Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [54]
She said, ‘Then it depends, doesn’t it, on what you want. Adventure? Money? Fulfilment?’
‘Expiation?’ he suggested.
She was silent. Then she said, ‘Julius would tell you it isn’t necessary. That your demonstration of what one man can do was more extraordinary than the damage it caused.’
‘And you?’
She said, ‘I see the marks on your face. And I think that you will dig your own grave if you are left alone very much longer.’
‘Do you? Anna, my dear,’ Nicholas said, ‘you must have a very low opinion of my resources. Who on earth have you been living with recently?’
They looked at one another. She said, ‘Of course. I am sorry. I was treating you as a child. I live with Julius; and he does take a long time to bring wine.’
Then Julius came, and Nicholas excused himself presently. The first encounter was over.
She was all that he remembered, and more. Back in his room, her scent stayed with him still. Nicholas walked to the window and stood. He wondered how long he had, before Adorne descended on Thorn. A week, little more. The King was coming to Thorn, and Adorne had been advised to be there by Pentecost. With the Patriarch. With Katelijne. With Robin.
Put yourself in the other man’s place. He had done that. He was fairly sure he knew what to expect. He was back in the vice. The Patriarch would not approve, but there was a certain grim pleasure in reviving the arts which had led in the first place to his success. Success, that implacable foeman of virtue, as someone had once observed.
IN THORN, the summer rains started early that year. Usually, the wet month was June, but the heavens giddily opened just before Pentecost, filling the streets with loquacious torrents and clouding but not improving the river, whose sandbanks and shallows made even short crossings a penance. The rafts had long since gone north, and the river would continue to shrink. The people of Thorn, throwing their rubbish into the ruins of the departed Knights’ castle, reminded one another of the great final days of the war, when the grain rafts had gone north in convoy, with the King’s warships and cannon escorting them.
That was Casimir for you: a careful King who looked after his own in the matter of taxes. Thorn was pleased when the King came to stay, in spite of the expense of preparing the Burgh Halls, and decorating the churches and streets, and painting the ferries. Even when he proposed to lodge at his castle on the opposite bank, they were tolerant, for all his audiences, of course, would be held in the city; and the town would fill up just the same with surplus courtiers and petitioners. Also, of course, the boys sneaked across. Casimir had thirteen children, and some of them were always about, with their tutors and dancing masters and nurses. Thorn was a lively place then. It was lively even before the Court arrived, or the princely delegation they said was coming from Danzig. One of the reasons why it was lively was the high spending of Friczo Straube’s clients.
Julius had always enjoyed making an impression. His social ambitions, carefully monitored, had been one of the assets of the Bank in the days when he controlled the Casa in Venice, and his marriage had given him cachet in Germany. His name therefore was already familiar in Poland, and Herr Straube’s recommendation did the rest. Invitations poured in.
On the first morning, he had found Nicholas resistant. ‘Who are they?’
‘One of the old Cracow families. I’ve done business with them in Cologne. They want to meet you. All right, you’ll need to mind your manners and dress up and shave, but their castle will be really worth seeing.’
‘I mustn’t piss on the hangings, or blow my nose into my hat?’ Nicholas had complained. ‘You’ll have to tell me what to do. I’ve been in Danzig all winter, fishing from a hole in the ice.’
Anna was smiling. She had warned him that Nicholas might be difficult. To begin with, Julius had thought she was wrong,