Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [274]
A lifetime of habit dies hard. ‘I thought they were in Bruges,’ Nicholas said.
‘Even yet!’ the Greek said. ‘Even yet, you will not break silence. I suppose I commend you. Nevertheless it is true, I take it, that the woman Anna offered herself to you in Moscow, and you refused? And that David de Salmeton has threatened you?’
Nicholas said, ‘He is working with Camulio. Another alum-dealer, like you and your brother. And myself, of course, under your tuition. The bottom, you will have noticed, has dropped out of the alum market.’
‘It has served its purpose,’ the Greek said. ‘It sent Zoe to Muscovy and you to the Levant. I am glad you at least perceived that you were being educated. A failed Crusade and your future all dependent on a man’s acquaintance with Phocoean holly. I am only sorry that the greater prospect seems also to have failed. I cannot see Moscow and Persia crushing the Sultan between them.’
‘That is what you hoped?’ Nicholas said.
‘That has been the hope of everyone still alive from Imperial Trebizond and Byzantium, and poetic visionaries such as Aeneas Sylvius, and earthworm visionaries such as our mutual friend Father Ludovico.’ He broke off, but resumed again almost immediately. ‘You learned something during your sojourn in Moscow, but did not lose your soul to military or domestic engineering?’
‘Part of it, perhaps.’
‘But you will not fill your life with cathedrals, any more than you will fill it with spectacles for the theatre or the blind. Russia may be too big for a man such as you, but these are too small. You must look for something that fits.’ His whining whisper modulated between impatience and scorn.
‘I shall do. I have friends who will help me. Rest,’ Nicholas said. He felt sick with the tragedy of it, and the strangeness of the other man’s intensity, underlined by its total detachment. Dying, Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli lay self-sufficient as a figure in bronze, and invited neither pity nor comfort. A mechanical courier, formed to deliver its message, and unstoppable.
‘You have friends, of course. Several men: you know their deficiencies. Two young women. I sometimes wonder if you know their strengths. I permit myself a crude question. You have no appetite for the Sersanders child, Katelijne?’
‘It is a crude question,’ Nicholas said.
‘So hers is a name not to be trifled with. She represents something to you that perhaps you are only now coming to realise. You may come to realise, too, that it does not matter that she is married with children. Your masculine friends are so situated, and you do not shun them. For fleshly pleasures, of course, there is your wife.’
Nicholas was silent. The characteristic chuckle, now distorted, mildly mocked his forbearance before, wilfully, continuing. ‘But, of course, she is clever as well, in a different way. I remember a discussion in Florence.’
‘You told her I was not to remarry: that posterity was already served. She told me. I found it offensive,’ said Nicholas suddenly. ‘I felt that she and I and our family were nothing; that you were presuming to look beyond us.’ He stopped abruptly. Any strolling astrologer can frighten you, Gelis had said.
‘And when you are using your pendulum, are you not looking beyond?’ the Greek said. ‘It takes a strong man to do so, and to face what you see. Your life is important, but you will not live for ever.’
‘I was not thinking of myself,’ Nicholas said.
‘I understand. You are concerned for the next generation. But all six children have been born who are to take care of your line in the future. Your role is that of father to Jordan, and protector, teacher, tutor and adviser to him and to the sons of other men. If you fail, there is always Dr Andreas. If you fear for your wife once you have gone, my lovely Nerio will see that she comes to no harm.’
The thought was grotesque, even when couched in irony. Nicholas held back a reply, and then saw, with growing dismay, that there were actually tears in the Greek’s eyes. He spoke then in a different voice.