Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [166]
Beneath two pairs of eyes, Gelis felt herself stiffening. She said, ‘I am quite sure that it was. And you like your stepfather, Bonne?’
The girl smiled. ‘My mother likes him. That is what matters, is it not?’
‘Bonne!’ exclaimed the Abbess quite sharply. She rose. ‘The girl has work to finish. You will excuse her, I’m sure. Her lady mother will be happy to hear that her daughter is in good health, as you see, and a credit to her professors. We look forward to the day when the Gräfin returns. Do we not?’
The daughter of Anna von Hanseyck performed a neat curtsey, briskly sweeping her toe. ‘The day my mother comes home will be the happiest, I think, of my life.’ She lifted her lashes to Gelis. ‘Except, of course, for the day when I wed my young husband. That will be happier still.’
‘How many good things,’ said Gelis, ‘there are to look forward to. And you have Jordan’s father to meet. That must be arranged. You will surprise one another.’
‘He surprised my stepfather Julius,’ said Bonne.
Shaken, Gelis departed. If you were to call the encounter a joust, the inmates of the convent had undoubtedly carried the day. It was only when reviewing it later that she began, with some admiration, to laugh. But by then she had written to Scotland: a cheerful message for Jodi; a direction for Clémence his nurse; and an urgent commission for Dr Tobias. And more important than any of these, a deceptive letter of friendly reassurance to Kathi, whose son, surely, was about to be born.
Chapter 23
IN DECEMBER THAT YEAR, the Emperor Frederick, outraged by Cologne and encouraged by Louis of France, declared war on Duke Charles, and prepared his armies to march. His intention, after safeguarding his frontiers, was to filch Luxembourg and the Low Countries from Burgundy; France was to have Picardy, Artois and Burgundy itself. He was quite optimistic.
Julius of Bologna, recuperating with resolution in Poland, read the signs and received with beating heart the tender letters that found their way, all through that winter, from his lovely, his remarkable wife. He did not necessarily broadcast her news. He did not mention anything whatsoever about gold. But as time went on, he cheerfully reaffirmed to all his clients, his colleagues (and his creditors) his decision to set out for Caffa by spring.
And as winter ended, Anna von Hanseyck in Caffa was found by her Mameluke steward to be weeping over a letter from Bonne.
It should have been a day of light-hearted reunion, for Nicholas had been absent from Caffa for some time, on an unplanned fishing expedition led by Dymitr Wiśniowiecki and his friends from the Russian community. Anna, the least possessive of women, had hastened him on his way. Temporary stewards were easily found. And she recognised, none better, the frustration Nicholas had begun to experience, with every business avenue long since explored, and his leisure occupations confined to those places where it was safe for a man in Mameluke guise to appear. Which meant, in practical terms, the Russian or Muslim quarters, the Franciscan monastery, or the house which she shared.
She had resolved, in her calm way, to provide a form of companionship with music, with poetry, with books, which he might find undemanding and familiar; and was pleased when she was able to tempt him to sing, or take the lute or the viol, or talk. In his turn, although she — so much in demand — could have filled her days with her own new-found friends, Nicholas set aside time to introduce her to a side of Caffa she might otherwise have missed: encounters with men and women and children who were not Genoese or Polish or German, and who held to different customs. She always tried to do as he wished, although sometimes, smiling, she had to confess that the Patriarch had already accompanied her to this salutary convocation or that. And Nicholas would then laugh unabashed, and remark that if she would only do as she was told they would make her, between them, the first lady Patriarch in Christendom.
She