Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [281]
What had spurred Tobie to come to the demoiselle had, in the end, been the news of the death of the Scots king. Telling of it, Marian paused, as she had often paused during the long recital, but he had made no comment yet. She resumed, speaking quite steadily. “Up till then, you see, they had assumed that, whatever you’d done, it was nothing that need concern anyone else. They thought it was finished. They were only concerned about the future. But there was the gun.”
Then, for the first time, Nicholas spoke. He said, “I didn’t even mean to be in the lighter when it went through the lock. It was pure chance that someone asked us to help with the Duke’s bath and Julius and … and Julius agreed.” He stopped. He said, “If I hadn’t gone, I shouldn’t have met any of them.”
He was talking to himself, really, not to her. After a moment she said, “I suppose you knew that the soaking couldn’t possibly affect the gun’s performance. People may still say that you might not have known; that you hoped it would do just what it did. Tobie, I think is not quite sure. But discussing it, Julius and Gregorio came to realise something else much more likely. By sinking the cannon, you delayed its arrival in Scotland. And if that was deliberate, if you were hired to do it, then you are concerned with matters which could not, after all, be kept amongst ourselves.”
She paused. “You were a boy when it happened. People thought nothing of it. But even mischief begins to look sinister when, later, other connections are made. Because Scotland was supporting the Lancastrians, the absence of the gun was an advantage to the opposite side. The Dauphin, the Duke of Milan, Bishop Coppini, King Ferrante in Naples, Arnolfini and the English Governor – all these are people who oppose the King of France and the Lancastrians, and you have been involved in some way with all of them. And once people notice such things, it must seem that you are not only spying for merchants, it must seem that you are a political informer as well.”
Nicholas said, “The vicomte de Ribérac was on the Dauphin’s side.”
“But,” said Marian, “you had overwhelming reasons, hadn’t you, for punishing him? And then, once word gets about that you are not what you seem, that you’re not to be trusted, people will begin to imagine things. About the dismissal of old employees and the taking on of new ones, all of your choice. About … your marriage, of course. About, they might say, the way you kept Felix involved in escapades, and away from anything prestigious or responsible … and the way he died.”
Her voice broke off, then. He didn’t look up. He didn’t want to see her crying. He said, “I wish I were Felix. I told him that, once, in Milan.” His elbows still on his knees, he found himself slowly rubbing his face, as if pressing in some miraculous, analgesic ointment. Then he remained, his nose deadened between his two hands, his closed eyes spanned by his fingers. Then he said, “And what was Tobie’s conclusion?”
This time, the silence lasted so long that he did, in the end, open his eyes and look at her. She had been crying, but only a little. She had been waiting for him, that was all.
She said, “He said they had talked about it all day. They couldn’t reach a conclusion until they knew what I thought.”
“And what is your conclusion?” he said. This time, he couldn’t read her expression.
She said, “I knew about de Ribérac, which the doctor didn’t. I knew a number of other things, Nicholas, which he didn’t. But I also had a great advantage. I knew how you really felt about us. About Julius. About Felix. And, I think, about me.”
“So?” he said. His teeth wanted to chatter.
“So I confirmed what was, in the end, his own view, I think,” Marian said. “I told him that you were the truest, most loyal friend he or anyone else was likely to have. That nearly all that you had done had been done for the company, and not for any political reasons.