to the right of the Halls. The agent of the Banco de Niccolò occupies one of those houses. It is tall, narrow and painted red, black and white. You can see it from here.’

‘And Nicholas is staying with him?’ she said. The lower windows were tall enough to give a good view. It was like one of the thinner houses of Bruges, except that it had a wooden awning over its door, and its doorstep, spreading outwards and sideways, formed a narrow stone apron upon which, presumably, the inhabitants sat when it wasn’t raining. There was a simple balustrade round it, and steps led down from that to the street. Most of the houses had similar shelters or balconies, some of them of wood. There were cellars beneath them. She added, ‘It’s very near.’

‘You don’t see that as fortunate?’ said the Patriarch. ‘Adorne isn’t going to let you or your young master visit there, or you’ll upset his relations with Thorn. And de Fleury would be shown the door if he tried to come here, as would our handsome Julius, for supporting him. The wages of perfidy. So guess who will come, once her servants tell her that Adorne has stepped out of the house?’

‘Don’t you want to see him?’ Kathi asked.

‘Nicholas? No. I can wait. And yes, I know what he’s done. A foot-soldier of Satan, and a fit tool for any man’s hand.’

‘I’m sure you are right. So why do you really think he is here?’ Kathi said.

‘Why ask me? You didn’t like my first answer. The woman Anna might suggest something different. Or he may simply have fallen out with Paúel Benecke. If so, you might even know why.’

She returned the Patriarch’s stare without answering. He was absently massaging his chest through his habit. She said, ‘A foot-soldier of Satan. But you would use him?’

‘God would use him,’ the Patriarch said. ‘If I am to make one parchment Bible, I need the skins of three hundred sheep.’

‘But you don’t consult the sheep,’ Kathi said.

‘I don’t need to,’ said the Patriarch patiently. ‘They do what they’re told, and go directly to Paradise.’

A
NNA
VON
H
ANSEYCK
presented herself quietly at the door the following morning, rather earlier than her hostess would have chosen, but with otherwise impeccable timing, for Kathi was alone. The Burgundian and papal ambassadors, with Robin in attendance, were in the process of being formally received in the Burgh Halls opposite, and it was Adorne’s understanding that they would remain to welcome the royal party when it arrived. Kathi hoped that he was right.

Robin had called Julius’s wife a pretty woman, but many women were pretty without possessing the qualities that made the Gräfin so singular. In build, she was slim and well proportioned, but the clear bright skin against the profusion of charcoal-black hair was more Irish than
German, and her principal features were not these at all, but the steadiness of the violet-blue eyes and her tranquil manner, touched with amusement. She was intelligent. Kathi who, without being vain, knew herself to be both quick-witted and mature for her years, yet recognised that here was a calm, a gentle detachment she would never possess. Fortunately, Robin had both, and lent them to her, as once he had tried to serve Nicholas.

Anna was younger than Nicholas, and considerably younger than her second husband. Indeed, her marriage to Julius represented, in Kami’s view, a mystery only to be accounted for by the blindness of passion. At any event, in the year that had followed, Anna had made her husband’s circle her own. Consistently deft in her relations with Nicholas, she had also made friends with his wife and their child. Seemingly, these warmhearted relations continued, even though Anna knew what had happened in Scotland. Kathi wondered if Anna, more subtle than Julius, had come to share his hearty tolerance, or would look harder and further, seeking the middle road between that and rejection. She hoped so. Kathi did not hold the illusion that she or anyone else could or should direct the future of Nicholas. But Paúel Benecke’s daughter had observed that he needed a Gerta, and that was Kathi’s view also. More accurately it was Kathi’s view that Nicholas needed a wife, and preferably the one he was losing. In the meantime, almost anyone of good sense would do.

It was therefore with some approval that Kathi heard her visitor’s first words on the subject, once the friendly preliminaries were done, and Anna was sitting divested of her wet cloak, her hands restfully folded. ‘Katelijne, I want to ask your advice about —’ She broke off and laughed. ‘I’m sorry. It is natural to you, but I still feel it a presumption to call him Nicholas.’

