Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [293]
It took five minutes more to corner it between them and truss it. Before then, Nicholas left its back. He couldn’t, at first, stand at all. Julius relinquished him, and went to help with the bird, and saw it set off, safely held, on its journey back to the Florentine stableyard. The riders, drunk with excitement, did an admiring lap of honour round Nicholas first and Julius had to say to him “Wave!”
He looked up then, and gave some kind of a wave. He was shaking like a man with a disease; but after exertion, or a fright, men often did that, and they would think none the worse of him. But of course it wasn’t that, or marsh fever. And yet … Nicholas had, he knew, tripped the latch of the bird’s box himself.
To begin with, Julius had been happy to think that he was in the company of lunatic Claes, restored to them again. But of course, that freedom could never come back. If it had come back even for an hour, it was for the wrong reasons. A moment’s reflection had told him that. A moment’s reflection, added to what had happened under the windmill.
Now Julius said, “Why don’t we get the miller to find a spot where you can rest? We’ll send a boy for dry clothes.”
He expected, and got, no reply. Speech had no part in this sort of crisis. He was ready for anything, but in fact Nicholas neither fainted nor wept nor collapsed in any spectacular way. Simply, once in the mill, he sat on some straw, curled tightly and erratically shivering. Someone brought a blanket for him and a drink, and then sensibly went away at a gesture. Julius sat down beside the demoiselle de Charetty’s former apprentice and tried, unusually for him, to fathom what had happened. And then, to conceive what to do about it.
Trained to deal at second hand with critical events in the lives of others, he seldom found himself, like this, a participant. He cleared his throat. He looked at what little he could see of Nicholas, which consisted of segments of arm for the most part. Julius said, “Well, some people get drunk and some ride ostriches. But we all have to get back to real life some time. I don’t see that you need be afraid of it. We all agree, you know, that you were quite right to do what you did, under the circumstances. Tobie thinks so. And Goro. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t all go on just as we did before. The demoiselle would agree.”
He paused. From what he could hear of his breathing, Nicholas was still unlikely to speak. On the premise that his ears must be working, Julius studiously went on with his monologue.
“The trouble is, of course, that you get carried away. You know. Like … Like Felix did. The demoiselle understands that as well. In fact, she’s asked us to help you. Whatever ideas you have, you won’t be alone in acting on them. If they go wrong, then we’ll all be to blame. Soon, you’ll have as much experience anyway as we have. So forget what you’ve done. In the future, it’s going to be different.”
While he was speaking, he could see Nicholas compel himself to be still. Elbows on knees, he sat with his palms over his face. His hair, in wet coils and rings, dripped over his brow and neck and shoulders, where the blanket had shifted. He spoke at last. He said, “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
Julius paused. Then he said, “Then I don’t want to know. Start afresh. You can.”
Silence. Nicholas cleared the wet from his face with one hand, then brought up a corner of blanket and rubbed his face and hair slowly with it. He said, “I suppose I can.”
It was an agreement for the sake of form only. But at least it meant that he had a grip of himself again. Nicholas with his brain working was easier to deal with than