The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [113]
The night before they entered the harbour of Trebizond, Nicholas asked to be received by the lady Violante.
They were at anchor, so he had used his razor again, to remove the fair bristling growth of the sailing nights. All over the ship, men sported the harbour-badge of fresh cuts as they turned barber for one another, and decent clothing was shaken from boxes and pennants and hangings unwrapped. The ship reeked of paint and tar and damp wood and jangled with the noise of sawing and hammer blows, clanking buckets and stampeding feet, and the calls and conversation of men disagreeably employed who yet saw at the end of it a prospect of warmth and fresh food and an unmoving bed and dry clothes and women.
As ever, the Archimandrite was in the cabin, his black robes overwhelming his sitting stool. In all that time, he had been absent only once, on the night of the stabbing, when, of course, nothing had happened. Instead, Violante of Naxos had made sure that he understood her contempt for him. It had been a cruel demonstration, as well as a needless one. He knew his own deficiencies better than she did.
Since that night a routine had been established, which he now followed precisely. After greeting the lady in Greek, Nicholas moved to her other side and, invited, dropped to sit, straight-backed and motionless, on a second stool. He was wearing his shore-going doublet and shirt for tomorrow, although not the short robe which would naturally cover it. The cloth was good enough, and reasonably cut. What was wrong with it he already knew from his tutor. And she, in turn, now sat and considered him.
Violante of Naxos, between birth and young womanhood, had initiated many people into many mysteries. She had been trained herself in the dance, and in the arts of music and painting. The practice of high manners had from childhood been as natural to her as breathing. She required it in others, and discounted those who thought it unnecessary. She had been taught how to read and to write, and knew her poets and a wide enough range of other writings. More important, she knew what should be known by a man of high rank holding conversation with his peers. Where her own learning ceased, that of Diadochos meantime served. In the case of this Flemish youth who had everything to learn, one could only do so much in three weeks. Set the door a fraction ajar. Judge, if one could, how much or how little lay behind it. And of course, she could make no test of his higher intellect. Formal learning, she saw, he preferred to avoid. Such misgivings, she well knew, were common.
She had thought to shock him, at the beginning, into a state she could handle. To appear disrobed before him was a small thing, misunderstood only by men of the Church and those little acquainted with life. It was not the first time she had used such means to achieve a quick ascendancy. And he had responded—there had been no mistake about that. Only she had been disconcerted by the speed of his recovery. By the end of the first twenty-four hours, then, she knew she had a competent actor. It had taken her a week to discover what she really had.
And, of course, he knew that she had been able to reach some conclusions. He had been under scrutiny more than once, she deduced, by those who found themselves suddenly doubting his simplicity. If naïveté had once been his cloak, it could never be so again. He had to find other protection, and was doing so. It would not be a quick transformation, or a simple one. But one day his mask would be in place, and impenetrable.
He had already realised that he needed her in his strategy. He also needed her for what she could teach. In three weeks, he had trawled knowledge from her until she felt exhausted. Last of all, she had told him what to expect on arrival. The merchants lived