Paúel Benecke turned, jug in hand. ‘And where are you going?’
‘Downstairs. I came to this place to eat.’
Paúel put the jug down. Kathi said, ‘Why don’t we all go downstairs and eat?’ She no longer felt tired. She felt feverish.
Robin said, ‘Would you mind that?’ to the new Nicholas. He paused and then added, ‘We don’t want anything from you.’
‘Of course you do. You are a messenger of divine admonition,’ Colà-Nicholas said. ‘And I am the Judas of the Paschal, with my light about to be snuffed in a sack. Nie pozwalam, my friends.’
‘I wish to rule, and I will not let anyone pick my nose?’ Kathi quoted.
He stopped, at least. He said, ‘People try, on occasion. So this is merely a courtesy call? You are on your way to Tabriz, to persuade Uzum Hasan to fight his fellow Muslims in Christ’s cause?’
‘I thought we were on our way to eat,’ Kathi said.
He lifted an impatient shoulder and turned, and she followed him down to the common room, with Robin and the pirate behind her. The room was warm and stinking and full of bibulous men, some of whom Benecke and Colà-Nicholas knew. They had spent the winter, after all, roving the countryside. Elzbiete had disappeared. Gerta set a board before them, and food, which Kathi found suddenly welcome. Fright had given her an appetite. Robin said, ‘So tell us about bear-hunts.’
All the information about bear-hunts was in fact imparted by Paúel Benecke, with ample illustrations from recent misadventures. He followed with other stories, none of them flattering to his companion, and frequently mentioning women. Colà-Nicholas occasionally commented, and occasionally turned to contribute to quite different conversations taking place within earshot elsewhere. Robin kept his head, and sustained some part of the talk in his quiet way, but Kathi soon dropped out in order to watch, and to agonise, and to think. After a while Nicholas noticed it.
‘Regretting you came?’
Robin said, ‘She didn’t want to come. It was my idea.’
‘But you don’t want anything. So why? Why is he here, Paúel?’
‘He was anxious,’ Benecke suggested. ‘He thought I might have cut your throat, or you might cut your own. He was afraid you might murder Adorne, or upset his embassy —’
‘You don’t say!’ the new Nicholas said. ‘Whatever would make him think that?’
‘— or start another business which would rival the old one. Or he might have wanted you to come back. Perhaps what you did has been forgiven. What did you do?’
So Benecke didn’t know. It was what Kathi had been afraid of, that Benecke knew. She heard Colà-Nicholas swear at him casually, and then return his attention, without answering, to Robin. ‘The man has a point. It occurred to me, when I saw you, that I might just come back. Poland is fit for no one but Poles and I’ve done everything really worth doing. I’d be better off going back to Scotland.’
She saw Robin grow white, and she put her hand on his arm. Heads turned; Nicholas had not spoken quietly. Now he glanced round and turned back to Paúel. ‘Really,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of teaching you all. You can’t build, you can’t sail, you can’t even make wheels go round as well as mice do. I’m going to go back and re-open my house. Take up the Bank again. Look for my snivelling little wife and her bastard … What were they called?’
Robin’s colour had begun to come back. Kathi took her hand away, shaking her head. Benecke had got to his feet. So had a number of other men in the room. Colà said, ‘Who’s going to argue?’
The men were grinning. No one had taken him seriously. He had spoken out of pure malice, with all the authentic ring of those brutal remarks which Elzbiete had quoted. There seemed no topic now that was sacred. Now he had vilified everything — everything except, so far, the person he had mentioned even to her only once, and whose name was already blackened. But then, he had not had cause recently to speak of his parents.
Everyone had risen. The promised brawl had degenerated into good-humoured badinage, and the tavern’s clients, their meal over, seemed inclined to wander out of doors, where the night was cool but not cold, and still dry. The sound of drumming pricked in the distance, and the wail of bagpipes, and the scratch of a fiddle. Benecke said, ‘There’s a party down by the rafts. Why not come? If it’s to be Colà’s last night, we should give him something to remember.’
