Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [223]
Had he resented it all as much as that? All the time? Hating and resenting him, and Julius, and Jaak, and his mother?
A door opened, and he was set down beyond it, held by the grip of a single hand. The door shut, cutting off the noise from below, and a key turned in the lock. Felix dragged on the restraining arm and tossed his head like a warhorse, to dislodge the muffling hood. His head began to ache wildly. The second hand returned to his other arm. Resisting, he found himself stumbling backwards and then pushed down, with a jolt, on a low bed. His hood was grasped and folded back, but the cloth round his mouth remained there.
Nicholas stood looking down at him. Nicholas said, “You hear how quiet it’s got? That’s how thick the door is. And anyway, my fellows are just outside. So don’t waste time shouting. I need some food, and some sleep, and so do you. And I want to talk first.”
It had puzzled Felix for some time: why Nicholas hadn’t killed him and his servants immediately. But that, of course, was merely because he was afraid of pursuit. Now he’d shaken it off, he could arrange for Felix to die more conveniently, and perhaps attach the blame somewhere else.
Felix had no wish to talk to his murderer. He made an elaborate show of closing his eyes while the other man was still speaking, and lying back on the bed, stuck his chin up. The mark of a merchant was his dignity. He hoped he also looked bored. His heart and his lungs, which were not bored, refused to co-operate.
Nicholas said, “Well, if I’m going to apologise to you, you might at least keep your eyes open. Is your head still as bad?”
Silence. The scrape of a stool. The voice of Nicholas, again, from a lower level. It sounded submissive. He said, “I don’t suppose I’d have the nerve to lie there, in your place. You must think I’m going to carve you up and send the pieces to your mother. I hit you on the head because I had to get you away. I had to get you away because I couldn’t let you go back alone with the money, and I couldn’t go with you. I couldn’t go with you because I’ve got to get to Milan. I’ve got to get to Milan because your mother and Anselm Adorne and a lot of other people are involved in a highly secret piece of trading which is going to make you so rich that the fire doesn’t even matter. But only if I get to Milan. And only if other people don’t get to hear of it. Other people like Jaak de Fleury.”
Felix lay still. His head ached.
Nicholas said, “Now you’ve heard that much, I’m coming to untie the gag. I’ve got a dagger, Felix. I know you’re not convinced, but you can’t overpower me. I only want you to listen. After that, I’ll answer any questions you like. And after that, I’ll give you my dagger. If you want to walk out, you can.”
Fingers pushed his head up. Felix opened his eyes. The gag came away from his dry mouth. He retched, and swallowed, and retched. Nicholas was pouring something from a flask to a cup. Nicholas said, “Spit it out if you want, but it’s good Candy wine and you need it. Look, I’ve drunk some. Now you drink the poisoned half.”
There was a smile in his voice. Felix didn’t smile. He drank when the cup was put to his mouth. His hands were still tied. He said, “Now I wait until you give me the knife, and I open the door, and your men kill me on my way out.”
“But you’ll have killed me first,” Nicholas said. “Come on, pay attention. Have you had a blow on the head or something?”
“I’ll begin to believe you,” said Felix, “when you untie my wrists, send your men away, and let me call the landlord of this place to help me get you back under guard to Geneva. You can talk all you want in Geneva.”
“Not about an alum monopoly,” Nicholas said. His gaze had concentrated and his forehead got lined in the way it did when he wanted you to remember something. He said, “You’ve got a reputation, you know, for being headstrong. Not like John and Sersanders and the rest of us. There was a feeling that you might forget the scheme was so secret and talk about it. But you’re a merchant, and it is your business, and since you