To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [364]
Kathi turned. ‘Denmark needs money. A little urging from Nicholas, and King James would have bought over Iceland, without means to feed or maintain it. He didn’t.’ She stopped, looking at Gelis. ‘Where is he?’
Gelis said, ‘Someone came to take him back to the city. He could be dead of his wound. He could make himself die. He could kill himself.’
Kathi said, ‘No, he won’t. He isn’t like anyone else. He doesn’t think he is important enough for any disaster to matter. What you have to hope for is that all this havoc teaches him something.’
She looked at Tobie with angry impatience. ‘You know what he does. He invents, and then allows the invention to swallow him. What he did in Scotland is the most amazing thing he has ever achieved. He’s still torn between pride, and an awful awakening. He has to reach the conclusion that he must never do it again.’
‘How?’ said Tobie.
‘I don’t know,’ Kathi said. ‘Perhaps walking away from him is the best thing.’
The man they were discussing was at sea. He had been there for a long time, it seemed; jolting, swaying, rocking. At other times, he was on the bank of a river, and in pain. When he struggled, a. man held both his wrists and seemed to be scolding him. He had seen the man at Angers. But he wasn’t at Angers.
For a time, stupidly, he thought – woe now to the chickens, woe to the blind lion – that he could not see. Then he realised that it was merely night, and he was lying in grass by the bank of his previous dream and drowsy, as if full of poppy, or drunk. A man bent and touched his wrist, but was simply feeling his pulse. His body was bandaged, and hurt. When several men crossed and started to lift him, he made no protest, for he thought he knew where they were taking him.
It was a surprise, therefore, to find himself in a barge, not a carriage. A magnificent barge, it was true. A ship. A ship fit for an Emperor. All the time he lay looking about, he expected to see Violante, princess of Naxos. Violante, Medea. A carriage, a beautiful woman.
A beautiful woman.
Not you, not you, not you.
‘The Emperor bids you welcome on board,’ said Ludovico da Bologna. And all the ghosts vanished, and reality stood at his shoulder.
Long after he knew where he was, Nicholas lay watching the lamps drop behind, over the glittering swirl of the water. The night was clear and very bright: he could see the network of vines on the hills, the mathematical hills of the Moselle, which produced so many exquisite solutions.
Trèves was behind in the darkness, taking its rest before the extravagant, difficult day when the Duke would ride for the last time from St Maximin to the Archbishop’s Palace, there to receive not a crown, but (he thought) the Emperor’s effusive farewell.
Soon, the city would stir. Soon, the smoke would rise into the air, the bakers and cook-shops would put up their shutters, the flash and nod of plate armour and plumes would begin to show themselves in the streets. The musicians would don their tabards and shake out their trumpets, and the horses would stand to their grooming. The Duke would don his heavy pearled robes. The Duke, who yesterday had smashed the stools in his room in his rage, would today have repressed every sign of offence, so that the populace should see not an insulted vassal, but a great lord in his magnificence, tolerating the puerile eccentricities of a man no longer fit for his office.
And some time about then, before the procession set off, a white-faced man would come rushing into St Maximin, and the news would flash from stone to stone, room to room until finally, and slowly, it came with leaden feet to the throne of the Duke.
Monseigneur, one must advise you not to go to the city this morning. Monseigneur, we must humbly suggest that you disband the procession. Monseigneur, the Archbishop’s Palace cannot receive you. Monseigneur, the Emperor’s quarters are empty. The Emperor’s officials have gone. The Emperor has disappeared, and so has his blond son Maximilian. The Emperor has fled during the night, boarded a ship, and