Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [304]
Nicholas said, ‘The Duke’s bath. Julius and I floated in it from Sluys. A good astrologer should have stopped us.’
‘I don’t think,’ Gelis said in a murmur, ‘that you ought to give in to nostalgia. You do have a plan?’
‘I did,’ he said. ‘For different weather. No galoppini.’ He kept his voice soft, but could not prevent it from lightening. This was how, once, they had talked.
‘Life is full of surprises,’ Gelis said. ‘You have got the knife?’
‘Sitting on it,’ he said.
‘Painful,’ said Gelis. ‘They’ll have to unshackle me to push my head under. I’ll try what I can.’
‘Gelis,’ he said. His voice was not light, now.
The clanging got nearer, and the redoubled light.
‘Thibault relayed your message,’ she said. ‘It is true for me, too. I am only sorry for …’ But she could not speak his name.
‘But Jodi is quite secure,’ Nicholas said. He had lifted his voice, directing it at Anna, who had entered again. Behind her, with a sonorous clangour, the water magazine was approaching. Nicholas said, ‘By tomorrow, everyone who matters will know who Anna is, and how unsuitable such a match will be. I have appointed other guardians. There is no possibility that Bonne and Jordan could ever marry.’
‘No one would believe you,’ Anna said.
‘Oh yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘There is proof. I had hoped to deal with this privately, but if we both die, Father Moriz will publish the truth. Julius will learn it as well.’
‘Julius!’ Anna exclaimed. She laughed.
‘Do you think he would stay married to you?’ Nicholas said. ‘If you let us go, you can return east with Julius and live out your life, respected and wealthy in Poland. If you do this, you lose everything.’
‘Don’t you think it is worth it?’ she said. ‘I want to watch your face as she dies. I want to tell you something that none of your friends knows, and then I want to watch you die, sobbing.’
They were filling the tank. The fog curled down from the hatch, and the icy air, and pools formed on the deck. It would not take long. They only needed enough to cover her head, when they held her face down. Anna sat. The men climbed up and down. Gelis watched the water, not Nicholas. She looked very tired, and as stiff as if she also had been kicked. Nicholas found Anna’s gaze on them both, and looked down. Then the water was sufficiently deep, and Anna’s men went to Gelis and unshackled her wrists, and she rose in their grasp, and looked at Nicholas.
Anna said, ‘Would you like to say goodbye? A farewell kiss? Look, I think he is moist-eyed already. But first, perhaps we should take away the knife he is sitting on.’
Before she ended, Nicholas had twisted and kicked. As he hoped, Gelis threw herself forward, but the man at her right arm held fast, while the other leaped before her, intending to catch the knife as it flew. It meant that her left arm was free.
It would have offered nothing to graceful, feminine Anna. But this was Gelis, to whom a man’s world was not simply hunting or ledgerwork, and who had fought on a ship off the African coast. Who had always fought, damn her.
She had seen, watching Nicholas, that there was nothing to catch. The kick had been a feint. The next moment, he sent the real knife skimming towards her, and Gelis lunged once again. Since both men were going to get it before she did, there was not much point, she evidently saw, in competing. She plunged for the nearest scabbard instead, heaved out its sword and banged the owner hard on the back so that he screamed and staggered forward. She put her foot out as he passed.
Before her husband’s fascinated gaze, the man stumbled, flailed, and floundered up to the rim of the tank. There was a clang and a splash, and Nicholas laughed. Gelis frowned, and her remaining opponent looked round, which was unwise, for it allowed Gelis to knock the sword from his hand and slash at him with the point of her own. He gasped and fell. Anna screamed at him. The eyes of Nicholas were on Gelis who, stooping, collected the rod that unlocked the shackles, and started to back. In a whirl of red hair, Anna followed,