Caprice and Rondo (95 page)

But when Nicholas pressed the cup again in his hands and, leaving him, went to empty the gold into the box he had prepared for it, Nerio did not protest; and he lifted the treasure when, as he left, Nicholas gave it him.

It seemed that that would be all. But at the last moment Nerio had thrust back, and taking up that sophisticated, elegant leg had carried it off, graceful as Hermes, in the curve of his arm.

I
N
A
SMALL
HOUSE
in Ghent, Julius of Bologna had become reconciled with his wife after a period of unusual friction. With Nicholas dead, and Gelis for the moment inaccessible, Julius was inclined to see little point in remaining in Ghent, spending money, when he should be taking command of his business elsewhere. He had wanted to move immediately to Bruges, and then to Cologne, but Anna persuaded him to wait for a little. She still had hopes of talking to Gelis. The future of Bonne was at stake.

He agreed, against his will. He assumed he might at least visit
Spangnaerts Street, but she broke into uncharacteristic tears at the prospect, and he did not speak of it again. He did not tell her that he had tried to arrange a visit regardless, but had learned that both the Bank’s officers would be away. He wrote to them instead: questions about the present state of the German business; a long account of the trade openings he had created in Caffa (before it fell), Poland and Muscovy. He mentioned Nicholas once, in connection with Tabriz, and once more to ask about a tale that Ambrogio Contarini’s chaplain had seen him alive. He had not so far received an answer.

After two weeks of it, Anna’s firmness of attitude, not for the first time, began to vex him. He knew a fair number of people in Ghent, but she seemed unwilling to entertain them, although she had little else to do. He began to wonder whether the separate couch, the abstraction, the uncertain moods were all truly due to the effects of her injury. He wondered if, in some unthinkable way, she missed Nicholas. And one day, rashly, he asked her.

Afterwards, he went out into the cold of the garden, and sat and retched. She had not troubled to give him a direct answer. She had simply narrated, movement by movement, the process by which Nicholas had raped her; and then, sinew-cracking and soft, tickling and searing, hot and cold, and finally, unremittingly, brutally agonising, her sensations while he did it, and her longing to die, at the end. He had not even been a man, Anna said. He had not completed the rape. His enjoyment came from the violence.

That night, Julius wept in her embrace, and the following morning, he had not wanted to leave her.

He had only determined under duress to visit his usual tavern and only by chance had fallen into talk with a pair of dyers from Bruges who were able to tell him (now, when he had something more important to think about) that Diniz and the German were at home in the Charetty-Niccolò house. More than that, one of them said. Would you believe it, young Claes was supposed to be back? Not that the Bank would admit it. It made you wonder —

It was as far as he got, since his companion pushed his head into his dish, and shortly after, they left. But it was enough. Kneeling beside his lovely, delicate wife, Julius said, ‘Now you won’t prevent me from going to Bruges. Now I am going to kill him.’

This time, she did not try to stop him.

Julius was already beating the frozen road out of town when the herald of James, Earl of Buchan, appeared in Ghent to announce the long-awaited arrival of his master, Scotland’s envoy for peace between the Duke of Burgundy and Sigismond, Duke of the Tyrol.

The town was ready. A cavalcade of honour was assembled, and issued
in due course to bring the prince to his lodging. It was understood that the Earl’s visit would be a brief one, but the town was gratified to learn that my lord of Buchan would be pleased, as evidence of his delight in the forthcoming illustrious marriage, to attend the town’s banquet to the Ladies of Burgundy.

He was assured that his brother-in-law Wolfaert van Borselen would be there, with all his van Borselen relatives. And the magistrates (they said) would consider themselves privileged if the Earl were to bring his full Scottish entourage, which included, as it happened, that adroit fellow, his merchant friend David de Salmeton.

Julius left without hearing the news. Clémence brought it to Gelis van Borselen. Anselm Adorne heard it from his own sources and, summoning Nicholas de Fleury, informed him that he could now leave for Ghent. The purpose for which he had travelled to Flanders was about to be served. David de Salmeton was here, and the mischief must be halted before it could begin.

