The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [174]
In public, with the others, it was different. Silent in council unless directly spoken to, he would give his opinion in as few words as possible, and then desist. Only sometimes, when the final resolve seemed less than sensible, would he fall into step with one or other of them on the way out and offer some remark of his own on the subject, switching immediately to something else. Julius and even Astorre accepted the change, clearly considering that Nicholas had returned to the more amenable days before Modon—although even then, of course, he was keeping quiet about Simon.
Godscalc had refused to speculate. Tobie considered that Nicholas had picked, in fact, the only possible way of responding to what had been, for him, a near-annihilating disaster. He also saw, as time went on, that his meek role in public was beginning to jar on the man. He persisted with it because he must. But sometimes a keen ear could detect a note of irony, or perhaps of self-ridicule, in the muted, moderate answers he gave. In private, again, the tendency was wholly absent. He was in isolation for his sins, and he knew it.
The game was turning out badly, even without an observer. Tobie had just made up his mind to go in when he heard raised voices from the front of the villa. The voices came nearer, and were cut off by the bang of a door. Footsteps could be heard, descending the steps to the garden.
Nicholas raised his head, and then began to sit up. Tobie, card in hand, peered through the pale screen of fruit trees. Nicholas said unguardedly, “Do you smell…?”
Fish. Not just fish, but a stink of something fleshy about it that clouted the flowery sweetnesses out of the air and hit you straight in the face. The smell came with the footsteps, and was worsening. Julius arrived in view. Tobie stared at the notary. At his handsome face, which was streaked and lacquered over its tan like a wedding-chest. At his hat, which was not a hat but a cluster of unruly pink blossoms. At the sober doublet he wore normally under his gown, which was now a shimmering casing in the form of a man down which drifts of magenta flowers flowed sensuously. The path behind him was strewn as by some diabolical Olwen. The smell of fish was sickening.
“Dolphin blubber,” said Nicholas. His face had cleared, for the first time in two weeks.
“Dolphin oil,” Julius said. His voice was mild. He bent his elbows and turned about once; and then looked at them again. “You see it, do you?”
“How?” said Tobie. His voice shook.
“My former pupil,” said Julius. His voice was still mild. “The lady Catherine de Charetty, married to the good lord Pagano Doria. You have seen it?”
“Yes,” said Tobie.
“Good,” said Julius. He turned, and walked across the path and into the pond which he crossed, wading steadily, until he got to the fountain. Then he turned and stood perfectly still, his eyes shut. The water sluiced into his hat and slid over his face and poured into his shirt and pourpoint and over his doublet and down the tops of his thighs. Flowers, in piercing pink cascades, followed the water and pushed out into the pond in thickening garlands.
“Judas flowers,” said Nicholas. His eyes had stretched very wide and his face was an undimpled plain.
“You are right,” Julius said. He took his hat off and, holding it between thumb and forefinger, let it drop into the pond. Uncovered, his hair gleamed on his skull and his face as if painted. He unfastened, staring at Tobie, all the buttons of his doublet and pourpoint and took them both off,