Caprice and Rondo (29 page)

‘Where is Father Ludovico?’ asked Kathi.

‘At the Franciscans’. The Marienkirche. They’ve got pickled oysters,’ said Robin. She loved Robin.

Later, having heard most of the story, he said, ‘You approve of Anna. I’m glad. Do you think she might talk to Gelis some time? Persuade Gelis to come here, and bring Jodi?’

Kathi thought of the burned poem, of which she’d said nothing. In the past, Robin had undergone more for Jodi’s sake than she had. Kathi said, ‘I suppose Gelis might agree to come, one day. Or the boy, with his nurse, or Dr Tobie. But not now. It would be the worst possible time for it now, when Nicholas has just publicly repudiated them. He is not fit for his son, not at present.’

‘So what can we do?’ Robin said. Beneath the reasonable tone, there was anguish.

‘Nothing,’ Kathi said. ‘Nothing directly. Now, we leave it to Anna.’

T
O
THIS
PLAN
, Nicholas de Fleury had no objection. Since he had access to the front as well as the back windows of Friczo Straube’s house, he was able to discern what might have escaped Julius: that Kathi and Anna had met. He thought he might mention it to Julius, in the interests of friendship.

Their strenuous attention, at the time, was being given to the current
Zielone Światki
or Green Festival, a happy blend of church and pagan spring ritual which had begun with flower-gathering in the country and would end in bucolic riot the day after Pentecost Sunday. As esteemed guests of the nobility, Julius and his former padrone performed their flower-gathering at one remove, alighting at various handsome
dwory
containing various handsome women who took part in the feasting and in the languid dances that followed, plaiting circles on the late evening turf while servants passed by with barrows of greenery. Some of the servants were slaves, black or Tartar. They looked well dressed and fed, and were presumably grateful for their good luck.

Anna was not present, nor was the Mission, which was being entertained by the Town. The Court remained over the river. The itinerary of the Patriarch was not known, although he had sent an unexpected message to Nicholas, in the latter’s well-known role as a master mechanic: he was wanted to fix up a dove in the Marienkirche. It didn’t seem much. And Nicholas, who could recognise the inevitable, whether emanating from the Patriarch or the Third Person of the Trinity, had promised to do it.

But that was for tomorrow. Now, he sat on a rug made from wolf fur and viewed his temporary host’s rolling domain, and silk-clad guests disposing themselves upon it. A dwarf dressed in velvet was turning somersaults. ‘That reminds me,’ Nicholas said. ‘What did Kathi think about all your schemes? I didn’t know you liked lampreys?’

‘
Neun Augen
,’ said Julius complacently, stirring the dish at his side with a finger. ‘Nine eyes. German. I’m getting to like German food. Fish in white vinegar. Puddings. What do you mean? I haven’t seen Kathi. We agreed to leave her and her uncle alone.’

‘Oh,’ Nicholas said. ‘Yes, of course you did. So what else do you recommend beside lampreys?’

Julius’s oblique eyes had become slits of suspicion. ‘Wait a moment. Has Kathi been spinning some tale?’

The late sun slanted over the meadow, and sleek limbs gleamed, and jewels burst into radiance. Nicholas had pushed his hat back from his subversive brown hair and large, shining eyes. He said, ‘It’s all right. You know what women are. I saw Anna go into the house when Adorne was away. I expect they talked about puddings.’

‘They probably talked about you,’ said Julius sharply. ‘Not that Anna could say very much, since you haven’t honoured us with your decision. I can’t wait about the whole summer.’

‘I didn’t ask you to,’ Nicholas said. ‘Although I was grateful for the introductions. Why don’t you go home and I’ll send you a letter? I expect to decide fairly soon. I’ll probably have it decided for me tomorrow. You don’t want to come and help me sheet up the Holy Ghost for Father Ludovico?’

They went home early that night, and Julius didn’t join him for their evening session as usual. But next day, when he went off to the Marienkirche, Julius went with him.

O
F
THE
EIGHT
CHURCHES
in the double city of Thorn, the Franciscans had built their humble offering to the Blessed Virgin Mary in one of the best positions, next to the monastery they had established when the town was founded over two centuries previously, and behind the present Burgh Halls. Eschewing the vanity of a high tower, the monks had
contented themselves with a pair of small spires on top of a Gothic monolith containing two mighty aisles and a nave eighty feet high and painted inside and out with everything from geometric three-colour patterns to graphic Bohemian scenes from the Gospels. There were tall stained-glass windows, a prodigious altar and flowers and stars on the vaults. Father Ludovico was eating dinner in the cloisters but came to greet Nicholas and Julius at once, wiping his hands. ‘Well, kneel,’ he said.

