Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [94]
‘So!’ said the priest. ‘You’ve had your mind made up for you, I hope. Caffa and Tabriz.’ The energy vibrated into the room, released by the impending journey, rocketing papal and Imperial commands into the ether. He paused. ‘What’s the matter? The man’s recovering. The girl will set out on her own. You’ll follow me with her. You’ll try to bed her, if I know you.’
‘You don’t mind?’ Nicholas said.
‘You won’t succeed. She’s as capable as you are, behind all those pretty manners. I don’t know why she ever married that fancy lawyer: you may have done her a favour,’ said Ludovico da Bologna. ‘So why not come and enjoy yourself?’ His words, although encouraging, were accompanied by a perfunctory glare.
Nicholas found he wanted, rather feebly, to laugh. He straightened. ‘Might I have Cailimaco as well?’
‘Don’t be cheeky,’ the Patriarch said. ‘Make your plans. Hire your horses. Lay out all Signor Zeno’s good money. I’ll tell Uzum Hasan to expect you. You might get to climb into bed alongside him and all his four wives.’
‘Father,’ said Nicholas. ‘How can I resist?’
He meant it, in a distorted way. He did not say that of course he was going to Caffa: the decision was long ago made, and he was already well ahead with his plans. City of Tartars and Christians, set in blue waters, and hanging with vineyards and fig trees, cherries and peaches; its fields heavy with corn and its houses scented with flowers and the warm smell of ripe watermelons … Caffa in summer, with Julius’s beautiful wife. How could he resist?
And especially how could he resist, now that he possessed Paúel Benecke’s secret: the piece of sea captain’s gossip that the bastard had jealously kept to himself all through winter, despite Colà’s cajolery? Of course Nicholas de Fleury was going to Caffa, my dears.
Kochajmy się.
Et non est qui adjuvat.
Help me, for I have no one, now. And right and wrong are the same.
‘Nos,’ BEGAN THE DOCUMENT. Kathi read it, skipping the hard bits.
Nos proconsul de consules oppidi Dantzig in Prussia … We the governor and councillors of the city of Danzig in Prussia —
‘— attestamur quod reverindissimus pater et dominus Ludovicus, sacro-sancte apostolice sedis orator et nuncius, ac patriarche Antiochensis … attest that Ludovico da Bologna, papal nuncio —
‘— et eneroso domino Anselmo Adournes milite, domino de Corthuy, consilarii, ambassadore et cambellano serenissime Karoli … and Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, councillor of Duke Charles of Burgundy …
‘— absolvit —
‘— whom he acquits.
The word that mattered. The niece of the enerosus dominus stopped, sniffed, and scrambled at speed through the rest:
‘— of the charge and management of his Mission to the Prince Casimir, King of Poland … produced as evidence certain letters patent … but left behind at the Court of the aforementioned lord in the city of Thorn … who by no means appeared and was nowhere seen, as we are informed by the sufficient witness of Jerzy Bock and Johannes Siding-husen, our delegates to the general assembly of deputies. Idcirco, in fidem huius et testimonium, secretum nostre civitatis presentibus est subappensum.’
And the seal hung below the two signatures. The affirmation, written today and witnessed in the winter assembly room of the Town Hall in Danzig, that Anselm Adorne had carried out the commands of his Duke to the best of his ability, and that no blame attached to him for his failure to present his Duke’s letters to the King of this land.
Katelijne Sersanders closed the scroll and gave it back to her uncle and Robin, who had brought it. No one spoke. They were in their familiar noisy lodging at the Kogi Gate by the Green Bridge in Danzig, with the busy waters of the Mottlau outside their windows, and the last, bitter phase of their mission was now complete. King Casimir, having received no demands, was absolved from providing excuses or promises. And Danzig, left unconstrained, had replied with polite dismay to Adorne’s charges. Piracy? Surely not. Nothing more