Chapter 40

B
ITTEN
BY
FROST
, preserved in illusory ice, the phantom Kingdom of Burgundy, the dream of its Duke, the land that was to stretch from Champagne to the Middle Sea, lay white as alum the following morning, as it was to remain for five weeks.

On the battlefield outside Nancy, it had started to snow.

In Ghent, the magistrates responsible for the Hôtel de Ville banquet woke to darkness and fog. Lamps glowed from horn windows all day, and the lanterns which lined the grand route from the Gravenkasteel to the Town Hall were no more than ghosts, barely illuminating the ice of the little Leie, and the stiffened hangings and wreaths of the tall, painted houses beyond, and the motionless helms of the town guard, set like street pumps before them. By the time the Duchess’s cavalcade trotted through, even the bells and the cheering were muffled and the street tableaux, to the relief of the players, were cancelled. Everything congealed.

Gelis was warm, for all her senses told her that Nicholas was near.

From the beginning, his movements had been a matter of strategy: closely concealed, or misleadingly whispered abroad. She knew she must not try to communicate. It had disconcerted her, at first, to find that he and Clémence had re-opened a channel between them, of the same nature as the quiet, oblique lifeline that had sustained her at the start of his absence. A mechanical frog made its appearance, almost identical to John le Grant’s defunct toy, except that this one croaked. She could not tell Jodi who had sent it. She could only watch the joy on his face. Then there came short, coded messages which might have come from anyone, except for the complexity of the cipher, and an identification — a word, a phrase which was wholly his. Everything about them was cerebral. Encoded messages, no more.

She prayed for his safety, she who never prayed. When news came that de Salmeton was coming, she could not breathe for fear. Naturally, the messages immediately stopped. Their practical purpose was finished.

One thing only mattered: that all those who knew he was back should believe that today, the day of the banquet, Nicholas was still in Bruges.

She knew that she was going to meet David de Salmeton today, the one day that she must leave the castle. She could have feigned illness. She preferred to have it all over. Behind her, at least, Jodi was locked and guarded and safe.

She had dressed for her enemy. No one could vie with the Imperial fiancée and her stepmother, in their mantles of sable and ermine, their surcoats of glistening silver and gold over deep mingled velvets; their sleeves heavy with jewels. The dames of honour might wear what they chose, and someone had sent Gelis a thousand squirrel skins. Weightless, sinuous, downy, four hundred of them lined the saffron silk cloak she had had made for them, and edged its quilted hood embroidered with pearls. Voile and jewels hid her hair, and a belt of gold worked with jewels clasped the severe, high-waisted gown with its triangular neckline turned back with fur.

Clémence, keeping her company, waited with her on the cleared paving before the Hôtel de Ville as the eminent van of the procession mounted its steps, was welcomed, and receded into the depths of the building. Then the long line of the lesser guests was permitted to wind its way up the stairs. They entered a gallery, hung with banners. They were relieved of their cloaks. Then they were passing through the double doors of the Salon d’Honneur, its beams wreathed, its walls lined with escutcheons, its tableware rattling with the piercing stridency of a fanfare as they were ushered diligently to their seats. The fanfare redoubled, and the Ladies of Burgundy appeared from the side of the dais and, escorted by the high officials of the town, were led to their seats under the great canopy of state.

The long board for the demoiselles of honour was set to one side, as were the other tables for ladies. But standing there, making her reverence with the rest, Gelis van Borselen was silently occupied in putting a name to the men on and close to the dais: men hatted, square-shouldered and round as the beads on an abacus; their faces florid or pale; their doublets stuffed and quilted and pleated, their coats glittering; their shoulders furred with wide collars weighty as pillory boards.

Wolfaert van Borselen and Louis de Gruuthuse, Earl of Winchester, her relations. The Lieutenant General of the Low Countries. Chancellor Hugonet. The High Steward of Flanders. The Bailiff. The hosts of the town, the procurators, the judges. And below the gold and scarlet banner of his royal nephew, James Stewart of Auchterhouse, Earl of Buchan, with whom, according to Kathi, Nicholas had shared a memorable incident in Scotland involving a ladder, a looking-glass and a parrot. James Stewart’s half-sister had once been married to Wolfaert van Borselen,
and had been Countess of Buchan herself. Gelis knew James. But royal memories were not always long, and she should have been pleased when, under cover of the welcoming speech, he glanced across at her table, found her, and gave a slight, smiling bow. But that was because he had been nudged by his neighbour, David de Salmeton.

