To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [188]
It was not how he felt. He didn’t know why, tonight of all nights, he should remember the scents of an African night, the pillowed dunes of a much smaller island; the arms in which he had lain – on which he had lain – over and over. The sense of loss, of foreboding stayed with him till dawn, and caused him to reply curtly when his prisoner rallied him. He regretted it, and shook off the mood. It was not Benecke who had turned out to be humourless. He busied himself, packing up, and noticed that nothing had changed about the two fitful emissions of smoke on the horizon. The demons which stoked them were absent. The demons, damn them, had been busy elsewhere.
Chapter 26
IN EDINBURGH – the ancient epicentrum towards which, in counter-flow, there had streamed for six months all the molten concerns of the Banco di Niccolò – in Edinburgh, no word came from the north. In the house in the Canongate, Govaerts prosecuted his business tight-lipped with his hard-working staff of the counting-house, and maintained and developed all that the padrone had instituted with the great officers of the Court, and the Court itself.
He did not find it especially easy, for although some – the Lords Sinclair and Hamilton – were prepared to be remarkably patient, his grace the King and his brother were not. And although his master’s lady herself did not trouble him, he had to suffer the daily importunities of Berecrofts the Younger. A father’s feeling: it was natural enough. There were times when Govaerts wished, none the less, that Nicholas had left the boy Robin behind. He was only thankful that news of the whole escapade had yet to strike Venice.
It had of course travelled to Bruges, and from there to the Burgundian camp. He could imagine Astorre’s spit of disgust. It meant little. Whatever his boy chose to play at, Astorre was confident that he would return to his real task unimpaired. Astorre was looking forward to fighting this year.
Sometimes, his thoughts straying, Govaerts allowed himself to wonder what Zacco of Cyprus would think of his Nikko de Fleury, if he thought of him at all, while he had David, the dark-eyed David of the Vatachino, at his side. In uncharitable mood, Govaerts occasionally hoped that somewhere in the far north, Nicholas was slicing up David’s friend Martin and feeding him to strange foreign ducks. He also wondered about the Gräfin von Hanseyck, who would have had a share in this venture, had the Danzig ship been finished in time.
Gelis did not keep to the house. The Play had made her more friends than she had possessed in her years with the Princess, and other doors opened, of course, to the wife of her spouse. It was not her intention – not yet – to disillusion all these decent, tedious people: to say to them, Do you never ask yourself what kind of man performs best on a stage? What person is this with the calculating efficiency of a quartermaster; who can command and drive people as a general does, or seduce them with cunning? There are men of genius, and there are tyrants, and there are men who might be either or both.
She did not go back to Beltrees.
Mistress Clémence concerned herself, as was correct, with nothing at all but the child. When the fever first attacked, in the early days of their return to the High Street, she did not trouble the mother, but embarked, with Pasque’s help, on all the usual remedies, for children are sick for many reasons, not least because their playmates are absent. When, however, the pustules appeared, she sent at once for Conrad, the physician who served the royal children in Dr Andreas’s absence, and went to break the news to the lady of Fleury.
If there had been any doubt of her love for the child, her distress would have seemed to dismiss it. All her actions were bold and immediate. The sickroom was shut off. Commands were sent to William Scheves and the Prioress. Berecrofts the Younger, swiftly obeying her summons, arranged to vacate his family house by the Avon so that the