Robin went off to bring her a cloak. Benecke retired to the yard. Kathi spoke fast to Nicholas. ‘Jodi misses you, but he has Mistress Clémence and Dr Tobie, and he’s well. We brought nothing from him, in case you thought we were taking advantage. We really didn’t want anything. Just to see how you were.’
‘And God has two wives,’ he said. ‘Why did you come? I know Robin’s great bleeding heart, but you? Because you’re still training him?’
‘That is wicked,’ she said.
‘But true. Here he is, with your shawl and your slippers.’
They walked down to the beach, and she could not bring herself to speak to him on the way, because he was the only man there who was sober. She thought, then, that she had plumbed the worst of it.
Chapter 5
AT FIRST, she had Robin; and it was warm inside her cloak, sitting close to him, and they were able somehow to extract enjoyment from it all because they were both young, and had by now learned to partner each other through a great many exciting occasions, as well as imposing and tedious ones. Below the castle, the land that sloped down to the river was part watermeadow, part cobbled pathways which led to the jetties. The impromptu party was spread over the foreshore and dunes and had spilled, much of it, on to the vast swaying walkway formed by the rafts. The rafters themselves were mostly on shore or in the taverns, but the families of Mewe with their baskets and lanterns settled themselves shouting on the extraordinary craft, or made themselves seats on the bank, round the crazed red and blue light of the braziers, and got up and danced every time the musicians stopped drinking. Then, as they got tired, they sang.
Benecke had gone to check on his raft, accompanied by Nicholas. She did not want to discuss Nicholas. Especially she didn’t wish to treat him as a subject of strategy. She had begun to say so to Robin, but had broken off while negotiating his name. Robin had said, ‘Think of him, if you want to, as Colà. But call him Nicholas. He mustn’t forget who he is.’
She hadn’t answered. For that was the trouble. To the last red-hot wire of the armature, Nicholas knew who he was. All he had once tried to forget, he had now embraced. Not to assimilate, but as an infill of rubbish; a different form of insulation, that was all. And he didn’t care, now, who else suffered.
The singing drew her mind from her thoughts, being discordant and cheerful and coarse. Robin began to join in. The water lapped the shore and suckled the rafts. Something splashed. A pair of children, scuffling with a stick, hit a ball into the dunes and she handed it back, rubbing sand from her eyes.
Tzukanion. A game played by horsemen, and children. A dangerous, elegant game played on a long, sandy shore by two riders in magnificent doublets, one in crimson velvet, the other in pleated black silk. The athlete, the acrobat: Julius the lawyer, and Nicholas de Fleury, the Chevalier Highmount. And then, the moon high over the estuary, they had made music: they had exchanged the wonder of fantasy for a wonder of a different kind; and Nicholas had been led by a master through the door he had now shut and locked. He carries keys in his head.
The same melodious voice spoke, here and now. ‘Poor eager Willie and his Tenebrae service. Do you remember our first meeting, lady of Berecrofts? How old were you then, Robin? Five?’
‘It was six years ago,’ Robin said.
Nicholas laughed. Then he said, ‘I’ve brought Herod-Baba to sit with you. Then Paúel wants to take Kathi off and seduce her. The raft is over there, at the end. I’ll show her the way.’
‘I’ll take her,’ said Robin. He rose, and so did she.
Kathi looked at him, and then up at Colà. She said, ‘What does Paúel want?’ Once
, cold sheepskin pressing her cheek. Once, his hands in friendship, holding her safe.
He said, ‘To winkle out of you the reason I’m here. To persuade you to leave me alone before something happens.’
‘To me?’ Kathi said.
‘It’s not impossible,’ said the new Nicholas. ‘But Paúeli generally prefers to take out his annoyance on men. So how is your uncle?’
‘He didn’t want us here either,’ Robin said. ‘As I’ve said, the whole thing was my idea. So let me tell him. We know you mustn’t go back.’
‘That’s a challenging statement,’ Nicholas said.
Kathi said, ‘Don’t start again. Robin, stay. Let’s get this over.’ And walked away from the firelight with Colà.
The noise receded. The river ran black and broad on her left, the bed of raft-lanterns flickering. On her right, the wind rustled the grasses and at the foot of the castle, loud as ducks, the frogs had begun their night’s inflatable choir. ‘Tenebrae,’ Nicholas said.
