To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [345]
‘Where?’ he said. He thought of the crowded streets, the packed Palace, Abbey, courtyards.
She said, Outside. I thought of the river, downstream. It would be quiet on the banks.’ She paused and said, ‘Would you mind very much if I brought him with me?’
He had already agreed. He couldn’t change his mind now. He saw her eyes as he left, but couldn’t remember where he had noticed that look before.
Chapter 47
MANY TIMES BEFORE, as his suffering partners knew, Nicholas had delegated the work of the Bank to his managers. Until these last moments in Trèves, he had seldom abandoned one of his own personal projects. Now he did. The others could manage. He had no heart for it, or mind for it, either. The others could deal with the conclusion of the great conference which was to make Charles a king, but which still withheld, for the season, what he had yearned for. In the pending magnificent ceremony, for which he had come so well prepared, Charles would be crowned King of his own expanded duchy. And in return the sixteen-year-old Marie, his daughter, would be promised to the Emperor’s son.
For John and Julius, it could have been worse. The preparations were already half made. Plans were far advanced for the Cathedral. The crown, the sceptre, the cloak and banner lay already burnished and brushed, and fit to be displayed in the Church of Our Lady. The thrones were being regilded; the cathedral hangings were in the hands of the jewellers; the erection of tribunes had begun. Banners were being painted and sewn, vestments chosen. The Archishop of Mayence sent for his exceptional jewels and began to rehearse the coronation mass and anointing. The masters and choristers of all the choirs started meeting in session. The tailors made and delivered robes and cloaks, doublets and sleeves, gowns and headdresses for the nobility of both sexes.
The week before his enthronement, the future Charles, King of Burgundy, ordained and presided over a series of extravagant entertainments designed to dumbfound his hosts, and to express his gratification at the outcome of the past seven weeks. Nicholas made a token appearance. Then he left to keep his appointment with Katelijne Sersanders, and the man, the Scotsman she had chosen to marry.
It was then the third Saturday in November, and the coronation was five days away.
*
Until now, the glorious weather had held. Watered by the light rains of September, the countryside had burst into a second flowering. Cherries ripened, trees blossomed; the vines above the Moselle, picked into October, were thick-perfumed and heavy with juice. Even yet, it was warm; although the mornings in Trèves were veiled by a softening mist which lingered until an hour or two before midday, blotting out the low hills about it, so that even the further bank of the broad river vanished.
Now it was mid-afternoon, and the sun was yellow and mild as Nicholas made his unhurried way out of the flagging city. The Imperial boats, with their banners, lay bright and clear in midstream, while the jetties were crowded with barges, and the arm of the toll-crane whined and palpitated. Upriver, the water combed through the nine massy piers of the bridge, thirteen centuries old, and flowed on past the pale city walls, winding north-east between vineyards and far-off afforested hills to where, eighty miles off, it would enter the Rhine at Coblenz.
Nicholas turned along the right bank, the gentle breeze fresh in his face. No one looked at him twice: no one heeded a man strolling at leisure, dressed in an anonymous pourpoint and cap, with a satchel over his shoulder. Soon he had left the bustle behind.
The river curved. There was no long view of either bank. On the opposite side, a low red slabby escarpment cut off the sky, with sunlit trees at its foot like gold fountains. There were trees on his side as well: some bright as embers, some laden with heraldic red and white berries, some with broad yellow flags. A baldaquin