The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [153]
As indeed she was. Telling all this to Anselm Adorne and his wife in the handsome room they received him in, Gregorio was conscious of Tilde’s steady glare. Of course, she hated losing her mother. Of course, she hated her mother who had chosen Catherine and not Tilde to go to Antwerp and Florence and was now successfully travelling to join her. Tilde said, “What was she doing in Dijon?”
Gregorio was careful. “Visiting Thibault your uncle. You know he lives there.”
“He’s gone crazy,” said Tilde. “He’s so old, he doesn’t know where he is. He wouldn’t know who my mother was, even.”
“Maybe not,” Gregorio said, “but she would have a rest there and, as you see, she got some good men for the rest of her journey. And here’s the letter she gave me to give you.”
He drew it from his purse, making sure it was the right one. The other, also from Marian de Charetty, had been addressed to himself:
I’m not sure what to do. The old man has gone, no one knows where, and the house is empty. I have told the men he is with friends of my late sister’s, and indeed, I found some people I knew who hired the escort I needed. If Doria has hidden him locally, then I must try and find him. If not, I shall ride on the way Doria’s messengers must have gone. I shall keep writing, but bearers cannot now be relied on: if you hear nothing, there is no need to worry. I send a letter for Tilde. The third is for Nicholas. Hand it to him yourself.
He carried that in his purse because there was nowhere else safe he could leave it. Only he knew that his employer had gone to Dijon for one reason alone: to question Thibault de Fleury who had supposedly signed the permission for Catherine’s wedding. If the signature was invalid, then she could pursue Doria and hope to get back her daughter.
Tilde said, “They may be in Florence by now. With Nicholas.” Her eyes looked wet. Instead of reading her mother’s letter, she held it screwed in her hands, which had been tightly clasped in her lap since he entered.
Adorne said gently, “But we know the company has left Florence, little lady; and your mother cannot have arrived there just yet. Why not show Meester Gregorio what Nicholas arranged to have sent you?”
Then Gregorio saw that she held something else in her clenched hands. It looked like a ball. After a moment, she released her fingers and allowed the object to roll from her knee to the ground, where it lay in a tangle of string. She said, “It’s a toy for a child. He has a short memory for an apprentice.” The letter, tumbling also, lay beside it on the floor.
Adorne picked both up. He had hands like a painter, Gregorio thought. Whereas Colard Mansion the painter had fingers like peapods. Adorne’s face, too, with its pale curling hair and high cheekbones and wry, intelligent mouth was ascetic in a way you would never expect of the man who farmed the Duke of Burgundy’s wine taxes and had a reputation, too, of being able to outdrink most men of his guild.
Adorne’s wife smiled and, rising, gently excused herself. Adorne untangled the string until the small object was bare, and then carefully began to rebind its waist. Two young children, hitherto occupied at the end of the room, saw what he was doing and ran up. He said, “You know, of course, that the Eastern delegation is here: the one Nicholas had dealings with in Florence? Of course you will know: the envoy from Trebizond must be most anxious to acquaint himself with the Charetty business. At any rate, Nicholas asked the Persian delegate to bring this little object to Tilde. He says Cosimo de’ Medici has tried and failed to master the principle.”
“What principle?” Gregorio said. The envoy from Trebizond hadn’t been near him. He suspected, he didn’t know why, that Fra Ludovico his leader had stopped him.
“One that Cosimo de’ Medici and I, evidently, know nothing about, but Nicholas does. Engineering, my dear