Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [263]
‘As her servant,’ Nicholas said. ‘Which, of course, I still am. Monsignore, go home. If no one comes, I shall escort her myself.’
A less skilful man might have thought it polite to insist. Acciajuoli smiled, kissed the lady’s hand, and, escorted by Nicholas, limped to the door, where his servant was waiting. The door closed. Nicholas turned.
Except for Anna, the room was quite empty. The planed timber walls breathed their resin, and the precious objects of Fioravanti’s collection, a little disarranged by the company, defined the declining light in slow-swimming glimmers of silver and marble and bronze. The air sank through the window: the acrid, earth-smells of Moscow, as distinct as the fruit, musk and incense of Trebizond; the fish, clay, and camel manure of Timbuktu. The sweat, flowers and bath-oils of Tabriz; the rotting fish of the Faroes. The hot, peppery, ammoniac stinks of the dyeyards in Nicosia and Bruges. The scent of love in Bruges; the one he would remember, when all the others had gone.
He knew, as he moved into the room, how that memory had been induced. She had risen from Julius’s bed to come here. Julius’s dutiful bed.
There was a handsome table in front of the window, with his own cup still standing upon it. He collected the wine and sat down gently behind it, on the flattened tapestry on the sill. The air blew on his cheek. She had chosen to remain where she was, in the shadows, framed by the embroidery of Rudolfo’s best chair. When she spoke, it was not easy to hear her, although he did. She said, ‘I can’t go home without you. That is why I have kept Julius in Russia. He wants to go back.’
He didn’t know what to say. Finally, he said, ‘I’m glad you told me, for I think there is a misunderstanding. There is nothing here for you, Anna. You have been my good friend, but that is all.’
‘You would feel bound to lie,’ she said.
‘I’m not lying,’ he said. ‘And I don’t understand, really. It was you who wanted Gelis to come.’
‘Because I was afraid this would happen. I can’t live without you. I’ve tried. Come with me, Nicholas.’
‘Where?’ He tried to sound patient, and kindly, and sensible. He tried to sound as if never, in any conceivable way, could he desire her.
‘Anywhere. You wouldn’t be breaking my marriage to Julius. Whatever you do, I’m leaving him.’
‘But that’s nonsense,’ Nicholas said. ‘You’ve persuaded yourself that something exists, and it doesn’t. Go home. Forget me.’ And as she did not answer, he felt he must go further. He said curtly, ‘I’m afraid I told Julius what happened between us in Caffa. I’m sorry, but I owed it to him.’
‘He told me. He didn’t believe you,’ Anna said.
She was unusually beautiful. Even as her fingers ran down the clasps of her gown, even as he prepared to forestall her, he felt the small lurch of the heart he always experienced when he saw her or heard her cool voice. But he could not let it go on. He said, ‘Stop, Anna.’ She had already pulled the gown down from her shoulder. The dying light, forsaking the statues, the flasks and the ewers, slipped past him to pool on the bare skin of her throat, then her breasts as she stood. He set his hand to the bell on the table and said, ‘I am sorry. I am going to ring. Rudolfo’s steward will come.’
‘He will be too late,’ Anna said. Something gleamed in her hand, against her fair skin. A knife.
Nicholas said, ‘What good will that do?’ He had risen, so that the air flowed unchecked through the window, although the table still stood between them. Anyone, glancing in as they passed, would be able to see her with her gown pulled down about her, and her chemise wrenched asunder below.
She did not care. She said, ‘Will you come with me now? Take me somewhere and love me. Julius would not try to hold me after that.’ The knife gleamed.
‘No,’ he said. There were people outside. He could hear