Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [182]
Dr Andreas stepped into the maternal chamber and viewed with interest the large, expensive draped bed, rosily illuminated by the flames from an even more expensive stone hearth installed by the previous owner, whose recipe for fertility, as it happened, had been presented to his wife in this very same room, in unfortunate circumstances.
Within the bed, staring eye to eye with a baby, was the diminutive form of Katelijne Sersanders, her hair brushed neatly over her temporary bosom and her forearms supporting the child. Below its clothes, the infant’s legs hung like short tallow candles, and the back of its cranium resembled a bun. The girl’s expression was thoughtful.
Robin said, ‘Here is Dr Andreas.’ His wife’s eyes turned, and she smiled. A six-year-old boy turned as well and, jumping down from the bed-step, ran to Robin while shouting to Dr Andreas, whom he knew. Robin swung him up in his arms.
‘It didn’t come!’ screamed Jodi de Fleury, red with pleasure. ‘The boy she was expecting didn’t come! Look! They sent a girl-baby instead!’
‘Jodi,’ said Robin.
‘Well, he’s right,’ Kathi said. ‘You can’t deny that he hasn’t got it just right. But all the same …’ Reversing her hands, she turned the morsel in a satisfied way to face outwards. ‘All the same, I don’t think it’s a bad try for beginners. What do you think, Dr Andreas?’
Its legs, pigeon-toed, still hung like short tallow candles. Its face resembled a fig. ‘Delightful,’ he said. ‘Truly delightful.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t go as far as that,’ Kathi said; and she and her husband hooted with laughter while the six-year-old kicked to be put down.
A nurse arrived, and Dr Andreas laid forth his gifts and retreated. The door closed on the parents. Behind it, although it was hard to be certain, they seemed to be arguing over the pitch of the child’s cry at birth.
Later, Dr Tobie worked his way to his side. ‘Childish, were they? It’s just relief. Adorne lost a son. Those two wouldn’t admit it, but it was a girl they both hoped for. It’s to be called after Adorne’s wife. Must you do them a horoscope?’
‘Why not?’ the astrologer asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Tobie said. ‘But they seem to have had bad luck enough, all of them. I’d like Fate to forget them for a while. I’d like that little maid Margaret of Berecrofts to lay her own mark on the future.’
‘As she will. As we all do,’ Andreas said.
Chapter 25
PRISONERS IN THE Genoese citadel of Soldaia were normally kept in the Governor’s castle, a group of lofty, rectangular buildings, segregated by walls, that cut the sky at the upper edge of the vast, sprawling arena — a second town — which accommodated the garrison. The crag upon which all this was built plummeted sheer to the sea on the Governor’s side, and on the other descended towards town and river in a series of precipitous humps and steep channels.
The view from the keep was dramatic. Provided you were unbruised and unbound and fully in your right senses, you could survey the entire sweep of the dark, sandy bay with its crowded jetties, and the civilian town lying inland, and the low ranges of hills, with strange schisty outcrops further off. Between houses and hills lay a broad, fertile expanse, currently covered with slush, but yielding in summer wheat and grapes and grazing aplenty. A paradise in summer, was the Crimea — and even in winter, in a normal year.
To Nicholas de Fleury, who was not having a normal year, the view was not visible, although he knew that it was there: that if he stood in the free air on the battlements