Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [137]
“Gelis,” said the demoiselle. “She’ll set it down in a moment and disappear. She’ll be all right. Gelis always manages. I told her to go to the Veere’s.”
His teeth drummed together. The vibration made his head want to split open. The freezing cold in his face made yesterday’s cut feel like an axe-blow. His brain had frozen too. She said, “I’m taking you the back way to Silver Straete. The house is empty.”
He remembered being surprised that the van Borselen kept their postern unbolted. He remembered being led into a kitchen lit by the embers of a huge fire, and stopping dead on the threshold, and then realising why he had stopped and walking steadily forward. Steadily was a misnomer. He could not stop shivering. He remembered very clearly the demoiselle saying, “Strip!”
He said, “No.”
She wasted no time, he granted her that. She dragged out the wooden tub, and poured cold water into it by the jugful, and then padded her hands and lifted the great cauldron from the fire and filled the tub with the steaming hot water. Then she said, “I’m going to get into dry clothes as well. Strip and get in.”
The good blue cloth tore as he tried to get it off. He stepped out of everything all tied together. He had to do even that leaning against the kitchen wall. He held the edge of the bath, but in spite of that, slopped the water, thudding into it suddenly. He laid his arms on his updrawn knees and his head on his arms and his senses swam and returned and then left for good. The fire, built up by the demoiselle before she went out, became a healthy blaze and kept the tub and its contents warm as a copper.
He slept.
Chapter 20
A LONG TIME LATER Claes, born Nicholas, woke, and turned his head lazily on his arm.
A kitchen. The well-run, well-equipped kitchen of a household of means, smelling warmly of chicken.
He turned his head further.
A wooden tub. A scrubbed table with two truckle beds under it and a clutch of tallow candles on top. A wall covered with pans and pots of iron and copper and long-handled implements in iron and wood. A carved press, half-open, showing bowls of wood and earthenware and pewter and brass, and some pewter plates. A copper water-jug on the floor, and a meat-safe and a pail. A sugar barrel. A salt box. A bench with a young brown-haired woman in a loose robe sitting on it.
And he appeared to be naked, hugging his knees in a bathtub of water.
His wits would not immediately provide him with a reason. The girl displayed a well-bred and absolute calm, with a touch of amusement. Having no idea what response she expected, he returned the look with equal tranquillity. The effort made his head spin. It was already aching. All his body was aching. He removed his gaze from the girl and allowed it to wander to the fireplace. His clothes were spread before the hearth, drying.
He remembered everything. This was Katelina van Borselen, changed into dry clothes. Changed into a fine linen chemise with a loose mantle thrown over her shoulders, and her hair unbound.
All right. First things first. He confirmed, for his own peace of mind, that his present position was one of reasonable decorum. He remembered that she had said the house was empty when they arrived. He returned his gaze to her and found she was still looking at him. Not watching him. Looking at him, the way Colard studied a painting brought in by a foreigner. He said, “I seem to have been asleep.”
“An hour,” she said. “The house is still empty.”
He said, “Thank you for drying my clothes.”
“They’ll be ready to wear in an hour or two,” she said. “Get out. I have some broth heating.”
He had dealt with variants of this often enough, in bath houses and out of them, and the result was a romp. In those cases, the girl was not Katelina van Borselen, and he had not just been in danger of losing his life. So this was not what it seemed. He set a course as