She had known what to expect. She was capable of observing all the courtesies: applauding the edible surprises and the inedible entertainments; conversing over and under the music and tasting, if not swallowing, some of the dishes that arrived and departed: the joints of beef and shoulders of mutton, the geese and pigeons and partridges, the calves’ foot jellies and swans. The expensive frosted confections, and the fruit. There were lemons and oranges. And wine. And hippocras. And all the time David de Salmeton smiled at her with his deep-fringed dark eyes, rolling a sprig of parsley between his manicured nails, slowly biting a pear, and smoothing his dimpled chin and quirked lips with a kerchief of lace. And she could believe, now, that he was rich. The lapels of his over-gown were of exotic brown lambskin, and the little purse at his belt displayed a pattern of rubies and pearls.

Towards the end, my lady the Duchess condescended to partner her step-daughter in a promenade dance, of the kind where musicians play, and well-born ladies exhibit their grace and their skill, when the tables are cleared, by visiting the four quarters of the room, two by two, in a swaying sinuous column. Gelis, leaning, pacing, curtseying with Clémence’s precise hand in her own, was touched to see that no one found cause to ridicule the two fateful figures leading the dance: the young girl in her wreath of jewelled flowers glancing up lovingly at the towering English princess beside her, made taller still by the wedding coronet with its jewelled white roses on her pale, pleated hair. The Duchess was thirty, a year younger than Gelis. Ghent had always loved England; sometimes too well. In this town had been born John of Gaunt, whose blood ran in the royal houses of Portugal, England and Scotland; as well as in the veins of Duke Charles and his Duchess. Margaret of York had borne no children to her husband in the separate lives that they led, but had served the Duke and Burgundy, and had cherished his child as her own since Marie was eleven.

The dance ended, to hearty applause. Tumblers rushed in. The Duchess signalled to her ladies that she wished to retire, but one lady did not follow her. Gelis van Borselen, lifting her skirts to sweep from the room, was stopped on the threshold by the man who had passed his time watching her. David de Salmeton bathed her in one of his glorious smiles. ‘Don’t go. She won’t miss you. I’m not about to create a scene here, my dear Gelis, I give you my word. But it would please me to talk. And unless you listen, you will never know, will you, what I am going to do?’

There were other people in the service rooms and the gallery. Soon, the great exodus would begin, and pages and porters and grooms, private house-servants and stewards would see to the cloaks and the mounts of their masters and mistresses. The Duchess and the guests of honour, who had arrived on caparisoned horseback, were to return on chairs of state within wagons. A chain of others would follow, conveying her attendants back to the Castle of Ten Walle through the deep cold and fog, between the glimmering lamps. Gelis saw that Clémence had left the Duchess and was standing, hands peacefully folded, watching her.

The man standing beside Gelis said, ‘Your guard dog? Then perhaps you may feel you can risk a few words. I have to congratulate you on your looks and, of course, on your business acumen. One could have anticipated that the Vatachino would fail, but it took genius to usurp your own husband’s company. They will miss you when you have gone.’

‘I am going somewhere?’ Gelis said. Below the perfect damask, the sturdy contours of his shoulders and arms were owed to muscle, not padding, and the wrists that turned the delicate fingers were supple and hard. He might look effeminate, but he had the fiat back and poise of a swordsman.

‘Of course,’ said David de Salmeton. ‘Your future is arranged. Best of all, your husband can share it, due to this mystifying ability, inherent in animals and simpletons, I am told, to trace a person by instinct.’

Gelis gazed at him. She said, ‘Do you have much luck in general, with your planning? You told Bel: you know as well as I do that my husband is dead. I don’t wear black, because our marriage was over. I hadn’t seen him for years. Report says he was killed outside Moscow, escaping after some spectacular crime involving rape. Who is going to trace me by instinct?’

‘He is with Adorne in Bruges,’ said David de Salmeton, sighing. ‘And your struggle to protect him would fill him with joy, no doubt, if he knew of it. Poor Anselm Adorne. What a pity the Scots squashed his appointment.’