The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [271]
They left, riding south, and as soon as was safe, took the arc that would bring them round to Trebizond, where Astorre would be waiting. They rode a long time in silence; broken once only by Tobie. He said, “Catherine.”
“There now, I’d forgotten,” said Nicholas. “We ought to offer her to the Sultan. He’d get the fright of his life.”
After that, with a doctor’s experience, Tobie left him alone.
Chapter 39
THE PRIEST GODSCALC had watched Nicholas and Tobie leave with no expectation that they would live to return from the Grand Vizier’s camp. As time passed, the certainty grew. A hundred miles to the west, Julius would sail homewards on Tuesday from Kerasous. Saturday was the last day he and Astorre could lead the others from Trebizond and still hope to catch him. When Friday dawned with no word, he thought Nicholas lost, and Tobie with him.
If the thought struck Astorre, he was too occupied to devote any time to it. In any case, as a soldier, he was used to the demands of war, and its vagaries. There were no other senior members of the company left with which the priest could share his fears, so he kept them to himself. So far as the world and the Emperor were concerned, Nicholas had been struck with fever once more, and Tobie was tending him.
When, that Friday, they both found their way back, worn and filthy and silent, the priest found his composure overturned. It was Loppe who looked after their needs, and Loppe who reminded him, with a look, that the giving of news ought to wait. But time was short, and they themselves were as conscious of it as anyone. It was Nicholas, first, who told of the forthcoming surrender and Tobie who took Godscalc aside and informed him of the killing of Doria. He told his story in full, as John le Grant once had done on a different occasion, and for the same reason. And, interpreting it, Godscalc was silent.
Then, it was wholly a matter of putting into effect, with speed, their plans to abandon their station. This time, at their one, hasty conference, there was no resistance from Astorre. He listened grimly to the tale of betrayal and weakness and then, rising, picked something up and snapped it in two on his knee. It was the bâton of command the Emperor had presented him with. He flung the pieces away, and the broken gold rang on the floor. He said, “I don’t serve under Turks. Or under cowards.”
“There will be no fighting,” Nicholas said. “Only occupation after surrender, and death for you and your men. If you had argued with me, I would have cut off your leg if I had to.”
Astorre’s beard jutted. “That wasn’t the tale after Erzerum. We all had a choice.”
“No, you didn’t,” Nicholas said. “I only made it seem that you had.”
After that, they hardly saw each other as they made their fast, well-rehearsed moves; men of purpose traversing the turbulent city; closing their minds to all but the immediate task, for all the arguments were long ago over. Late on Friday, they received permission for the one formality for which they had to make time; and, without waiting longer, paid their last call at the Palace. As on the first occasion, Nicholas was the principal; but this time Godscalc entered with him, and Astorre and his men escorted them both, glittering in a fierce perfection of drill that was a denunciation in metal.
Inside, they saw no sign of Amiroutzes, or of the boys, or the women. They received their audience before men brittle and smiling with fear. The latrine smell of fear clung to the red onyx columns and the coloured glass plaques and the gold reliefs of the wainscotting, and stifled the odour of fruit, and musk, and incense. It showed itself in the half-packed chests; the litter; the whisperings.
Godscalc knew that it presaged the collapse of all order that came with surrender: the ill-cooked food from deserted kitchens; the crumpled clothes handed by servants with little to hope for, and young of their own to be frightened about. The uneasy prayers of the churchmen: resented, badgered, importuned. The shifting