She said, ‘Is there nothing left that is bearable?’
‘Debate it with Paúeli,’ he said. ‘While having in mind the handy phrase I just used. Nie pozwalam. Or a quick, simple Nie, if you’re pressed.’
He sounded not just indifferent, but mocking. She rounded on him. He came, slightly surprised, to a halt. She said, ‘And is there nothing at all, Nicholas, that you want to ask me? Nothing that matters about anyone else? Shall I give you a bulletin? Do you know that your wife has now taken your place? When you vacated the Bank, Gelis offered to help finance Gregorio in Venice, so that he could run the house as her partner. In Bruges, Diniz has done much the same. As well as managing the branch, he has bought it. It means that two parts of the Bank can survive.’
She was blocking his way. She could see him stir, but not his expression. He said, ‘You see, you did want something from me. A tear, a shiver, a flush, a shade of distress, of remorse? Something to music, perhaps?’
She was tempted, but didn’t pursue it. She said, ‘A single question would have been a good sign.’
‘About Gelis?’ he said, walking round her. ‘But, aspettate e odiate, Gelis always survives, as you’ve shown. A really good business brain. I should know, since I taught her.’
He had resumed walking on, and she followed. She said, ‘She could have stayed with your rivals. She’s left them.’
‘All of them?’ Nicholas said. ‘Martin? Simon? Poor darling David? Perhaps I should introduce David to Buonaccorsi’s friend Nerio? Or perhaps they are already acquainted, from Cyprus. Do you think Nerio could be my son or my daughter? No. Whatever his sex, he’s too old.’
She knew Nerio. He was half Greek, and a year older than she was. She spoke shortly. ‘He couldn’t be your son. He’s far too good-looking.’
‘He had a good-looking mother. Did no one tell you I slept with Violante? Wife of Zeno of Venice. Nerio’s her by-blow. Here’s the raft. Paúel?’
She looked at Nicholas. A slow-swinging lamp in the dark lit his face. It was indifferent still, with a hint of impatience. Throughout, nevertheless, he had avoided her eyes. Now he called again, ‘Paúeli? Here is your ex-virgin brother. Show her over the silos and bring her, mulier intacta, back to her husband. Farewell in Christ.’ He waited to see Benecke hand her aboard, then moved away.
After two paces, he turned. ‘Where’s the watchman?’
‘Drunk. I kicked him on shore. Colà, stay.’
‘No.’
‘I meant you to stay.’
The dialogue reached Kathi as she walked inboard over the raft. It was only thirty inches in depth. They had laid matting over the timbers. There was a neat hooded cabin in front, and a larger one for the crew nearer the back. She went into the smaller. Benecke’s voice, by the shore, was still calling. ‘I meant you to stay. Three of us. You know you …’
She couldn’t hear the end, or the reply. She was not yet uneasy; merely weighing the advantages of opening these topics with two men instead of one. There was a pair of rolled mattresses and several boxes which doubled as seats; she sat on one of them. With the lamp lit, it was attractive enough, with a plank spread with platters of sweetmeats, and a flask of wine gently rolling from its hook. There was nothing she remembered as belonging to Nicholas. Benecke stooped and came in. ‘He wouldn’t stay. We’ll have to drink all the Gascony by ourselves. So, tell me: what has happened since Iceland? Or would you rather hear the real story of the San Matteo’s capture?’
It was what her uncle needed to know. She postponed, while he told it, all the questions she longed to put for herself. The account took some time, because Benecke often diverged into this anecdote or that of a mildly scurrilous nature. Indeed the saga of the San Matteo’s fate became extraordinarily muddled, so that she frowned into her wine, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. The cabin had become very warm but, instead of removing the brazier, her host sat down beside her and, encircling her in a friendly way with his arms, unpinned her cloak to make her more comfortable. His fingers, which had a familiar griminess, then slipped further down to the laces of her bodice and set to untying them. The air on her skin began to feel cool. This, added to a hazy recollection of distressing Robin on this score quite recently, made her objection tender rather than vehement. ‘All the same,’ Kathi said, ‘I don’t think you should do that. It’s too public.’
