Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [12]
‘Why do you think?’ the newcomer had said.
Benecke considered. So far as he knew, the fellow had been good at his job. The business had prospered. If he’d cheated, he hadn’t been found out. That left only women. There had been two: a harridan of a wife, so he’d heard, and a little virgin who thought she was a boy. That is, there had been a lot more than two, but none spoken of seriously. The captain said, ‘I think you just wanted some fun. But since you ask, I’ll guess you killed the wife and raped the little girl-brother Kathi. I liked her,’ said the captain with a catch in his voice. ‘If you’ve raped her, I’ll kill you.’ They were both, by this time, quite full of ale.
‘You think you could?’ Colà said; and ducked as the captain got out his knife. Someone took it from him quite soon, and they settled to drink again. Eventually Paúel had to ask. ‘So what happened?’
‘You weren’t far wrong,’ Colà had said. ‘The wife flung me out, and the girl married somebody else. So I thought I’d get out.’
‘So why here?’
‘I thought I’d get out to where somebody owed me a favour. Are you busy this winter?’
The captain sat up. ‘You want a job?’ There were no jobs in winter. Danzig was sealed in by ice. There would be no ships in the port until March.
‘No,’ said Colà. ‘Or not until spring. Or not until I decide where I’m going. I just want to pass an entertaining winter with my inferiors.’
Ten minutes later, picking themselves up from the snow outside the Artushof: ‘They’ll never let you back in,’ Benecke said.
‘Yes, they will. Anyway, you started the fight, and they’ll forgive you. Do I get a bed?’
‘No,’ had said Paúel Benecke. ‘You’d spoil my winter complaining about your women.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Colà.
‘You’d get into bed with my women.’
‘Of course,’ had said Colà. ‘You couldn’t stop me. That’s why you don’t want me to come.’
That time, no one separated them, and it was three days before either of them could talk without lisping. Colà had been living in his house ever since, and Danzig would never forget him, nor would Paúel Benecke. He would never have to forget him. He was going to keep him in Danzig for the rest of his life. Despite the blood on the snow.
Now he said, ‘So where have you left her?’
‘Never mind. Anyway, she’s not yours, she’s mine. I got a doctor to see to the boy.’
‘I thought his arm was going to come off. You ought to be chained up and put in a lazar house.’
‘Come on,’ Colà said. ‘I’m going to tame her. Then I’m going to sell her to you.’
‘Before or after you pay me for your lodging?’ Paúel Benecke said. He gazed with fascination at the scratches all over the other man’s neck and arms. He said, ‘What if she’s diseased?’
‘You’re worried?’
‘No,’ said Benecke. ‘But I’m thirsty, and the look of you is spoiling my thirst. Good night, fool.’
He left, slamming the door. You found a man you could enjoy winters with, and he still behaved, at times, like an idiot. In their first weeks together, he had discovered it. Ingenuity, yes; lunacy even, to a degree — those were acceptable, those were what the merchants from Lübeck had enjoyed. But these escapades led by Colà were suicidal.
Three weeks after he came, the situation had come to a head over the bison hunt. Then they had been out of the city, travelling over snow to the forests, with their dogs, their nets, their spears and arrows. Colà had learned, God knew from where, that the beasts were enraged by red cloth, and had brought some. It had ended with the death of two men, while Colà cavorted round one of the animals in snow-crusted boots, whirling the fabric round his fur hat and calling and whistling.
It had been funny, all right. In the midst of the extreme danger that threatened them all, it was still funny to see the big man addressing the bison in prose, song and verse, while two thousand pounds of massive beast lowered its horns and skittered backwards and forth, its eyes red as lamps and the snow flying in