They knelt.

‘Right. You see that hook at your feet. There’s the other. There’s the pulley. There’s where the other hooks used to be. But when we fix the dove there, it doesn’t work.’

It was supposed to swoop down from the roof to the altar. Nicholas got to his feet, intrigued if unshriven. ‘Where is the bird?’

‘Here.’ The Patriarch proffered a bundle. Inside a napkin was a half-eaten pullet. The Patriarch blessed God’s left toe and disappeared with it back to the cloisters. Julius, his head tilted back, said, ‘I’m not going up there. Are you going up there?’

‘I need someone. There’s scaffolding,’ Nicholas said.

‘And there’s lunacy,’ Julius retorted.

‘Then I’ll take someone else. Father Ludovico?’

‘Now, there’s an idea,’ Julius said. The Patriarch had just re-entered bearing the dove, a ponderous object in sleek silver-gilt. It looked new and expensive. Nicholas said, ‘Is this the same weight as the last one?’

‘So that’s what’s wrong,’ said Father Ludovico.

It took a while to assemble the new chains and brackets and wheels, and by the time that was done, the Patriarch had found a smith and his apprentice who were perfectly prepared to do all the work on the scaffolding except that, by that time, a number of spectators had arrived and
sotto voce
wagers had already been laid on the Flemings. The Patriarch, who otherwise had been violently opinionative throughput, expressed nothing but indifference when, in place of the smith, first Nicholas, then Julius ran up the ladders that led to the top of the chancel arch. His confidence didn’t surprise Nicholas: Father Ludovico knew precisely what each of them was capable of. It did surprise him that, having contrived this encounter, the priest had failed to talk about anything at all but the bird. Then he put his mind to it, and thought of a reason.

It was this distraction, perhaps, which made him careless. Or the fact that he had drunk rather too much rather too often in recent days. Or the further fact that Julius, feeling cross about Anna, had transferred his annoyance to Nicholas and, as soon as they were working aloft, began to lecture him about Gelis.

‘Forget her lovers: what do they matter? Get her to bed; give her your best and she’ll forgive you. Then you can think about going back to Bruges — even Scotland. Adorne’s fifty. He could drop dead in Persia. The niece and nephew won’t give you away. And you never did try to apologise to Diniz and Tobie and Gregorio. What are the grounds for annulment, anyway?’

‘A flaw in the contract,’ Nicholas said. The nail he was hammering broke, and he fished out another.

‘What flaw?’ Julius said.

‘I don’t know. They haven’t found it yet,’ Nicholas said. ‘Will you hold that bloody thing
straight?
’

‘Then how do you know —’

‘Because lawyers will do anything if you pay them enough.’ The piece of wall he was working on crazed, and the second nail dropped. He stared at the wall, then took out the last half-dozen nails and stuck them into his mouth like short straws.

‘You’ll have to move further along,’ Julius said. ‘I’ll hold you.’ His hand, approaching with sudden intimacy, removed the nails from between Nicholas’s lips. ‘I’ll keep these, you’ll swallow them. Would you like me to talk to her?’

‘Yes, if you’ll let me entertain Anna.’ There were so many people below that falls of grit dispersed soundless as dew. He could see the spectators quite clearly, inscribed by the south-facing windows with sinuous figures in cobalt and carmine; a solitary dazzling ray from a hole in the glass was bothering the flesher collecting the bets. Nicholas could not hear what his audience said, and they could not hear the conversation he and Julius were having: it was between the stars and themselves.

‘Try it,’ said Julius. ‘I told you, that patch of wall is no good. If you don’t want to stretch, then we’ll have to wait till they fix some more scaffolding.’ He leaned over the rail at the edge of the platform, shouted down an instruction and squatted down with his back to the rail-post. ‘So why not write to your wife?’

Nicholas studied the wall; identifying three new possible sites and computing, effortlessly, the variations each would require, having regard to questions of weight, angle and speed. He said, ‘All right, I’ll write to her. I’m hungry. Aren’t you hungry? Let’s go down.’

