Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [203]
They were actually standing within the half-open doors. Gauzy insects blundered over their shoulders, lured by the Patriarch’s lamp. Outside, the scent of roses and jasmine mingled with the other, libidinous odours so reviled by the Patriarch, and somewhere, a beguiling trickle of water was exchanging notes with a nimbly played harp. Nicholas became aware that he hadn’t yet: spoken. ‘And Kathi?’ he enquired. It sounded quite cordial, as he intended.
‘Oh, she’s produced. I heard just as I left. To that poor little sod Robin of Berecrofts. Between them, they’ve managed a daughter. They’re calling it Margaret.’
Nicholas heard him; but from his desert, his morass, his sea of moral squalor, found himself this time rendered irreparably dumb. Julius, oblivious, took his leave and was met and guided out of the grounds, walking erratically. He had drunk quite a lot. They had both drunk quite a lot. It was like old times. Nicholas stood for a while, and then went in and joined the Patriarch, who had finished praying and was preparing for bed.
The Patriarch looked up, leered, and then gave a nod towards the now-vacant cushion. ‘Does everyone know he’s a koekoek?’
In the Netherlands, it meant ‘willing cuckold.’ ‘He isn’t,’ Nicholas said.
‘Isn’t a cuckold, or doesn’t know it?’ the Patriarch asked.
‘You decide.’ Nicholas was half stripped already.
The Patriarch gazed at him with a kind of contentment. ‘You’d like me to be soft. I expect you confided in Godscalc. Nearly unmanned you, didn’t he, Julius, talking of your lady wife and your little son and Katelijne Sersanders?’
‘But you’ve braced me again,’ Nicholas said. He went out, got rid of the wine, and came back.
The chamber was dark, but the Patriarch’s voice continued to flow, sonorously, as if nothing had happened. ‘You want someone soft because you can’t stand isolation. You’ve got the brains, but you haven’t the guts, to make a good friar.’
‘If you say so,’ Nicholas said, from his bed, carefully.
‘Oh, I say so, and correctly, or how else have I made you spitting angry? A youth finds a priest or a doctor and dribbles out all that ails him. A thinking man keeps his own counsel, listens to teachers, and applies what he learns to himself. In private. With due humility, with unrelenting honesty, and in private. So don’t try to piss your woes over me.’
Nicholas closed his eyes, anchored his breathing, and spoke succinctly into the darkness. ‘And how are you going to stop me? The night is young, and I’ve got them all written out, with spaces ready for guidance and blessings. I can remember them even with the light out.’
There was a rumbling sound from the other pallet. ‘A good effort,’ the Patriarch said. ‘We’ll toughen you yet. You might even be able to stand up to what’s lying ahead of you.’
There was a silence. ‘I thought you didn’t know, or want to know, anything about my affairs,’ Nicholas said. He had straightened his neck from the pillow.
‘Oh, I don’t,’ said the Patriarch cheerfully. ‘But I shall tell you something of note. The Shah’s advisers will not invite Master Julius to their negotiations; only you, who are known from past dealings. You will be able to speak for your unfortunate victim, and with better success, I am sure. You may redeem yourself yet.’
‘Julius won’t like it,’ Nicholas said. He dropped back his head with an unequivocal thump, and hoped the Patriarch heard it. It made his skull ache.
HE SAW QUITE A BIT of Julius in the six days that followed, and gleaned all the news of the city from without the airy heights of the Palace of Hesht Behesht, the Eight Heavens. He was aware that Julius, catching sight of glimmering walls and ribbed domes and towering cedarwood doors