Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [317]
‘I think,’ said Tobie, ‘that I would have done the same.’ He stood looking at Nicholas. He said, ‘Despite Astorre, I don’t think we are going to be home for Christmas.’ It was a grim joke. Christmas was two days away.
On Christmas Day, a hundred men died in the Duke of Burgundy’s camp before Nancy, frozen to death by the cold.
On the same day, a short way to the south, an enemy force of eight thousand men scaled the range of the Vosges, and prepared to cross the plateau which would take them to Nancy. Three days after its departure, René’s Swiss army also moved out. The King of Portugal, on his way from Paris through Rheims, was then exactly four days away.
IN GHENT, despite some natural disappointment that the Duke was not present, the Christmas festival was extravagantly splendid that year, with bonfires in every street, and skating parties on the canal, and coloured lanterns and bells and the making of pretty snow figures, dressed to look like the lady Marie and her Imperial betrothed. Sugar pastries and wine were sent by the Duchess to all the almshouses. It was assumed that, whether or not Nancy had surrendered, the Duke had retired for the winter.
In the Hôtel Gruuthuse, the Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck (as she still called herself) renounced her fast and began eating again, as if she thought there was something to live for.
In Scotland, Bel of Cuthilgurdy spent the festival with her son, but seemed pre-occupied.
In the Casa di Niccolò, Venice, the director Gregorio and his wife sustained the quiet success of their Bank and their marriage, and tried not to diminish the joys of the season for the sake of their son. Nevertheless, for them, and for a short-sighted Italian in Poland, and a capable monk in Cairo, it was a time for troubled reflection.
In the Hof Charetty-Niccolò, Bruges, the wife of Diniz hid her fears from her sister, cherished her children, and was shaken to find how much she welcomed the arrival, unheralded, of Gelis van Borselen with her son and the doctor’s wife, Clémence. Gelis, in her turn, seemed disconcerted by the warmth of her reception, and later, quite unexpectedly, broke into tears. Father Moriz, deploying for once a kindly attitude to his household of young women, found himself in silent contemplation of a number of considerations, none of them to do with the holy season he was supposed to be celebrating. He wished (to God) he had someone sensible to talk to, like Tobie.
In the same town, Anselm Adorne celebrated Christmas by reopening the Hôtel Jerusalem for the season, and inviting his deserted niece Kathi, her nurse and her children to stay. Naturally, Dr Andreas was also present, but Adorne drew the line at young Nerio, while sorry for whatever reverse he had suffered. He himself had been out of spirits since the departure of his quiet friend from Haddington, the Earl of March’s unmarried daughter Phemie. It irritated him when Kathi, on the heels of some tiff with Dr Andreas, began to spend time with de Fleury’s family in Spangnaerts Street. One should never fall out with astrologers.
In Moscow, a philosophical Franciscan made the most of his time and, despite what he had said, occasionally thought, with mild approval, of the soles of his sandals.
Christmas passed.
ON SUNDAY, the twenty-ninth day of December, the Duke of Burgundy’s cousin, Alphonse V, King of Portugal, entered the stricken Burgundian camp and rode with his chilled but magnificent train into the grounds of the Commanderie of St John before Nancy. His noble object, all knew, was to implore his cousin to please God and put an end to his fighting. His less noble object, all knew, was to end the French-Burgundian war so that he might obtain French assistance for an urgent small war of his own.
The Duke received him, putting on the table food he could not spare, and warming the gold-lined pavilion with braziers which might as well have been burning flesh and bone. Diniz Vasquez was called to interpret.
The discussions lasted two days.