Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [314]
‘Little turd,’ Astorre said. ‘John and Tobie saw him: I was away the day he came through. They’ll tell you what happened.’
‘Came through?’ Claes said.
It was Tobie who answered. ‘Hearty James was only here for a day. Then he went off with an escort to Innsbruck, David de Salmeton with him. They’ve gone for the winter.’
‘Good riddance,’ said Astorre.
‘How?’ said Claes.
It had been the doctor again, who chose to answer. ‘International string-pulling. Duchess Eleanor of the Tyrol is Scottish, royal, and a sister of the first wife of Wolfaert van Borselen. Wolfaert is a cousin by marriage of Gruuthuse. Anselm Adorne sheltered the Duchess’s niece when she was exiled from Scotland, and one of the Duchess’s friends is a Scots lady called Bel of Cuthilgurdy, who seems to have Andro Wodman at her service. David de Salmeton makes threats: prosecution is not entirely possible: steps are therefore taken to send him where he can do no harm — for the moment, at least.’
‘Eleanor will feed him to the dogs,’ Claes said. He sounded shaken. He laughed. ‘I needn’t have come back from Russia.’
‘Of course you should,’ Astorre said, glaring at him. ‘Where should you be but here, like a man?’
Thomas, who once had the pleasure of bear-leading a girl half over Europe for Claes, allowed himself a snort at that. ‘Or in someone else’s bed like a man,’ remarked Thomas.
Which was all very true, Astorre granted.
IN FALLING SNOW, intelligence freezes. Burgundy, shivering in its camp before Nancy, did not know that the cantons were slowly opening their borders; that from Lucerne and Zurich, Berne and Soleure and the depths of the Oberland, ten thousand soldiers for René were being brought to assemble in Basle, a week’s march away; that several thousand more were beginning to collect in Alsace. In the Burgundian camp, they only knew that success appeared certain, for the town they were besieging was dying. In Nancy, all the horses and dogs, all the cats and the vermin would soon be finished; the breaches made by the Burgundian guns were growing larger; and the garrison’s powder was practically done. There was no fuel for heat. The warmth came from the flames of their cannon-smashed houses, burning unquenched in a landscape of ice.
They did not surrender. Waiting, in the snow and the cold, the besiegers also started to suffer. Cut off from fuel and food, the weakening army, depleted since Grandson and Morat, depleted further by desertions, began to grow sullen and sick. While the Duke stormed about camp, taking the flat of his sword to grumblers, Tobie tramped from tent to tent with his box. In unoccupied moments, Nicholas and Diniz went with him. They had done this before, in Famagusta.
By then, Nicholas had achieved a footing for himself in the company, in appearance much the same as before, although perhaps more subdued, as befitted a man who had turned his back on them, and had now returned on a whim. His treatment by his own former partners was different, displaying a caution modified, no doubt, by the knowledge he wished they did not possess. They had the sense, at least, to keep their distance, even if Diniz had shown signs, since Ghent, of forgetting to do so. On his side, he made no advances. He could have turned round and gone home: David de Salmeton was threatening nobody. He did not.
Hardship and proximity sometimes brought about lapses. Checking the armoury with John, stiff-fingered, their breath congealing on their unshaven jaws, Nicholas had commented, once, on the clever disposition of tools. For a moment, John had continued, without speaking. Then, ‘Your wife’s idea,’ he had said, glancing round. ‘She’s a remarkable woman.’
‘I know,’ Nicholas said. And while the other man faced him still, his nose red, his cheeks blue, Nicholas continued, ‘And you made a bloody awful job of that frog. I had to put in two new bolts and a lever.’
John grunted, and returned to his work. He had not mentioned Adelina. No one had,