The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [243]
In a while, two men came with a carpet to remove the Florentine consul so that the games might go on. In the tent they took him to, he eventually stirred, and was rather wretchedly sick; and then allowed Tobie without resistance to reassure himself that nothing was indeed broken. The Emperor had sent an emissary to enquire after his health several times, and Violante of Naxos had called once.
Nobody had cared to introduce the subject of Catherine’s accident, about which Nicholas could as yet know nothing. At the end of it all, Tobie wrapped him in blankets and set him, propped up, to await transport back to the fondaco. He sat, Tobie saw, in exactly the way he always sat after a beating: without complaint or expectation of anyone’s interest. He was probably going to be sick again. He was lucky to be alive. It took no leap of the imagination to recognise that Doria had tried in the end to get rid of him, and had been foiled, or had failed. Then the persistent Venetian woman paid her second visit and, admitted this time, looked down at her late, wan opponent with interest. She was clean and changed into womanly silks, although her face, under the paint, betrayed recent exertion. She said, “We should have scored a third point.”
“In heaven,” said Nicholas, “you probably did.” It was the first sentence he had produced and indicated, well enough, that it was not going to be the first of many.
Violante of Naxos said, “It was your own fault. You know that. None the less, I am sorry. But the rest went according to plan. That is what I came to say.”
“All of it?”
“Everything. You have three days to rest, and review your own stupidity.”
He sat looking after her, appearing pleased and sick at the same time. She had reached the door when he managed a question. “Who saved me?”
“Oh, Alexios,” she said. “You have nothing to thank me for.”
“Six points,” he said, with queasy contentment.
Chapter 35
LUCKILY FOR THE STATE of his health, the prophecy was correct, and Nicholas did have three full days in which to rest his battered bones after the Feast of St Eugenios. Seeing no reason to rest his brain also, he spent them holding busy meetings in the shade of the garden, dressed in the sort of loose buttoned robe whose uses he had been taught in the Palace. As the heat advanced, even Father Godscalc left off his gown and tended to be seen, when at the fondaco, in shirt and hose like the rest, although never quite so informal as Astorre, who would strip to the waist the moment he came in off the streets and stand, as once Julius had done, letting the spray of the fountain jump off his frilled scars and furred pelt. The prophecy was correct, but failed to indicate that three days of peace were all any of them were going to get, never mind Nicholas.
He was holding a discussion, perched on the back of a long marble settle with his sandalled feet on its seat, when the interregnum was doubly brought to an end; burst asunder first by the arrival of Astorre himself, still fully dressed and straight from the Citadel. They heard him roar from the garden entrance. He leaped the steps and bounded forward, still bellowing. “The mist has lifted, and there’s a beacon! The fleet is coming! Sinope has fallen, and the Turkish dogs are sailing this way!” Godscalc and Tobie scrambled up from the grass, and Nicholas slid to the ground quickly and joined them.
It was a relief. It was almost a joy. For Astorre, the professional soldier, it was a joy. He looked incandescent. Standing around him, they had begun flinging questions and extracting answers when there was another thunderous crash in the outer yard, followed by the disputing voices of servants. The door to the garden was flung open a second time with such violence that they all broke off and turned.
Pagano Doria stood on the steps. He walked down them and crossed the grass steadily. He came to a halt before Nicholas. “Where is she?” he said.
She had promised three days. The three days were over. Nicholas said, “Your wife is safe. Come