Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [160]
In a month, wielding the power of her name and her Bank, Gelis van Borselen had extended some of her contracts and secured openings for others which Diniz from Bruges and his agents might not have perceived, or have risked. Other contracts she allowed to end, or did not pursue. The future of Burgundy depended on too many imponderables: on the rashness of the Duke and the skill of his enemies; on the power of the towns; on simple accidents of mortality which might reverse every plan. Weighing up the probabilities, in the past, Nicholas had discarded France in favour of the Empire or Burgundy. Now the Empire was in dispute with Burgundy, and from Ghent, she could not tell how the die was likely to fall. To study that — and to deal direct, for her Bank, with the Duke — she must go to the war-front at Neuss.
It was not a long journey: in summer it would take a good rider six days. She travelled just before Christmas, at a time when Ghent would be given over to festivities, and her safe conduct was signed by the Chancellor. Raffo, her best man-at-arms, had gone with Jodi, with whom he had formed a firm friendship; but she had another, Manoli, nearly as good, and a strong escort to protect her after she left Jooris, their agent at Antwerp, and took the Roman road south-east to Maastricht, and then, for safety, to Aix. She had written to that one-eyed veteran Captain Astorre, who was already encamped with the Bank’s troop of mercenaries, besieging Neuss with the Duke, and had received a reply which indicated that she would be met. He did not say by whom.
It snowed. The countryside for miles around the west bank of the Rhine had been scavenged for food by the army: as her party approached, they found taverns closed, or unwelcoming. They had brought their own fodder and fortified themselves with food they had carried from Ghent. Shivering over some chill, smoking brazier, Gelis envisaged the scented warmth, the indolent peace of the Genoese colonies in the closed months when trade ceased, and intimate relationships formed. Nicholas, with his gift for attracting companions, would probably make his own arrangements in Caffa; would be surrounded by eclectic new friends. Thinking of it, from the sober perspective now forced upon her, Gelis recognised that, even when Nicholas was sought-after and rich, she had never seriously feared his casual liaisons, or even minded the strange intellectual attachments which he continually half admitted, then shed. It was news of a lasting physical bond that, against all reason, she dreaded to hear.
But at least there was Anna beside him. Kathi had faith in Anna’s powers to protect Nicholas; and she was probably right. Anna herself would be sacrosanct: after what had happened to Julius, that was certain. She was not jealous of Anna. Only, as the days passed and the pendulum did not find her, she wondered why.
CAPTAIN ASTORRE was not against women in camp: he regularly exceeded the Burgundian ration of thirty per company, and always found they made handy auxiliaries. He was accustomed, too, to women as negotiators: Muslims and Christians both made well-accredited use of their wives and their mothers; Uzum Hasan and the present Sultan of Turkey sent their old ladies all over the place. When Gelis van Borselen set off for Neuss, Astorre dispatched his most famous gunner to meet her. Astorre and his soldiers missed Nicholas, but if the fellow didn’t choose to come back, then maybe he’d get his wife to talk sense to the Duke. Whatever Nicholas had done, Astorre didn’t mind.
The engineer John le Grant did. He rode to intercept the wife of Nicholas without pleasure, knowing that she had suffered, as he had, over the wreck of their achievements in Scotland, but that she must be allotted some share of the blame. Once, when his hair was a brighter red and his Aberdonian tongue