Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [90]
‘You are leaving,’ he said, and jerked the door wider. She entered, with care.
This was not the histrionic Nicholas of Mewe, with his wounding tongue and his single problematic relapse into tenderness. It was not, either, the crass intruder of yesterday’s games, where he had saved her uncle from ignominy — but only because it suited him, or so he had said. This was not even the person who, encouraged by Anna, had earlier sent to ask Kathi to see him. This man, wearily inviting her into his room with something almost like hatred, was demonstrating that he did not want to encounter any soul from his past, and especially a friend. She sat, and he said, ‘I have some wine, unless it is drugged.’
And, having no wish, as it happened, to pursue that, she jettisoned her qualms, crossed her ankles, folded her hands and gazed at him critically. ‘Ludovico da Bologna?’ she said. ‘He always could produce this effect. Did he ask you if you meant to kill Julius?’
He opened his fingers and let drop the wine-cup he was filling. He did it quite deliberately, under her eyes, and she watched the cup roll and dent, and the spilled wine grow bald and begin to outline the tiles of the floor like a Teutonic town grid. ‘Which means that he did,’ she concluded equably. ‘And perhaps you actually did give way to a sudden urge to get rid of Julius who, I agree, can be quite atrociously insensitive. So you shot him, and are now seized with terror, wondering what next your devil is going to allow you to do. Or …’
She paused, and he took his hand away from the hour-glass he had just turned upside down, having refrained from dropping that, too, on the floor. ‘That is not very polite.’
‘I am sorry,’ he said, with no appearance of it. He remained standing. She resumed speaking, her voice as bland as before.
‘Or perhaps you were simply drunk, or exhausted from divining —why did you so foolishly agree to do that? — and it has left you feeling as frightened of yourself as we are of you? I should like a glass of wine,’ she added, ‘if Jelita could bring you some more. Do you know what his name means?’
He blinked. For a moment, what she was attempting hung in the balance. Then he cleared his throat. ‘He goes by the noble name of Bowel. Sally Jelita, I call him. Raging Bowel.’
He went to the doorway and called the man, allowing Kathi to blow her nose quickly. As he came back she said, ‘They like intestinal jokes. They call watermills farters.’
‘He is a spy,’ Nicholas said. ‘Jelita. A palace spy.’
She looked at him. ‘You didn’t warn us.’
‘He was and is spying on me, not on you. You had nothing to lose. Adorne never had a chance anyway.’
‘Why not?’ she said.
‘Because, obviously, I am in collusion against him. Hasn’t your uncle already told you?’
‘He said it was possible. He mentioned a few others with motives and influence, but I expect we could discount all those,’ Kathi said. She noticed that her fingers were white, and unclasped them.
‘Julius may die,’ he said suddenly. The tone of his voice was a rebuke.
‘But you didn’t mean to kill him,’ she said. She waited.
‘Of course I did,’ Nicholas said.
Her heart ached. He moved restlessly, once, and then stopped. His gaze turned to the door.
Kathi said slowly, ‘Is that why you do what you do?’
‘What do I do?’
He was still watching the door. Sally Bowel. His profile looked grey. Steadily, she gave him answer. ‘Commit perpetual follies, to deserve perpetual punishment?’
He turned. For a fraction of time he looked into her eyes. Then a dimple slowly appeared and, with a stifled sound of amusement, he set to his desultory pacing again. ‘No one has accused me of being crazy before. A life dedicated to misery? Really?’
‘People feel guilty,’ she said. ‘Sometimes with cause, sometimes not. Sometimes they don’t even know why, because they don’t want to