Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [207]
‘And if you had been killed on this trip, what would have become of the gold? Ochoa died for it!’
‘I know he did. So would you rather the Genoese got it? I promise you, that was the alternative. The only way to be sure was to arrange a password to be delivered by me. I have to be there.’
‘Then you should have stayed!’ Julius said loudly. The elephant skidded, and the mahout looked daggers, or perhaps knouts, at them both.
‘Well, of course, but I didn’t know you were coming to Tabriz!’ Nicholas retorted in high irritation. ‘And much bloody thanks I get for trying to fix up your trade with Uzum Hasan! I was told you’d be in Caffa, panting to warm up your marriage-bed.’
‘Well, I’ll wager you didn’t get there anyway, you young bastard,’ said Julius. ‘I expect that’s what this is all about, eh? She wouldn’t lie down on her back, so you thought you’d just make her wait for the gold?’
He was so confident. He was so unforgivably confident. Nicholas said, ‘And what makes you think I don’t lie down on my back? Any port in a long, tedious winter. She was reasonably good. But come the spring, a man wants a change. She’ll be quite happy to —’ He caught Julius’s arm as it moved and held it, hard. ‘Prove me wrong.’
The arm resisted his violently, and then began to relax. Julius said, ‘I don’t need to. I know the way your silly mind works. If you hadn’t shot me, you might have tried it. But you didn’t.’
He didn’t want a vote of confidence. He suddenly wanted to upset Julius as badly as he had been upset. He said deliberately, ‘I didn’t say I did try it. I said that she did.’
Julius pulled himself away. He said, ‘I won’t hear this. I won’t have Anna made the victim of one of your games. I tell you I know, as if God had told me, that Anna would never be unfaithful with you.’
Genuine, unmistakable certainty rang in his voice. So did fury. So did distress. Julius stood, breathing fast, and fixing Nicholas with his gaze. There was a long pause. Then Nicholas stirred and said, ‘Well, who would have believed it? Julius jumping through hoops over a joke. I’ll dream up a better one next time. Calm down, and think about all that fine gold instead.’
‘You God-damned —’ Julius was still shaking with anger.
‘I know,’ said Nicholas penitently. ‘I didn’t know you’d turned serious in your old age. What do you want to see next?’ People were still looking at them.
‘Nothing,’ said Julius. He pulled himself together. ‘All right. If you’ve stopped playing the fool, you might as well tell me the other half of the password. If you mean us to have it. If you aren’t planning to keep all the gold for yourself.’
‘Of course I am. That’s why I didn’t stay with it in Caffa,’ said Nicholas, exasperation and relief in his voice. ‘You can have the entire password with pleasure. The point is, you silly sod, that I have to be there to say it. I told you. So we’ll go to Caffa together. We’ll collect the gold. You can have it for your business. Everything will be ineffably glorious provided you keep your head, lower your voice, and walk out of this yard before the keepers let loose all the animals. Now!’
They got out; and outwardly, at least, the wilful little dispute seemed to have ended. Nicholas supposed that he had been sure that it would. He tried, for the hundredth time, to stop thinking of Anna in Caffa; and experienced a bruised ache of pity for Julius’s absolute faith in her chastity. Then he returned to his apartment, and the cheerful indifference of the Patriarch.
Chapter 29
FOR THEIR CEREMONIAL (and final) appearance before the lord Uzum Hasan in Tabriz, his guests had been endowed with garments of Persian provenance to replace their travelworn dress. Stepping out the following morning, escorted by beautiful youths and observed by deferential persons of birth — the turbaned nobles in satins and silks, the diminutive women with their skin swelling white within the open Persian bodices — Nicholas had looked forward to witnessing the Patriarch of Antioch emerge before him; to see him tramp up the marble steps of the Palace of the