Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [192]
‘I do not know,’ Anna said. Within the boneless clasp of her hands the flask tilted then languorously slipped; as she made a slight movement to catch it, the scented liquid pooled and fell from its lip, infiltrating the damask weave of her gown, dropping in luminous gouts among the small jewels and dyeing the warp and weft of the textile so that the pattern sprang into life, its leafy boughs, its blossom and tendrils enclosing her body. Ceres, goddess of harvests.
She dropped the flask in a daze and, plucking at the sodden gown, began to open it. Then, finding his eyes on her, she stopped.
Nicholas said, ‘Your maid will do that. Where is your room?’
In the warmer light, mellower than that of the tent, he saw again the fine modulations, the finished exactitude of the skin which clothed the rounded flesh of her breasts. Compared with that ethereal tailoring, his own dress scraped as if woven from husks. She took him by the sleeve and began to draw him erratically with her. She opened a door.
The bedchamber inside was empty. Nicholas said, ‘Anna.’
She shut the door. She said, ‘Julius cannot give me a child.’
‘Then neither can I,’ Nicholas said.
‘You will not give me a child, even after today? Then lie still,’ Anna said. ‘And I will take one.’
She tried to trap his wrists when he turned, and when he still pulled away, she dragged his doublet free of its clasps and tore the cambric. She clung to him as he moved, step by step across the tiled floor of the room, and leaned her weight on his shoulder as he took a seat at the writing desk, fending her off with one hand, which she seized. When he stretched out the other, she cried, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Writing,’ he said. ‘Giving you the secret of the gold. If I don’t survive, it is yours.’
She did not speak. As he wrote quickly, awkwardly on the shifting paper — the name of the ship, the other information he wanted her to have — she settled low at his side, sheathing his arm with both her own, her brow resting against him. Finishing, he saw, looking down, that her eyes were closed. He moved the paper gently towards her. ‘Anna.’
She opened her eyes. They looked sightless. She said, ‘You didn’t kill Julius. What do you owe him?’
‘This,’ Nicholas said. ‘And afterwards, you would hate yourself, and then me.’
Then she lifted her head. ‘If Julius were dead, would you love me?’
He laid the paper close to her hand, and rose before she could hold him. He said, ‘Is this love?’
‘I don’t know,’ Anna said. ‘I have never experienced it.’
He had been going to leave, but he paused. Then, as if he had again changed his mind, he turned and walked from the room, drawing the door to its close all in silence, so that the single clap as it shut bit the air.
He had said that he would stay for some days. But when they knocked on his door the following morning, they discovered that he had gone.
LUDOVICO DA BOLOGNA, when Anna found him, was philosophical. ‘Such altruism! Rubbish. A man of restless disposition, that is all. I should hardly have offered protection if I could not provide it. However. He has left me a note. I gather he believes he can amuse himself in the interior until the seas open again. He plans to join me on the way to Tabriz.’
Anna said, ‘He has a Genoese pass.’
‘He thinks it safer, it seems, to avoid Genoese seaports.’ The priest, who was eating, glanced up at her. ‘As soon as ships can sail, I must go. When is your husband arriving in Caffa?’
This morning, her face was frowning, and white. ‘In June. I wish it were earlier. And what do we do if we still cannot leave because we have to wait for this wretched gold? It belongs to Nicholas,’ said Anna fretfully. ‘He should have stayed.’
‘I am glad,’ said Ludovico da Bologna, ‘to see that you have joined the ranks of those who have learned to view the rogue in his true colours. Of course he should have stayed. Since he has not, I suppose your husband will decide what is best for his business. I shall be returning to the West, as is obvious, through