The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [184]
Nicholas tenderly smoothed on the cap, which fitted well enough. His hair, roused by the bath, curled and climbed all round about it. He stood conveying the embodiment of Claes, humble and obedient, and wondered what he had got himself into. The tent flap was parted for him, and he walked in.
Chapter 27
FOR A LONG TIME now, Nicholas had wondered how far Pagano Doria intended to go, in the skirmish he had embarked on so long ago: in Brussels; in Pisa; in Florence. He had his orders, one took it, from Simon. To defer the final engagement until now had been strategically sensible. Deferring it, Doria had, of course, enjoyed being playful. He had apparently enjoyed, too, directing the attack at Vavuk. Allowing Nicholas to survive, but on his own terms, might be another example of Doria’s turn for mischief. Simon had none, that he knew of. There was one other possibility, but that would be too much to hope for.
Nicholas stepped into the pavilion, and saw his answer before him; for it was as if he had stepped into a scented bath, surrounded by flowers. Swayed by the air from his entrance, gilded lamps sent a surge of dazzling light over silk hangings and deep, patterned carpets; appointments of carved wood and gilded copper and bronze; the silks and gauzes of the many occupants who sat in cushioned groups all round the walls.
They were all women. Moving among them were slaves, and soft-footed eunuchs. He was in a seraglio. Perhaps the vilest evidence yet of Pagano Doria’s cast of mind. Perhaps not. It came to him that, although clean, he was injured, and aching, and unshaven, and therefore probably as little to be desired as he was desirous. Once, he had had…It was a long time since he had had anything, or wanted it. He stood still, and looked again.
The chamber presented itself, controlled; exact; as if in a painting. He saw the harpist he had heard. The music continued: a smooth, perpetual flow, ignored by the company. The tinted faces, the jewels, the coats of brilliant dyed silk, the feathered crests in the dark hair were not those of whores, or bought-in slaves, or emirs’ daughters, presented in tribute. Whoever they were, they served someone high-born. Their movements were graceful and studied: a hand moved a backgammon piece on a low fretted table; another fondled a gerfalcon; a third poured a pastel liquid from the long, slender neck of a flask; a fourth examined a painting. His entrance caused no stir other than the tranquil turn of a head. In the centre, alone, was a woman who was not young at all, and whom he had never seen before. He waited a long moment, mastering the shock: revising his intention. Then he walked slowly towards her.
She sat in the reflected light of her robes under a canopy upheld by four light golden poles. Their sockets formed the corners of a heavy fenced dais, lustrous with tiles of blue and white porcelain and cushioned in velvet. The little gate to the dais had been closed: none could reach her. Behind her, high as the tent and lit by a ten-branched candelabrum, was a stretch of silk painted with flowers and birds in such a way that she herself appeared part of it. She sat among violets and peonies, roses and hollyhocks, willows and cypresses; and peacocks stood with hoopoes and doves at her shoulders.
She was between sixty and seventy, and art still preserved much of her beauty. The shape of her face remained oval, its olive cheeks tinted with rose and its eyebrows razored into delicate arches, drawn to meet at the nose. Her eyes, outlined with kohl, were still pear-shaped and clear in spite of the wrinkles about them, and the silk that capped her hair and her brow also masked her throat and her shoulders. The veil was held in place by a fragile, leafed diadem, from which hung a face-necklace of great Ormuz pearls. She was sitting so still that the jewels lay quiet at either temple and down the smooth cheeks to where they cupped and flattered the line of her chin. He thought he knew who she was.