Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [326]
‘I don’t know. My hearing, probably,’ said Nicholas. ‘You wouldn’t like to give me a drink, and then say that all over again?’
He hardly knew, Tobie thought, what he was saying. Below his cap and half-fallen hood, his hair and neck were thick with soiled bandaging, and he held himself like a man with a javelin in him. Diniz, whose eyes never left him, was patched with cursory scars, and looked worn with care.
At his side, Nicholas said unexpectedly, ‘I can’t joke. I must—’
Until this moment, Tobie supposed, Nicholas had had to suppress everything that had occurred to concentrate on the supreme effort of travelling. Now, for the first time in his life, his composure openly began to give way. Diniz made a movement, but stopped. You could see why. It was no disgrace. This was a place of dying, and anguish. Other men sobbed, some with their heads in their arms; others like this, with tightened lids and heads flung back in a sort of defiance.
It swept aside Tobie’s restraint. He did what he might have done all those years ago, and took the lad on his shoulder; except that this time, he was weeping himself.
Chapter 44
KATELIJNE SERSANDERS had to be told. It was natural, in those first hours at Metz, that Nicholas should think of that first, and should take it for granted that he would tell her himself. It was distressing that, at the same time, he should continue, agonisingly, to take responsibility for what was left of the company, assuming the burdens that in the past Astorre, or Marian, or he himself would have shouldered after such a disaster. It was Tobie who had to bring home to him that it would fall to Diniz and to Father Moriz in Bruges to plunge into the work of ransoming prisoners and caring for their families, the salvaging of horses and weapons, the nursing of the wounded, the final assessment of their losses. All of that would be done from the Bank’s house in Spangnaerts Street, Bruges, which was not his any longer, and where even his presence would have to be negotiated.
Although less bluntly expressed, the reminder had reduced Nicholas to silence. But when, reviving, he had demanded, grimly, at least the right to go and find Kathi, Tobie had lost patience, asking him scathingly just how fast he believed he could ride, and why Kathi should be left in suspense because of his sensibilities. And he had reminded him, more to the point, that his own wife was in Ghent. So in the end, Diniz went off to Bruges, which was correct, since he was the head of the Bank there; and after two days, Nicholas got himself mounted and rode carefully north, with Julius and Tobie, to Ghent.
Because he was sick, they did not speak to him very much on the journey. Or it was truer to say that Tobie imposed the embargo which kept Julius, with his bursts of anger and misery, apart from where Nicholas rested or rode. The truth was that no one could bear, yet, to talk about what had happened, while there was nothing else worthy of speech.
From time to time, Nicholas thought about Gelis. But this, his return to her, which should have been swift and thankful and joyous, had only a personal significance, compared with the tragedy that was crushing them all. His soul was ripped raw, and the pain was continuous. His mind flinched, again and again, thinking of Kathi.
It had not occurred to him that Gelis might not have waited in Ghent, or that he himself, calling at the palace of Ten Walle, would be hurried into the Duchess’s presence, heart-sick and infirm as he was, to report on what he had seen. For, despite the tolling bells, the city enveloped in black, Charles of Burgundy’s widow had not yet accepted his death. He might be wounded; a prisoner; fled to some distant spot from which, one day, a courier would come flying. ‘Where is my wealth, my kingdom, my empire-to-be? Je l’ay emprins: I have dared. I mean to come back and dare once again.’
The Duchess — now the Duchesse Mère — had