To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [242]
Tobias Beventini, physician, had left Nicholas before, unable to tolerate what the others had learned to ignore, because he understood it better. This last year, it had seemed that he had vanished for good. But if he had, it was odd that he should want to return to an army again. And when and if Urbino completed his task, Tobie would have to consider where next to go. Nicholas remembered something Kathi had said. He was a good doctor.
Astorre was speaking. ‘And the boy. You were supposed to be bringing the boy to be trained?’
Nicholas looked at him. ‘Aged three and a half? Trained for what?’
Astorre looked impatient. ‘What do you mean? The boy. The other boy. The son of the merchant. Your page.’
His head cleared. ‘Ah, Robin. I will bring him. He’s worth teaching. Will you do it? Stretch him. I don’t want him coddled, but I’d rather not have him killed.’
‘Killed?’ said Astorre. ‘Men don’t get killed in these wars, except over wagers while they’re sitting down waiting. These aren’t proper wars.’
They spent next day between the camp and the commanders. The following afternoon, leaving John, Nicholas prepared to make his one visit home before the start of the campaign. By home, he supposed he meant Antwerp. It seemed a long way away. From there, he would go to Diniz in Bruges, for he had a business to order as well as an army. He was leaving Moriz to help. And Julius might have arrived, with his chubby Gräfin.
All the women Nicholas knew had speculated about Julius and his new conquest – Julius, who had seemed so devotedly self-centred and single. They didn’t seem to consider, as Julius undoubtedly had, that at a certain stage in a man’s life he would be seen to require an establishment, and a hostess to run it. A rich hostess, for preference. Looks would hardly matter. All the time his friends had known him, Julius had had a very mild interest – almost no interest at all – in what Nicholas had always regarded as the best and cheapest pleasure in life. Perhaps he was about to be converted.
It was then the beginning of June, and the country was bowered in green. Going home, Nicholas travelled by Ghent, the shortest route back, since he had recently spent a great deal of time in the saddle. When he left Ghent on the fourth day of the month, he had something under forty miles still to cover to Antwerp. Nothing warned him to go to Bruges first, for although the thought of Gelis seldom left him – he had told Kathi the truth – he had refrained from divining.
Alone among the inhabitants of the matroneum at Antwerp, the elderly handmaiden Pasque was both carefree and happy. As she had absorbed Edinburgh, so she absorbed the quays and the ramparts and the markets of her new home; loftily inquisitive, she was acquainted with every washerwoman in the town in two weeks. Pasque preferred Antwerp to Scotland. In Antwerp they spoke God’s own tongue, if you could imagine God with a cleft palate.
Certainly, when the baby’s father departed for Arras, she tried to convince Mistress Clémence that a little visit to Coulanges and Dijon would also do the child good, but the undoubted distance between Artois and the Loire was against it. However; she was not truly cast down, even when the boy Robin arrived one day from Bruges with a message that took Mistress Clémence away (the Adorne children were ill), thus leaving poor Pasque to shoulder the labours of two. In fact, when she pointed this out, the lady Gelis hired another to help her, a devout, hardworking woman called Bita who went to her devotions