Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [251]
He said, ‘Muscovy is not my country. I have no country.’
The other man’s gaze remained shrewd. He said, ‘I believe that. But the saviour of a nation is not always one of its own. Sometimes the Messiah comes from outside. You are a clever man, and a powerful one — for an apprentice.’ His lip curled.
Nicholas said calmly, ‘I was not bred to lead.’
‘You were not bred to follow,’ Acciajuoli said. ‘You study others. You know how to infect them with enthusiasm; how to rally them in adversity. You plan, you organise, you communicate. In what you do undertake, your confidence, one notices, is enviably absolute. What do you lack?’
Neither of them was smiling, now. ‘Arrogance,’ Nicholas said.
‘No,’ said the other man. Deep in thought, he had ceased to shiver. ‘Ambition, perhaps. And not, I think, because you are afraid to launch a great undertaking, and fail. You are not ambitious because you were born to be content.’ He fell silent. He said, ‘If none of us had interfered, you would be content still, would you not? Managing her business for Marian de Charetty; growing old peacefully with your children in Bruges.’
‘My children?’ Nicholas said.
‘You have step-daughters,’ said the other man. He made a sudden, irascible movement, not without an echo of pain, as if the empty socket in his thigh had rebelled against his standing so long in the cold. He said, ‘Then, if you are not the principal, consider that you may be the forerunner. In which case, you are right to safeguard your line. And you are wrong in treating the world as your cabbage patch: sowing, exploiting and moving on. It is time you set to planting for life.’
‘My children?’ Nicholas repeated, as if he had not heard.
‘A figure of speech,’ Acciajuoli said.
MUCH LATER, Julius came back. He brought Anna to Fioravanti’s house, where his host and Pietro his pupil plied them both with Chiot wine, while Julius poured out in aromatic detail the tally of his triumphs since winter. It was the money from Uzum Hasan’s jewels that had established the business, taking the place of poor Ochoa’s lost gold. Julius was solvent. He had appointed an agent in Novgorod. He was prepared to spend a few weeks in Moscow in order to establish another, with Nicholas’s concurrence and help. Then they could all go home.
‘Well, you can,’ Nicholas said, when his congratulations had been given and his own news briefly recounted. ‘You can go home whenever you like. But I’m under contract to the Grand Duchess to stay. And ask Rudolfo exactly what that means. Acceptance or prison.’
Julius stared at him. He looked remarkably well: hard and bright-eyed and vigorous and wholly recovered. Anna, smiling, sipping, watching Nicholas, hardly spoke. She was not discourteous, and her manner to Julius was unchanged, but it was possible to guess that the bloom of marriage had dimmed. It was even possible to guess that Julius had not noticed it.
Now he said, a little blankly, ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. I didn’t come to stay here for ever. I didn’t even mean to come here in the first place.’
Anna spoke, her voice quiet. ‘He’s trying to say, Nicholas, that of course we can go home when we wish, but that you must go home too. Forget what brought you here. Forget why you thought you couldn’t go back. If you don’t go back, you may regret it for the rest of your life.’
Nicholas felt very cold. He saw Fioravanti’s frown of concern, and the interested look on the face of Pietro. Julius had flushed.
He had used the pendulum within the last week, and everyone he cared for was living. Julius could not have possessed later, and worse news than Nicholas had. Nevertheless, he felt rigid with dread. He said, ‘Why should I go back?’
Anna said, ‘Can you trust your pendulum, Nicholas? Have you sensed nothing? Did you feel nothing last summer, when you were with Uzum Hasan? David de Salmeton travelled to Edinburgh and tried to seize your son Jodi, killing his bodyguard