The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [147]
He had succeeded particularly well. Halfway back, Godscalc said suddenly, “Tobie?”
Tobie said, “I know. Look. Hold him between you. I’ll go ahead and start things moving. It looks worse than it is.”
He saw Loppe’s face. He said, “He’s as strong as you are. There’s nothing here he won’t get over.”
Loppe’s gaze, in a white man, would have been considering. He said, “It distressed you. What he said of the Emperor?”
Poised to run, Tobie delayed. He said, “Was it true?”
Loppe said, “He and Messer Pagano were led to the bath house. Yes. That is true.”
“And the Emperor?” Tobie said.
Loppe said, “The Basileus was there, and desirous of him.”
Godscalc’s eyes, like those of Tobie, dwelled on him, waiting.
“But he did not get him,” said Loppe. “I think you should go, Master Tobias.”
A curious dialogue, until you thought about it. It was, Tobie understood, a douceur for the doctor; without which it might be presumed that the doctor would give less than his best. He admired the impulse, resented the implication and neither believed nor disbelieved what Loppe had told him. To honour the intent, he picked up his black skirts and ran.
The events of the next few days were lost to Nicholas, who spent them in a busy, if disjointed world of his own. He had a great deal of running to do. Also, there took place a series of unnerving conversations between himself and other people over matters he preferred not to think about. He heard his own voice quite often, explaining this. Sometimes the response was reassuring: a sensible voice would point out that there was no reason to give such things a thought, and his best course was to think about sleeping. Sometimes this voice took on the likeness of Godscalc’s, and sometimes sounded like Loppe, or Tobie, his doctor. He never saw their faces.
The faces he did see were not conducive to sleep. They were not concerned at all with the shudders that rattled his teeth, or the sweats that drenched him, or the vomiting, or the purging or the cramps. But then, he was used to indifference; and indeed, preferred it. It was their claims on him that he found endlessly trying.
The woman especially. He attempted, retching and shivering, to turn her away; to explain he had nothing to offer, but she never listened. Sometimes, her brown hair wound about her naked white skin, she would invade his bed of nausea, of weakness, of lethargy and lie there, wretchedly weeping, as if he had spurned her. Sometimes he would turn on the pillow and see her beside him, lying full length in the gown of a matron, with her brown hair hidden with velvet and wire, but the same demand in her clutch, in her eyes. Always, she asked difficult questions. If you were a lawyer, would you marry me? No, he would say. No, of course not. How could I, with marsh fever, in Trebizond? But she never listened, although she talked. You can become a burgess by marriage, she said. Several times.
Once he seemed to be on his feet and she lay on the mattress, her chestnut hair spread on the pillow, so that he saw how desirable she was, and understood how his lack of ardour must offend her. Often, there was steam, which ran stinging into his eyes unless someone came with a towel, and dried him. Drifting white round his nakedness it would make distant her brown hair and small breasts and even her voice—Can you recommend me to a friend? And then he would say aloud, “Katelina!” but could think of nothing to add. Later, when the white scented steam cleared away, it was not a woman he saw, and he did not speak.
The last dream came to him when the fever had almost abated and his senses were in part returning. This time it was certainly Katelina van Borselen, pregnant as he had last seen her in Bruges; hating him as he had last seen her in Bruges. He looked for her son, and she said, “I am calling him Henry.”
Relief washed over