‘Try Colà,’ Kathi said. ‘Or Nikolás, maybe. He’s had so many names that he’d answer to anything, really. What about him?’

‘Two things only,’ Anna said. ‘He is the last person to want to be managed: I am only afraid of doing something wrong. Julius would like him to join our part of the Bank, working east of the Oder. Would this be good? As you know, he has a great deal of energy …’

‘Most of it currently going in the wrong direction. Yes, it would be good,’ Kathi said. ‘Unless he chooses to work in Poland on his own account.’

‘Would that be better?’

‘It’s too early to say, and none of us could influence him anyway. Julius might as well ask him.’

‘I thought so,’ Anna said. ‘I know he cannot go back, but I thought it might keep one channel alive, between Nicholas and his friends and his family. I had this hope — you will think it far-fetched — that he and his wife might be reconciled. But now I am not so sure. That is the other question I have.’

‘I see,’ Kathi said.

‘No,’ said Anna swiftly. ‘I have asked you too much. We should not be discussing these things. Forgive me.’

It was her perception, as always, which was so disarming. Kathi said, ‘I did hesitate, but you are right: it’s important. I feel as you do. Until this happened, I thought they would spend the rest of their lives together, he and Gelis. Robin thought so as well. If he had had his way, we should have come to Poland weighed down with gifts and messages and tales of Jodi’s prowess. Thank God we didn’t.’

‘Tell me why,’ Anna said. Her voice had changed.

Kathi gazed at her, frowning. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘You see, it would simply have made matters worse if he hated her. And if he didn’t —’

‘It would have reminded him of all he had thrown away,’ Anna ended. ‘I am a fool. I am a miserable, unthinking fool. He sat as if listening to every detail I told him about the Bank, about Jodi, about Gelis. He said nothing much. I had a feeling sometimes that he was thinking about something else, but he didn’t stop me. He accepted the paper with the little boy’s poem. Only, afterwards …’

A poem from Jodi. Kathi felt sick. She rose and walked across to pour wine, her back turned. She said, ‘What happened then?’

‘He set fire to it,’ said Anna steadily. ‘I found it later that evening, in ashes. Does he love them?’

Kathi stopped pouring.
My snivelling little wife and her bastard
. She said, ‘To hear him, no. I can’t tell you what to believe. But if I had no love for a child, I might discard what the child sent, but I shouldn’t burn it as if it would infect me. Don’t you think?’ She collected herself and turned.

Anna sat where she had left her, motionless except for a glimmer under her lashes, like mist on the curve of a glass. Kathi set down the wine and went to sink down beside her. ‘But you weren’t to know what was best. Anna, he is a grown man who has to learn discipline. If you hurt him, he deserved it. And whatever he may feel about Gelis, nothing can be resolved unless she changes her mind. Perhaps she will. I haven’t seen her since Trèves.’

‘Nor have I,’ Anna said. She dragged her palm over her cheek. ‘This wasn’t my intention. I’ll go.’

‘Have your wine first. I don’t know the answer to your questions,’ Kathi said. ‘I’d say, give him work if you can, but don’t be disappointed if he throws it over quite soon. The point is that he must come to decisions, not us.’

Anna looked up from her cup. ‘Julius says that your uncle would never take Nicholas to Tabriz. But perhaps that would be best?’

‘Not for my uncle,’ Kathi said.

‘Nor for Julius,’ said Anna. ‘How well organised we should be without menfolk.’

‘And how dull,’ Kathi said, cheering up. She had heard Robin’s voice.

Later, when Anna had unobtrusively left, Kathi ran downstairs and found herself in the midst of what anyone else would have called a celebration, but her uncle referred to as an expression of cordial optimism. He had been received by the city. The magistrates had not asked him to welcome the King, but trusted that he would attend, as civic guest, the Pentecostal Mass at which the King would be present on Sunday. Thereafter, as a matter of course, the Chancellor’s office would communicate a day and a time for his audience. It was done. Soon, he would have completed his mission in Poland, and they could set out for Tabriz.