Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [332]
Then Nicholas had said, ‘What will you do?’
‘I can’t tell yet. It depends on my uncle. Stay as long as he needs me, in the first place. And you?’
‘If I am allowed, find a house and wait until spring, when David de Salmeton is due to come back. After that, it depends on other people.’
Kathi said, ‘After all that has happened? My uncle is not going to send you away. And so far, you have not been rejected, it seems to me, by the others.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But a long stay might be different.’
She could hear the change in his voice. She said, ‘You haven’t spoken of Anna. Adelina. You saw her in Ghent?’
‘Yes. I didn’t want to … You will hear soon enough,’ Nicholas said. ‘She was offered exile, but had the spirit to boast, in the end, of all she did, so that she would be sure to die. Then she did it in her own way, with a knife. She is dead. Julius was there. He is still there. Gruuthuse is dealing with it.’
There was a silence. Kathi said, ‘We all played some part in discrediting her. But Gelis said you did give her an alternative. The same choice we gave you. To go east, to build her own business.’
‘That was not what she wanted,’ Nicholas said.
‘She would tell you that. I can’t be sorry,’ Kathi said. ‘Her whole object in life was to punish you for what life did to her. Was it bad? When you saw her?’
For a moment, she thought he would tell her. Then he simply shook his head, and she left it alone.
Before he went, he walked with her to the nursery, where Margaret was battering Rankin, and Rankin was indignantly complaining. ‘Pure Adorne as to looks,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I am afraid that the character is irredeemably Scots.’
Leaving, he was joined at the door by Anselm Adorne. ‘Are you going to Spangnaerts Street? Come with me. We shall care for your horse. My barge will take you more comfortably.’ His face, though grave, was not unfriendly. ‘Diniz told us all you did for young Robin. Poor lad, to die at nineteen. As for yourself … We don’t know what the future will hold, but I think you should now be free to choose. I shall not stop you from staying in Flanders.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Nicholas said. He had promised Adorne a report. He would deliver it. He waited, and added deliberately, ‘Berecrofts was a brave man; and a credit to his house and yours.’
Then he went home, to the Hof Charetty-Niccolò; to Marian’s. house.
ONCE, ON A DARK winter’s night, Tilde and Catherine de Charetty had fortified the big merchant’s house in Spangnaerts Street against Claes, their late mother’s husband. This time, fifteen years later, the porter was primed to allow the same person inside, provided of course he could identify him. It was asking a lot, for the working day was still in full swing, although it was dusk, and the yard and the house were thronged with anxious, short-tempered people, as they had been since the dreadful news of Captain Astorre and the army. The lamps in the house and the yard were all lit, which was some help at least: they made the Bank look welcoming, as it should, and the yard sparkled with frost.
The officers of the Bank had held a short policy meeting that day, after Tobie had left Nicholas with Adorne. In a separate meeting, it had been put to their womenfolk that Nicholas de Fleury might be allowed to join his wife for one night. Tilde and Catherine had agreed. Gelis, wordless, took no part in the decision, nor did the doctor’s wife Clémence, still wild-coloured from Tobie’s embrace.
They had all required to be told, of course, of the fate of Adelina in Ghent. The report was not quite complete: Tobie had not mentioned the tale concerning Marian’s child to her daughters. He did tell the others in private. He suspected that Gelis and his own wife both knew, but it was as well for Diniz and Moriz to be told. No doubt the time would come soon when Nicholas, too, would feel he could discuss it