Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [93]
SHE DID NOT TELL HIM the next day, or ever, for that night Julius sank, and Nicholas spent all its hours by his bedside, silently watching with Anna. Then, when the sky paled and the house-signs creaked in the dawn wind, it was young Berecrofts who came to Straube’s door to say that the Burgundian envoy was leaving, and would presently call. Robin was standing alone in the hall when he heard the measured tread on the stairs, and saw that the man coming towards him in the half-light was Nicholas. He looked grey, as Kathi had said. Robin said, ‘Sir? They say he is still holding on.’
‘He is strong,’ Nicholas said. ‘Adorne is coming?’
‘He wanted to see you.’ Robin looked at him in distress. ‘Kathi and I wanted to stay. I meant to go with you.’
‘I know. You meant well, but it might not have been worth it. As it is, Kathi seems to think I should remain and rehabilitate Poland, in my customary manner.’
Robin felt himself flush. He said, ‘It was one choice we both knew you had. Or to help the Gräfin with her business, here or elsewhere. Kathi felt you might think she favoured one course over the other. She gave me a letter.’ He held it out.
In the growing light, he could see nothing but mockery. Nicholas said, ‘She suddenly realised she had compromised the entire future of Royal Poland and Royal Prussia by exposing both to my volatile nature? Let me see.’ And he took the letter across to the lamp, where he opened and read it at a glance. He looked across. ‘You know what this says?’
‘She told me,’ said Robin. ‘She tried to tell you herself, but …’
‘But she had misjudged the dosage. You will have to watch her,’ Nicholas said. ‘You may find you are conducting your entire family life from your bed. Will she drug the children, do you think?’
He had been awake all through the night by the bed of the man he had shot, perhaps killed. The words were random. Robin said, ‘I wish we could have helped. You may be better without us. Listen to Anna. We could write to you, if you tell us where you are. And if you have any …’ His voice faded.
‘Messages? No.’ Nicholas was burning the note. The light hardly reached under his lids. ‘Does anyone else know about this? Apart from Elzbiete and Paúel and, I suppose, the semi-bereaved Anna? Yes, certainly Anna. This longing to have her appointed my nursemaid.’ He looked up from crushing the ash. ‘Doesn’t anyone worry in case I take Anna, too, on to a raft?’
Robin sank his teeth in his lip. Then Nicholas flung down the platter and said, ‘Kathi was right to keep me speechless. You can’t possibly understand. All I can say is what I said to her. I am sorry. Go away. Expect nothing. But believe that I am sorry’
Robin had begun to move forward, saying something, when the main doors clattered open and men began to come in, escorting Kathi’s uncle, come to take his leave of Herr Straube, and visit the sick man and his wife. And, briefly and finally, to part from Nicholas de Fleury of Beltrees.
It did not take long. Formal words were exchanged, ending in bows. Nicholas was a disgraced man in exile, who had betrayed the Burgundian trust in a country of moment to Adorne as well as himself. He was the man who, very possibly, had engineered the Polish rejection which had led to Adorne’s recall. Against that, his gesture in the sports field had very probably been no more than the act of self-interest he had called it. If Adorne were returning in anger, then at least his niece and nephew were also withdrawing unharmed from the orbit of this extraordinary man, in whom charisma and evil were so fatally mixed.
Adorne left, and Robin clasped hands and followed him. Nicholas watched them both out of sight.
JULIUS LIVED THROUGH all that day and the next. On the third, Nicholas returned to the empty house that had contained Anselm Adorne, his young married kinsmen and the two sobered