The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [131]
To the east, you could see clear across the ravine and the town to the sea. Near at hand, Nicholas identified the line of the stables, the barracks, an arsenal, the mews, storehouses, an armourer’s, workshops. His nose located the kitchens and bakehouse with a fishpond and well close beside them. They were passing them all. After a few more paces, he said, “You have the letter with you?”
Doria laughed. “Here? No. It has by now, shall I say, something of a second-hand look to it. If you still want it, I’ll bring it to the stadium. You mean to go to the festival?”
“I have been invited,” Nicholas said. “But don’t trouble to bring it. Loppe will call.”
Doria smiled again. “He may call, but he won’t get the letter. At the Meidan, my dear. Nowhere else. Page upon page; and such suggestions! It made Catherine jealous.”
About the contents he was lying: Nicholas didn’t have to be told that. That there was a letter was probably true. It was unlikely to say very much. Marian had probably sent it to Venice in January. It was only Doria’s possession of it that was…undesirable. And Catherine’s wilfulness. It was addressed to himself. She could have chosen to pass it on privately. It was from her mother, after all. Her mother, distracted perhaps by having found Catherine gone. Or else because…But no. Marian could have found out nothing more, or Doria would not have been ready to part with her letter.
If he was ready? If it was not just another feint; another touch of the goad in the charming game Doria was playing with him. Otherwise, why force him to accept it at the festival?
He walked on, countering Doria only with the silence Doria did not want. For the moment, a refusal to fight was his only safeguard. They were nowhere near the Middle Citadel gate. Instead, the equerry had turned towards a large pavilion set in lawns to the right, with a path before it which circled a fountain. Behind was the western wall of the Citadel, and the tops of the trees that lined the nearest bank of the gorge. Across the ravine was the ridge of St Eugenios; and behind that, the heights of the hill the Romans called Mithras. Sacred to gods which had not been celebrated today.
Nicholas turned. Behind, Loppe and the Greek had been stopped. Both looked mystified. In front, the equerry beckoned. Nicholas said, “Where are we going?”
Doria arched his brows, his eyes glinting. “You don’t know? Then why not enquire of the equerry? In your fluent Greek?”
He sounded entertained. Nicholas looked at the nature of the building before him and made, at last, some deductions. He wished, with all his heart, that he were back in the villa with Julius and Tobie and Godscalc. He contradicted himself quickly. This was what he had wanted. And what sense would it make to leave Doria alone here now? At least the proceedings might warm his hands and feet, which were icy. He said to the equerry, in Greek, “It is a bath house?”
The equerry had a black moustache, and wore a buttoned robe and a hat like a tube. He said, “By order of the Basileus. It pleases him to offer the hospitality of his baths. Pray follow.”
Doria’s smile could be cut up and eaten. He murmured, using Italian, “I wonder, mixed bathing? I have heard things. My dear, I think you are too young.”
“I hope so,” said Nicholas. A door opened; and then another, from which steam emerged. It was what he had expected.
“Mixed bathing,” said Doria softly.
He had been in steam baths in Flanders and Italy. Most were bawdy houses and ran to hard couches in the entrance hall, with floor coverings of a sort, and a few hangings, and shuttered places by the latrines for undressing. In all of them, even the brothels, there were racks of towels to be had. Here, when he had stripped, there was nothing to do but walk mother-naked into the hall. The walls were hung with yellow silk sewn with pearls, and there were couches heaped with down cushions on a carpet from Persia. Against one wall was a buffet on