Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [44]
‘Do you apologise?’ Nicholas said.
‘Yes!’ Benecke howled.
‘You never touched Katelijne Sersanders, and you will deny it if anyone says that you did?’
‘Yes!’
‘And you understand that you will do everything in your power to make this man happy, and Anselm Adorne happy, and help the embassy obtain what it wants, or he’ll tell the world what you’ve done, and you’ll hang?’
‘I understand,’ said Paúel Benecke sullenly. Blood had burst through one of his bandages.
Nicholas looked up at Robin. ‘Well?’
Robin said baldly, ‘I am satisfied. We don’t tell Adorne, or anyone else.’ He paused. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘What we were doing,’ Nicholas said. He had reseated himself, with difficulty, in the chair with a back. ‘Taking the raft down to Danzig.’ Benecke, lurching to his feet, had gone to pour himself wine.
Robin said, ‘Together?’ Then after a moment, ‘Then we shall meet.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Nicholas said. ‘You’re going to collect the rest of your embassy and get on your travels at last. To Thorn and the Black Sea and Tabriz in Persia. You are going on?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. But Adorne couldn’t leave. They wouldn’t let him move until they’d reached an agreement.’
‘They’ll let him move now,’ Nicholas said. ‘You’ll be out of Danzig before I get there.’
‘And after that?’ Robin said. He felt cold.
‘After that, you go south, and we stay and start our new season’s sailing,’ Benecke said. He turned round, his black bristles dripping, waving the flask. When Nicholas nodded, he filled up two tumblers.
‘Together?’
‘Why not together?’ said Benecke, astonished. ‘Don’t you think we get on well together? He can’t quite kill me; and so far, I can’t quite kill him. You don’t need a Bank to be rich.’
‘I thought you needed a war,’ Robin said. ‘You’re talking of going to sea?’
‘I’m talking,’ Benecke said, ‘of running the first truly international force of seagoing mercenaries. My seamanship, Colà’s fancy for numbers. Any job, provided the money is right.’
Robin was silent.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nicholas said. ‘Have you some other suggestion?’ ‘No,’ said Robin at last. ‘It is none of my business.’
TELLING THE STORY later to Kathi, Robin held nothing back, and she listened, gazing out of the window. She was already packed to return. At the end, she said, ‘I thought he would join us. I was sure he would leave Benecke.’
‘No. When Nicholas didn’t kill him, he tied himself to him. There is no future in it. They will die from drinking, if nothing else.’
She knew as much, from Elzbiete, who had come to see her that morning to do what Gerta had done: to ask her to persuade Colà to leave Paúel and go home. But she could not do that. She was as powerless there as any of Benecke’s forceful circle of women.
‘We thought,’ Elzbiete had said, ‘that perhaps you and Colà were lovers, and he would give up his new plans to follow you. Or that my father’s bad conduct would drive you all away. But …’
At which point Kathi had interrupted. ‘Elzbiete? Who prepared the drugged wine?’
And the girl had flushed before saying, ‘Gerta has a stock of these things. Also a drug which makes a man ill if he drinks. I would give you some if you took Colà away. We wish to be friends with you.’
‘I’m sure,’ Kathi had said drily. ‘But we can’t take him back home, and he doesn’t want to go to Tabriz. So how do you persuade him?’
‘A woman?’ Elzbiete had said.
Kathi looked at her, and thought of Gelis van Borselen, and wondered how to deal with this. In the end, she said, ‘He has a beautiful wife. He can’t go back to her, but I think he finds it hard to forget her. Until he does, no one else would have much chance.’
‘But he does not need to marry. A mistress would serve. What kind of girl does he like, Katarzynka?’ Elzbiete had asked.
Kathi looked at her a trifle wildly. ‘How would I know?’ The ideal woman for Nicholas? She considered the question, intrigued. Someone beautiful, which poor Elzbiete was not. Someone clever, amusing, experienced. Not a virgin. Not an older woman again. Dark,