Julius created a negligent barrier with a robustly shaped calf attached to an elegant ankle and foot. ‘Before anyone comes? You have to show them where to put the new nails. So what’s wrong, then, with poor little Jodi? Suffering Christ, why burn the little brute’s message?’

Nicholas turned his head slowly. He could see Suffering Christ from where he stood, as well as St Andrew embracing his own bit of carpentry.
In a voice of freezing surprise he said, ‘I needed a spill.’ He and Julius stared at one another. Nicholas said, ‘Where’s all this rubbish from: Anna? You wouldn’t notice poor little Jodi if you were driving a wagontrain over him.’

‘Neither would you,’ Julius said. ‘That’s what women are for. What do you think you are doing?’

‘Climbing over and marking the wall,’ Nicholas said. He had a piece of charcoal in his hand. ‘And then I’m going to break your leg and walk down to my dinner.’ There was a reasonable ledge within reach of the scaffolding and he was under the impression that he was sober.

He arrived on the ledge. Julius scrambled up to the rail and said something. The noise from below increased quite a lot. Steadying himself with one hand, Nicholas viewed the wall, and leaning, scrawled two crosses, each in its appointed place, and sidled along to complete the third. Then he turned and began to come back and stopped.

The sun had moved. The ray of pure light was now focused on the dove, which hung upside down from its temporary harness and, revolving, flashed its blinding light into his face. The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity Disapproves. His foot slipped. Nicholas saw, dimly, the handrail over which Julius was leaning. He saw the platform of planks it surrounded, and their supports. He saw the system of timber and ladders below. He launched himself outwards into space and caught the end of a beam and held on with both hands, his body swinging, his feet seeking a purchase as shouts rose from below and Julius yelled. He saw that Julius was yelling because the shock of his arrival had dislocated the posts holding the rail, throwing Julius downwards as planks began slipping around him. A stanchion, hurtling down, struck Nicholas on the shoulder and neck so that he swung, his arm numbed, and half fell. Below, the spectators had scattered, baring the small, distant tiles of the floor. He made a great effort and, lunging, found a tenuous toehold and a desperate grasp for one hand that brought another clatter of collapsing planks, and Julius’s blundering body down with them.

Once, Nicholas had saved Robin, hanging one-handed like this. Now, Julius could do nothing for him. Julius, passing hand over hand, slipping, falling, clutching, was himself dashing down from the rock, down from the mountain, down from the stars as the dove would come, but not to rest in the dovecote of its master.

Curiously, the dove still shone in Nicholas’s eyes, as if wherever he fled, the blaze of its anger would seek him. Yet despite the glare, there were some things he saw very clearly. He saw the vivid polyptych of the High Altar, the crucified Thieves wrapped, legs and arms, round their scaffolds. He saw a stately canopied chair and a chessboard. He felt, rather than saw, something he could not describe: something that filled
him with anguish, and love, and unspeakable yearning. He was still clinging, forgetful, when the structure he was holding collapsed, his holds forsook him, and he fell.

For those moments, at least, his mind cleared. He heard the screams. He saw that Julius was safe, caught and lodged just below him. He saw the tiles of the floor rushing towards him and thought of a chute, and a cry, and something he would never now say. But all that was already lost to him, in any case. Then he struck and found, swaying, swaying, lurching and swaying, that he was in a net.

Chapter 9

S
HAKEN
,
SORE
but alive, Nicholas de Fleury missed both the Pentecost Mass and the revels that followed on Monday, although Julius conveyed himself with caution to both, as a good merchant should. The dove, according to Anna, had turned in an impeccable performance.

It was the first sensible conversation they had held since she had received him from the awed hands of the Polish Franciscans, who perceived the net as a donation by Bóg, rather than a consequence of the Patriarch’s distrust of poor timber. Of the night that followed, Nicholas remembered little but a sequence of extraordinarily sensual dreams, from which he woke in some discomfort to find the house empty but for his servant, and the square packed with jewelled mitres, cloth of gold and white satin, with golden crosses and high swaying canopies and the hats and silken shoulders of the nobility, all assembling for the procession to church. Behind them somewhere, he supposed, would be Julius and Anna, with Straube and his household. Somewhere else, not too far from the royal party, wherever it was, would be Anselm Adorne, his niece and his nephew. And the Patriarch, of course.