Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [86]
Robin, puzzled, remembered again what had annoyed him. He said, ‘Anna blurted it out. She’d guessed, which was more than I did. But we are so pleased.’
‘And so am I,’ Nicholas said. ‘It is what I would hope for you both. It doesn’t know how lucky it is.’
And Robin laughed, alight with joy. For he thought no one as lucky as he was, with the first child, hoped for by them both, on its way so painlessly and so soon. And he had been lucky to find in his wife a friend who had become increasingly his great and sole love, while keeping also, despite everything, his regard for this man who had shaped his young life.
Robin rode beside him in silence to the square, where grooms took their horses, and where he showed Nicholas watchfully into the house by the Artushof, there to surrender him into the hands of the house steward, who had already, it seemed, received his orders. The lord was recommended to accompany him to his room, and to rest there.
Obedient to the decree, Nicholas had paused to thank Robin, and to send a message to Kathi. He still looked and moved like a sleepwalker. Robin thought that Adorne had been kind in sparing him the need to face them all, for the moment, at any rate. Or perhaps Kathi had thought of it first.
At his side, the steward said, ‘I was to tell you, Pan Robin. The lady of Berecrofts is waiting for you.’
HOURS PASSED. Awakening in an unfamiliar, candlelit room, Nicholas searched his memory for the reason, and found it. He also retrieved a vague recollection of drinking something which felled him with sleep. It had a familiar after-taste. Subsequent to that, evidently, he had been undressed and left covered in bed. But this time, there had been no voluptuous dreams.
The voice of Ludovico da Bologna broke upon his right eardrum. ‘Are you sick because you hit him, or because you missed him? Now you can come to Tabriz.’
Nicholas forked himself into a sitting position.
‘Just a pleasantry,’ the Patriarch said. ‘Certainly you are not wearing a hair shirt, I observe.’ The bulky figure in the uncertain light was demoniac; the pectoral cross thick as horse-armour. He had asked Callimaco to find the Patriarch for him, and here he was; when now there was no conceivable purpose in meeting.
Nicholas said, ‘It was an accident. How is Julius?’
‘Still alive,’ the Patriarch said. He lifted his cross on its chain and used it to rap Nicholas on the finger. ‘The little girl said you’d been divining, and she hadn’t even seen that. I hear you gave the Queen some excellent advice on how to rule Scotland. What a helpful person you are. And now you may multiply your good works and show penitence for your bad in one stroke. Come to Tabriz.’
‘I might have done,’ Nicholas said. ‘But surely not now. Not until Julius has recovered, if then.’
‘You would let his poor lady go to Caffa on her own?’ the Patriarch said.
‘Anna?’
‘They were both to have travelled there with young Berecrofts. Now Julius cannot go; nor can the boy and his wife. I myself must leave at once. But whatever the fate of the unlucky Julius, his wife must travel to Caffa as soon as she may. And what better reparation could marksman make to his target,’ the Patriarch said, ‘than to assume the protection and care of his wife?’ He waited, staring from under his brows. ‘God forgive me, are you sick for some reason? Shall I send for your man?’ His eyes mocked.
‘Why must she go?’ Nicholas said. It was an effort.
‘Business. She will tell you herself, if you propose to give yourself the trouble of calling tomorrow. If he is dead, I shall stay for the Mass. He deserves that much, poor fellow.’
He rose to go. Nicholas could think of nothing to say. The Patriarch said, ‘Make your mind up. It is overdue.’
The door shut. On the bed, Nicholas doubled up over tight-folded arms, and started to shiver.
JULIUS WAS STILL ALIVE the following morning. Nicholas crossed the square and was admitted by Straube’s servant, who took him up to the sickroom. A tapestry had been hung to keep out direct sunlight, and Anna’s face looked lily-white in the