Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [36]
So Benecke didn’t know. It was what Kathi had been afraid of, that Benecke knew. She heard Colà-Nicholas swear at him casually, and then return his attention, without answering, to Robin. ‘The man has a point. It occurred to me, when I saw you, that I might just come back. Poland is fit for no one but Poles and I’ve done everything really worth doing. I’d be better off going back to Scotland.’
She saw Robin grow white, and she put her hand on his arm. Heads turned; Nicholas had not spoken quietly. Now he glanced round and turned back to Paúel. ‘Really,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of teaching you all. You can’t build, you can’t sail, you can’t even make wheels go round as well as mice do. I’m going to go back and re-open my house. Take up the Bank again. Look for my snivelling little wife and her bastard … What were they called?’
Robin’s colour had begun to come back. Kathi took her hand away, shaking her head. Benecke had got to his feet. So had a number of other men in the room. Colà said, ‘Who’s going to argue?’
The men were grinning. No one had taken him seriously. He had spoken out of pure malice, with all the authentic ring of those brutal remarks which Elzbiete had quoted. There seemed no topic now that was sacred. Now he had vilified everything — everything except, so far, the person he had mentioned even to her only once, and whose name was already blackened. But then, he had not had cause recently to speak of his parents.
Everyone had risen. The promised brawl had degenerated into good-humoured badinage, and the tavern’s clients, their meal over, seemed inclined to wander out of doors, where the night was cool but not cold, and still dry. The sound of drumming pricked in the distance, and the wail of bagpipes, and the scratch of a fiddle. Benecke said, ‘There’s a party down by the rafts. Why not come? If it’s to be Colà’s last night, we should give him something to remember.’
Robin went off to bring her a cloak. Benecke retired to the yard. Kathi spoke fast to Nicholas. ‘Jodi misses you, but he has Mistress Clémence and Dr Tobie, and he’s well. We brought nothing from him, in case you thought we were taking advantage. We really didn’t want anything. Just to see how you were.’
‘And God has two wives,’ he said. ‘Why did you come? I know Robin’s great bleeding heart, but you? Because you’re still training him?’
‘That is wicked,’ she said.
‘But true. Here he is, with your shawl and your slippers.’
They walked down to the beach, and she could not bring herself to speak to him on the way, because he was the only man there who was sober. She thought, then, that she had plumbed the worst of it.
Chapter 5
AT FIRST, she had Robin; and it was warm inside her cloak, sitting close to him, and they were able somehow to extract enjoyment from it all because they were both young, and had by now learned to partner each other through a great many exciting occasions, as well as imposing and tedious ones. Below the castle, the land that sloped down to the river was part watermeadow, part cobbled pathways which led to the jetties. The impromptu party was spread over the foreshore and dunes and had spilled, much of it, on to the vast swaying walkway formed by the rafts. The rafters themselves were mostly on shore or in the taverns, but the families of Mewe with their baskets and lanterns settled themselves shouting on the extraordinary craft, or made themselves seats on the bank, round the crazed red and blue light of the braziers, and got up and danced every time the musicians stopped drinking. Then, as they got tired, they sang.
Benecke had gone to check on his raft, accompanied by Nicholas. She did not want to discuss Nicholas. Especially she didn’t wish to treat him as a subject of strategy. She had begun to say so to Robin, but had broken off while negotiating his name. Robin had said, ‘Think of him, if you want to, as Colà. But call him Nicholas. He mustn’t forget who he is.’
She hadn’t answered.