Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [297]
She said, “Never mind about the ostrich. Gregorio and Henninc have gone to put it all right, and even Tommaso is reconciled. I’ve told him to tell Duke Francesco that it’s sick, and keep it for eight months till its feathers grow.”
“If he can keep it for eight months,” Nicholas said. He sat down. “I seem to need keepers.”
She said, “Julius told you?” She had less than her usual colour, but her eyes were clear and steadfast and affectionate. It came to him that she was magnificently dressed and he remembered that she, too, had been invited on board the Venetian flagship.
He said, “He told me that they’re all ready to stay. In spite of everything.”
He had expected her to answer at once, but she didn’t. Then she said, “And, Nicholas, do you want to stay?”
At first, he wasn’t sure how to answer. Last night, after he knew she had been told all about Jaak de Fleury; after she had broken the news that Julius and the others knew his connection with Simon, they had talked, but carefully. And when, at the end of it, she had used, flushing, a woman’s excuse to sleep alone, he couldn’t have told whether or not it was genuine, but was glad she had used it. What degree of courtship, what fervour is proper when bestowing only tender affection, and not affirming or courting some new and ambiguous pledge? He hadn’t known, and had been afraid to put it to the test.
So now, he listened to the tone of her voice, and tried to read her face, and remembered, of course, what else Julius would have told her. He said, “It wasn’t Katelina van Borselen who was waiting for me at Silver Straete. It was a trick. It was Jordan. Jordan de Ribérac.”
Her face coloured as she felt, too, what he had felt. She said, “They didn’t kill him.”
“He escaped. Katelina van Borselen helped him. She hasn’t told Simon.”
He hadn’t been sure whether or not to tell her that. But her mind was on something else. She said, “But he knows you betrayed him?”
“Not even that,” Nicholas said. “He only wanted to warn me not to touch Simon. Since I began murdering all my family, he has had to concede me some small ability. He has an idea, too, that Simon and Katelina together may represent a threat to you and the company because of me. I think he’s right about that.” He stopped. Then he added, “I do want to stay.”
Marian de Charetty said, “I think you do. But we are, aren’t we, going on board the galley tonight?”
And he said, “Yes. But whatever happens, the choice is going to be yours. Whatever you want, I will do.”
“Yes. I know that,” she said.
They had, now, a household barge of their own, so that they could set off in style with all the other boats making for the harbour at Sluys, their oarsmen smart in Charetty blue and Loppe, finely dressed, looming behind them. He had wanted to come. Exactly one year before, Loppe had been chained on board a Flanders galley, and forced to dive at the captain’s command. He had served the Duke of Milan since then, and Felix. But if he returned to Sluys now it was not out of pride but – had he been asked – from a sense of foreboding.
Before leaving for Sluys, Nicholas went alone to the office where he knew he would find Julius and Tobie and Gregorio. By then he had had to change clothes. For the Flanders galley, it was necessary to wear the robe he had had made for Easter at the Veere house. Since then, it had mysteriously acquired embroidery and a better sort of fur than he had thought right at the time. Marian had done that, and had also had made for him the doublet he was wearing, which was as well-tailored as her own damask gown. It had taken a certain amount of hardihood, since he couldn’t claim courage, to walk into the office and confront them all, knowing what they all knew. He said the first thing he thought of. “Pray that I don’t fall in the water this time. I’m wearing all next year’s profits and your