Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [74]
As soon as he started to move, he was made aware of the difference. The ring wasn’t whipping him this time. This time, all its fierceness subdued, it seemed full of an earnest solicitude, nudging, prompting, swaying, circling demurely. No, I do not wish to go through to the stockroom. Yes, this is the way I wish you to turn. Yes, I wish you to climb. No, I do not wish to go to the reception-room, to Herr Straube’s chamber, to the other guest-room, to the granary. Yes, again I wish you to climb. This is the place. This is the door. Go into this room.
It had brought him to his own chamber.
He stood inside the door. The cord shook itself suddenly. An end to pretence. The ring gave a harsh whisper. No more need for blandishments. He knew now what was going to happen; but he was not a minion, an echo. He would determine when and where he would cede. He stood in the doorway and, drawing on all his remaining strength, hurled his contrary demands, the will of the diviner crossing the will of the pendulum: self against self. You want me to go to the window? The candle-holder? The cupboard?
He was punished for it. This time, the answers were physical. The circling stone started to rise. The childish face, stony, smiling, passed his with increasing speed, its hiss changed to a snore. The cloth was snatched from his hand, and the ring, smoothly hurtling, seared the air with its rebuttals. No to the desk. No to the bed. No! No! No! to the prie-dieu. His wrist ached, with refusing to name what it wanted.
He went there, in the end. In the end, he said, in his mind, ‘To the table?’ And the stone pulled him there; converting itself, in a great convulsive leap, into the pendulum that answered him, Yes! Then it fell, and hung dangling, like the arm of a fighter which has just delivered the ultimate blow.
It had brought him to nothing very much, you would say. Made free of the whole country of Poland, the whole of Thorn, the whole of Friczo Straube’s fine house, the stone had brought him to nothing more sinister than this table, upon which rested a flat pewter dish, stained with black.
Nicholas stood. He was still standing when someone addressed him. The voice was quite near. ‘Pan Nikolás?’
Jelita, his servant, submissive as ever in his long coat and cap and soft boots. He was in the room. Perhaps he had been there for some time. He spoke once more. ‘My lord?’
Nicholas moved. He felt very stiff. He remembered being in a great haste about something. To find and talk to Katelijne while everyone was occupied at the games. His hand was sticky with blood; he saw the man looking, alarmed. Nicholas said, ‘It’s all right. The lady of Berecrofts. Did you find her?’
‘I came to tell you, my lord. She has gone to the contest with her husband and uncle. The merchants invited them. The Baron Cortachy is to leave Thorn, it appears, and the merchants wished to do him particular honour, not desiring him to think badly of them in the future. So they say, my lord.’
Nicholas gazed at him, vaguely surprised by the unaccustomed loquacity. He seemed to remember that Julius and Zeno were to attend the same gathering. Propriety would presumably prevent an explosion, and the presence of Anna would be conciliatory. He could not, at the moment, bring himself to think about it. He said, ‘Then I may see the lady Katelijne when she returns. There is no need for you to stay. Perhaps you would like to see the sport yourself.’
‘Everyone is going,’ the man said. ‘Thank you, my lord. Everyone wants to be there for the show Signor Zeno is to give at the end. Not being a friend of the Genoese, he’ll likely perform some great feats, so they say, just to flaunt the superiority of Venice. They say Signor Zeno is a great man with the Persian bow. Very dashing.’
And then, at last, Nicholas realised that something was being conveyed to him.