Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [229]
Gelis said, ‘I don’t know what it all means. I don’t want to know, unless it is going to harm Nicholas. Is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tobie said. ‘I don’t even know whether to try to tell him. That’s why I wondered whether you seriously intended to join him.’
‘No,’ she said. She had already begun to reach that conclusion. This time, it was firm.
‘Then will you write? Or shall I?’
‘It might fall into the wrong hands,’ Gelis said. ‘I suppose I could put it in code.’ Her thoughts turned. She said, ‘Would Nicholas have known the nun you met? Ysabeau, Josine’s sister?’
‘Josine died before he was born,’ Tobie said. ‘The nun told me that. He never knew his grandmother, or had anything to do with her sister, although Adelina did. He never knew, apparently, that his mother Sophie was a twin. She had a sister.’
‘But that is — Nicholas has an aunt?’ Gelis exclaimed. ‘Where? Can we find her?’ And reading his face, she answered herself, ‘No.’
‘No,’ Tobie said. ‘The twin was born dead. No witness for the antecedents of Nicholas. If you want to write to Nicholas, I’ve told you all I know’
Again, the invitation. Again, she refused it. She had begun by worrying over Jodi: about his fatherless future; about the dangers from de Salmeton and Wodman. Now she had another perspective.
She could not explain, but she could affirm, at least. ‘I love him, you see,’ she said to Tobie. ‘You ought to know that.’
‘Do you think I don’t?’ the doctor said.
The words remained, long after he had gone; after she had lost the chance of asking him what they meant.
And soon, it hardly mattered.
IT WAS ROBIN OF BERECROFTS who came to the Bank the next day and, avoiding the bureau, had himself shown to her quarters. She saw his face, and sent Jodi away. ‘Kathi?’ she said.
His face relaxed, and then tightened. ‘No! Bless you, but no. Gelis —you know of yesterday’s ship, that brought some Genoese merchants from Poland? Tobie told you?’
‘They brought news,’ she said. She pushed aside the notes on her desk. They were already encoded.
‘Bad news,’ he said. ‘Bad for Genoa; worse for us; worst for you.’
‘Then it’s Nicholas,’ Gelis said. Quite slowly, everything came to a halt.
‘It isn’t certain,’ he said. ‘Gelis, it may be all right. But Caffa has fallen. The Turkish army landed at the beginning of June and overran Caffa and Soldaia and Gothia: took the whole Crimean Peninsula, and captured or killed every foreigner whom they could reach. No one knows who escaped, but some did. Nicholas would have Julius with him. Anna is clever. If Ludovico da Bologna is also still there, they would have a better chance of survival than most. We don’t know yet, that’s all.’ He was kneeling beside her, his warm hands around hers.
Gelis gazed at him. The beginning of June. Three months ago. No wonder she had had no further messages. No wonder Nicholas had not sensed de Salmeton’s attempt to seize Jodi; had not apparently followed the move from Scotland to Bruges, or anything that had happened since. He was dead.
Then she thought: I would know.
She said, ‘Can I go and find out?’
Robin’s face was full of pity and pain. He said, ‘The Crimea is full of Ottoman soldiers. No one can get in. The news came through Moldavia. Of course, there will be formal representations: Genoa and the Pope will send diplomats, especially if the Patriarch is still there.’ He stopped and said, ‘I wanted to go, but they made me see that it would be useless. It’s over. We killed him. We killed him by turning him out.’
She could not see his face now. He had come to comfort her, but instead, she felt his tears fall on her hands. She said, ‘He’s alive. Robin, I know.’
He looked up then, with a guarded hope that