Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [47]
She remained, since that had been her intention, but found it remarkably wearing. The name of Nicholas vander Poele could hardly be mentioned: even so late as today, an incautious word could provoke an outburst. ‘I hate him!’ had screamed Lucia de St Pol e Vasquez, throwing herself on the floor which was of marble, although furnished with cushions. She was Scottish, and perhaps used to rushes.
‘We all hate him,’ said Gelis, wincing a little.
‘He is a murderer. We shall die here, with no one to mourn us. He is a classical monster, a Crocus.’
It was an interesting thought, so far as it went. ‘Chronos, perhaps?’ Gelis said. ‘The father who ate all his children?’ There were two members of the Vasquez household in the room, who gratefully left when she nodded. She wondered what other guests usually did.
Lucia lifted her head. She said, ‘My father Jordan devours all his children. That is why he is so fat.’ Then she began laughing and crying together. She had fallen, as always, without disarranging a strand of her bright yellow hair.
Gelis sat, looking out at the sea. The wind was in the wrong direction. After a while, the widow said with a touch of petulance, ‘He hates Simon and me. He wants this brute vander Poele to come and kill me.’
She was probably right. Gelis reflected that the same might even be true of the woman’s son Diniz, who was about the same age as herself and who had not stayed, either, to defend his dam from the brute vander Poele or his grandfather. Then she thought she might be maligning the youth. He had gone to join the Christian fleet. He hadn’t even known, very likely, that Claes was on his way to the Algarve. Claes, or Nicholas. He didn’t use his servant’s name now.
Since she had arrived on this interminable visit, Gelis observed that they had all been given adequate notice of vander Poele’s westward itinerary. Merchants in four Spanish ports had been notified, and dispatches relayed as far to the north-west as Lisbon. You would think he wished to advise all his enemies. Indeed, he had. Simon, having issued his challenge, was absent.
She wondered if Claes could know that Lucia was here, unprotected. She wondered if Claes had learned that her own father was dead, and that if he dared to come he would certainly find her here, preparing for retribution. She assumed that he did. With Claes, you left nothing to chance.
Lucia’s sobs were fading. In a moment, if nothing happened, they would be renewed. Gelis van Borselen rose. She said, ‘You must be brave. Remember the letters from Katelina. She didn’t blame Nicholas. We may all have misjudged him.’ She stooped and gave the woman her hand.
The woman said, ‘You’re treating me as a child. Your sister wrote them when she was dying. You said so yourself. She would put whatever he told her. He turned my boy Diniz against me. He is trying to destroy every friend Simon has. He’s a fiend in disguise.’ She struggled to her feet, and allowed herself to be placed on a settle. She exclaimed, ‘How could he leave me, my father! He should be here, defending his Lucia!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gelis. ‘I shall do what I can in his place.’
She kept all the hatred out of her voice; otherwise the poor woman would lose what few wits she had.
She sat and thought about a broker called David de Salmeton.
The wind was in the wrong direction, which irritated Nicholas, although it was not always possible to detect it.
Gregorio of Asti didn’t mind in the least. ‘I really ought to get out more!’ he shouted to anyone who would listen. ‘That’s what Nicholas said!’
He had proclaimed it before, when the first euphoria of sailing out of Ancona had struck him; and had repeated it since, against various states of the wind. A deskbound man all his life; a man whose only travels for years had been by horse or by mule from one inkwell to another, Gregorio had suddenly received the sea and the sky, and the absence of Margot was his only regret.
From the moment of their departure,