Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [282]
John le Grant, watching Tobie, could have told that he didn’t wish to talk about Cyprus, or Albania, or Volterra. The boy Robin had come mostly because he was nineteen, and courageous, and wanted to be able to say, one day, that he had fought with an army. Tobie had come for other reasons, and finding himself back in the field, was remembering why he had left it.
John had accompanied Tobie when he received his first audience with the Duke, in the great, gilded wooden pavilion lined with tapestry which had been erected in the grounds of the old Commanderie of the Knights of St John, a mile or two from the ramparts of Nancy. It was the same pavilion and the same site occupied by the Duke in October, when he had entered Nancy in triumph but left it so poorly defended that René had taken it back again. The Duke, short and burly, pious and wilful, had not impressed a man who had been military surgeon to Urbino. Tobie had got on better with Matteo, the Duke’s Portuguese doctor. Tobie had a new wife, and in John’s opinion, was an ass to be here. And of course, if Nicholas were alive, he wouldn’t be.
They had talked of Nicholas one night, he and Tobie. It was a subject he normally avoided, but recent conversations with Gelis had made him reconsider a number of things. At the end, Tobie had said, ‘You used to call him a wrecker. You’ve mellowed.’
‘That’s because I’m alive and he’s dead,’ John remarked. ‘Resurrect him, and I’ll toughen again.’
A week later, Tobie rode across the crusted mud to his smithy to find him. ‘Are you still interested in news of Nicholas?’ An icicle dripped down his neck, and he looked up. ‘Christ, I thought this place would be warm.’
‘So did someone else. The fuel supply’s gone, and I’ve just come from rewrapping the guns for the third time. So what about Nicholas?’
‘A letter from Clémence,’ said Tobie, shaking it in his gloved hand. ‘They think he’s alive. And Julius and Anna have come back to Flanders.’
‘What!’ said John. It came out sharply, and he saw Tobie’s reaction.
‘Ah,’ said Tobie. ‘Then we have something to talk about this evening. And I think we should include Robin.’
He didn’t need to be told, then, what it was about. He had warned Gelis himself about trusting money to Anna and Julius. He had thought there was something fishy about the girl Bonne. He had not guessed what Tobie was to tell him that night about Anna, before the meagre fire in their cabin, with Robin pouring their ale. Or what he was to find out, infuriatingly, about that scented snake David de Salmeton.
It was not all new to Robin. Robin, he had already discovered, had observed a lot about Nicholas in Poland: enough to temper the hero-worship, but not to dispel it. You could see in him now, as he moved about, listening, the mixture of involuntary thankfulness and horror that he supposed he felt in himself. It impelled John to speak, out of contrariness, at the end of the recital. ‘We still canna be sure about Nicholas. There was a rumour that he was dead. Gelis is now convinced that he isn’t. There’s no proof either way. Except that some envoy’s priest begging money from Venice has spread a tale that he’s met him coming from Moscow.’
‘Don’t you find that suggestive?’ Tobie said. ‘The priest knew him from Moscow, and Nicholas let himself be seen. If Nicholas thought Gelis was in danger, he would want it to be known as fast as possible that he was on his way. Shamming dead might have been his only way of escaping from Moscow.’
The boy said, ‘But he may think he has nothing to face but David de Salmeton. This other thing may be far more dangerous. If