Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [71]
And sure enough, on a table, was an opened parcel, with silver gleaming inside it, and a note.
‘Damned if I can remember,’ Nicholas had said. ‘What does the note say?’
‘For your eyes only,’ was the dulcet reply. Henry’s insults, in the early days, had a schoolboyish quality that reminded Nicholas sometimes of his own boyhood, to his annoyance. In Henry’s case, it was misleading. Behind the crudity was a dogged bulwark of incohesive and violent emotion, liable to break out in any form, against anyone, but mostly against this man to whom he owed all his present humiliation. He watched Nicholas lift the card from the parcel.
It was unsigned, like the rest. Henry, by implication, should not have known who had sent them, but claimed to have glimpsed Simpson’s man at the door. For Nicholas, the contents of the cards were enough. This, like the previous two, contained only a few words in Spanish, which Henry might translate, but fortunately couldn’t interpret.
Henry said, duly translating, ‘A thousand kisses from Ochoa, again. Ochoa, your Persian wife, I think you explained. And the second time, your African mistress in Cairo. So this time?’
The article was heavy: a silver-gilt pitcher worth a great deal of money. Having registered as much, Nicholas heaved it over to Henry, who let it fall, as he had the two previous gifts, although this time with a fraction less confidence. ‘God knows. I called all my ladies Ochoa,’ Nicholas said. ‘Well, pick it up and put it with the rest. I give them all to you. You’ll get a better price if you beat out the dents.’
There was hardly a pause: the boy was quick. ‘I don’t want them!’ said Henry with surprise. His expression changed to remorse. ‘Uncle! You were training me to catch, and I didn’t try hard enough!’
‘That’s all right,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’m thinking of asking Davie Simpson to call, and you can try catching them when he throws. Meanwhile, we are going to Haddington, you and I. Half a turn of the hour-glass, in front of the house, with the horses.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Henry.
‘Look across the road,’ Nicholas said; and waited until Henry went out, his mouth shut. Obliquely over the road was the house of Jordan de St Pol, to whom Henry had already appealed during the first days of his servitude. He had been sent straight back to Nicholas.
When in his right mind, Henry was afraid of his grandfather. Nicholas, despite his mild threat, knew that (unwisely) Henry felt no particular awe for the Archer he had known as David de Salmeton, who had joined his grandfather’s business, and left it abruptly after an unwise display of ambition. Anyone disliked by the lord of Kilmirren could be sure of Henry’s securest contempt. Kilmirren’s firm, called the Vatachino, had been allowed to disperse, but then so had its rival the Banco di Niccolò. Now, as everyone knew, Jordan’s income came from his estates and from distant Madeira; Simpson’s from his service to the Papal Legate Camulio, and that of Nicholas from desultory trading on behalf of his wife. The last, at least, being all too true. For the moment.
Preparing to leave, Nicholas gave some thought, briefly, to the problem of the silver. Henry did know that Simpson was hostile to Nicholas, as well as to Jordan, and that the so-called gifts were therefore some sort of challenge. To Henry, anything that promised trouble for Nicholas was spellbinding. To Nicholas, the messages were awesome in their effrontery, for Ochoa was not the name of a woman. It was the name of the Spanish sea captain associated