Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [236]
He had known he would not find, here, the tall painted gables of Danzig, or the barbaric glitter of the Tartar and Turcoman tribes; the broken colonnades of Alexandria, or the secret gardens and bright domes of Cairo. The soaring churches and palaces of Rome, Venice, Florence seemed no more here than the dream-cities that swam in the air above the glaciers of Iceland.
For a moment, thinking of Iceland, he was brushed by a sensation he had also felt there, and was at a loss to account for it. There was nothing white and gold here: the snow was shadowed blue, and trampled into sepia. He had seen no eagles as yet. A vision of a woman entered his mind, but she was not Gelis, or Kathi, or Anna, although her hair was densely black. She was far more powerful than any of these. Like Violante, perhaps. Then the fevered shadows cleared from his mind, for they were entering the first of the portals, and Dymitr was receiving a welcome. A moment later, the whole train was passing through, and on to the greatest of the fortified monasteries where hospitality was dispensed.
They were in Muscovy. He had escaped from the Crimea with his life. He had won, at the very least, a breathing space in which to resolve what to do. From here, he could go anywhere.
He was weak, and apprehensive, and at the same time, mysteriously happy — even before he entered a room and the person within addressed him not in Russian or Italian or Latin, but in Bolognese French.
‘Well, to God’s praise and reverence, you are here! And what are we going to do with you now?’ said Ludovico da Bologna. ‘Warm of head, tender of heart and eager to commend yourself, I am sure, to the other foreigners in Moscow, such as the Grand Duchess Sophia herself, whom Rome knew as Zoe, ward of Cardinal Bessarion. I hear she was once mistaken for the Gräfin Anna in Rome. Did you ever meet her?’
‘I heard that story,’ Nicholas said. Julius had told him. It involved that young rascal Nerio.
‘Quite,’ the Patriarch said. ‘She has brought her friends. Moscow contains so many familiar faces that you will feel you are living in Florence, or Bologna, or among the lady’s Greek-Florentine kinsmen in the Morea. They tell me you have had the plague and are better again. How convenient.’
‘As you say. And this is your lodging?’ said Nicholas, looking about.
‘Not exactly. This is my prison,’ said the Patriarch affably. ‘And yours also, now.’
AS EVER, news from the four quarters of the world travelled at its own private pace, so that where it passed, like some ancient comet, men were left struggling to adjust to its retarded burden. Astrologers were brought in, not only to predict events that still lay in the future, but to surmise the effects of events which had already occurred. Fleets and envoys were diverted. Consignments of arms and placatory gifts were recycled.
After it was known that Caffa had fallen, the Curia waited a month to discover the fate of the Patriarch of Antioch, and learned it so soon only because the tidings came from Tabriz before Caffa was conquered. First to bring the news from Rome was the Bastard Anthony, the Duke of Burgundy’s famous half-brother, who carried it, with his new-gathered mercenary army, to Lorraine, where the Duke was currently fighting. It reached Bruges, brought by John le Grant, in September.
It was the month in which Clémence, de Coulanges and Tobias Beventini of Grado celebrated their marriage, at Anselm Adorne’s invitation, in the private Bruges church where, fifteen years previously, Nicholas the apprentice had married his employer.
Margriet, his dear wife, was no longer there to welcome his guests to the Hôtel Jerusalem, but the ensuing banquet was dextrously controlled by his chamberlain, and Adorne, calm and elegant, was supported by his well-mannered family. Some of his guests had come from Scotland, among them his nephew Sersanders, and a bright-eyed noblewoman from the Priory at Haddington who was referred to as Mistress Phemie. Dr Andreas was also present, with Robin’s father, Archie of Berecrofts.
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