‘But you like it,’ said whoever it was. She was not even sure if it was the same person.
It was not something that Robin would say, although it was sometimes true. It was not true at the moment because, overwhelmed by the weariness of the day, she was going to disappoint him. It was why she had induced him, lovingly, to leave her the initiative. Because you are still training him? It had been cruel, that remark. ‘Dear little Kathi,’ someone said. ‘You need a real man. Two real men.’
And then she seemed to be on the ground; and something was being done, as well as being said, that was utterly foreign to Robin. And now Katelijne, dame of Berecrofts, wrenched her head sideways and started to scream.
The weight on and beside her disappeared. The whole raft tilted, throwing her on her side, her arms clasped round her body. Footsteps thudded. The man or men whose leap aboard had shaken the raft began to run towards the hut where she lay, cannoning into the man or men who had just left her. She could hear herself shrieking. As she struggled to rise, a whole group crashed backwards into the cabin beside her, all of them shouting or squealing. More shouting came distantly from the shore, and the sound of many feet running. The lamp rocked above her and someone, throwing himself to her side, began to lift her into his arms, talking in a quick, murmuring monotone all the time. The hands embracing her shoulders alarmed her, and she struggled. Then she saw that the man carrying her, his tears falling, was Robin. A voice said, ‘No, not that way, my dear one. And do keep her face covered.’
The speaker was Nicholas. The lamp, swinging, glared upon his impatient face and the grinning mask of Paúel Benecke. Both were dishevelled. About them was a struggling mass which, confusingly, included some complaining women. Two she didn’t know. One was Gerta. She felt Robin stop, with a gasp. Then he turned aside, furling her cloak high about her, and holding her close carried her away from the blaze of the lamplight. Except that, as she now noticed, the blaze did not come from the lamp but from the brazier, overturned in the stampede, and now casting its translucent red embers across a deck composed of three thousand square feet of prime timber. Then the cabin caught fire, and the real screaming began, as men and women fled from it. She looked up at Robin, but he seemed not to care.
BY THE LIGHT of the blaze, Robin found a place in the dunes to conceal her. She was still as limp as a child. Sometimes a person woke with the mind of a child, after a shock such as that. He was not weeping now.
He wanted to take her away, but the shore was lit like a pageant, and swarming with Benecke’s crewmen, thundering down to rescue their vessel. On the raft, the cabin burned like an oriflamme, and all the flooring beyond
was alight: the fiery lines of the logs were regular as the ridges of spring in-field planting.
Berecrofts, and all his love, and his hopes.
He wrapped her in her own cloak, and his own, and smoothed her brown hair back from her face. Her eyes were huge in the shadow. He watched the fire, holding her. Against the wall of light, men were fighting. No, men were swinging buckets over the side and emptying them into the fires. The water spewed out gleaming like fish, ruddy with the light of the fire, the puny, man-crafted fire. Kathi moaned and he hushed her as he watched. Then he saw that he had not been mistaken. On board, and now on shore, regardless of the fire and all that was happening, two men were fighting. And the two were Paúel Benecke and Nicholas.
He couldn’t ignore it; he couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened: he had to go. He wrapped the cloaks again tightly about her, murmuring in distraction, and got to his feet. ‘I shan’t be long. I’ll come back. I’ll come back directly.’ Then he ran, his hand on his scabbard.
At first, the heat drove him back. They had cut loose the neighbouring rafts and, commandeering small boats, were flooding the big craft with water. The centre was still alight, radiating heat on to the foreshore. Beyond its reach, the way was packed with spectators. Some were shouting advice to the fire-fighters. Others, turning away, formed part of a shifting audience cheering a different cause. Colà and Benecke, displaying their short tempers and their prowess yet again, in the way that turned a normal man cold.
No one attempted to stop them. The raft might be on fire, their future livelihood might depend on both that and the life of the captain, but a fight was a fight, and must be permitted to reach its conclusion. Someone exclaimed, ‘All that over a woman! Would you believe it?’ And someone else cried, ‘But what else did these two ever fight about?’ Robin heard them. They all but mentioned his wife, whose honour was his to defend. He threw himself forward.