Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [283]
‘But never once managed to harm him,’ Tobie said. ‘Again, doesn’t that suggest something to you?’
‘That she only wanted to plague him?’ said John slowly. ‘That business with the knife. Julius apparently claims Nicholas was trying to seduce her, but mightn’t it have been the other way round? Or maybe she genuinely fell in love, and he rejected her?’
‘There were some accidents when they were together in Poland,’ Robin said. He spoke without much expression.
‘But then they stopped,’ Tobie said. ‘Nothing happened to Nicholas after that.’
‘Because of the gold,’ the boy suddenly said. His face, faceted by the fire, seemed composed of triangles. ‘Kathi told her, before she went to Caffa, about Ochoa and the gold. She would want to wait till it came.’
Tobie was staring at him. He said, ‘And it took a long time to come, didn’t it? She must have been waiting still when Nicholas left her at Caffa. She nearly lost her life over that, when Caffa fell. But she also, surely, lost her hopes of the gold. Yet still, nothing happened to Nicholas in Moscow.’
‘Julius was with them,’ Robin said. ‘And he and Anna stayed for the winter in Novgorod.’
‘And Nicholas was always either in prison, it seems, or somewhere under the eye of the Patriarch. He got the news that David de Salmeton was in Scotland, but he obeyed Gelis and stayed where he was. He doesn’t seem to have made any effort to leave until the scandal over the knife, when Julius and Anna were asked to go home, and he seems to have followed them.’
‘Did he have any choice?’ John said. ‘He was probably asked politely to get out, as well.’
‘But he seems to be coming home,’ Tobie said. ‘In spite of Gelis, in spite of Adorne’s embargo and the kind of reception he could expect to get from the rest of us.’
John said, ‘Perhaps he was attracted to Anna. Perhaps he was pursuing her. Perhaps that’s why he shot Julius in the first place.’
‘You didn’t see him afterwards,’ Robin said. Tobie looked at him.
‘And of course,’ Tobie said, still watching him, ‘Nicholas would have made sure that Julius didn’t survive the next time, if that had been so. In Tabriz, or travelling through occupied Caffa, it would have been easy to get rid of him, and then divorce Gelis and marry Anna. But he didn’t. He kept in touch, indirectly, all the time, with Clémence and Gelis. He didn’t push through his annulment.’
There was a silence. John broke it abruptly. ‘I think you are saying — Are you saying that Nicholas knows who Anna is?’ He saw Robin’s face change.
Tobie said, ‘That is what I am saying.’ His expression was grim.
Contemplating him, the engineer felt something close to nausea. He thought of all it explained, and became aware that he was cursing continuously, under his breath. He pulled himself together and found an objection, but not because he had any real doubts. ‘But if that is so, why didn’t he confront her, denounce her?’
‘Because Adelina is family, and he doesn’t do that to family,’ Tobie said. ‘He kept her with him. He drew her east, as far from Gelis and Jodi as he could. The only time he left her, she was on leash in Caffa, waiting for the gold that never came, or stranded in Novgorod, while Julius founded his empire. But then she was sent home, and he followed, obviously, as soon as he could.’
‘I must go back,’ Robin said. The bleakness in his voice said it all.
Tobie looked at him. ‘I thought the same, to begin with, but we’re too far away. It doesn’t matter. Clémence knows all that I do, and she and Gelis will be safe in the palace in Ghent, while Kathi can depend on Adorne. Robin, he won’t let anything happen to her, or the babies.’
‘Does Adorne know? Can he be told?’ Robin said.
‘About Anna? He’s a magistrate: he doesn’t like Nicholas; he might resist the truth without proof. But I think,’ Tobie said, ‘that you can depend on Kathi to find some plausible cause of alarm. And Gelis would have told them, now, at the Bank.’
Diniz and Father