Caprice and Rondo (96 page)

‘What a pity Andro Wodman got it instead,’ Gelis said, giving up gracefully.

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘That was unexpected. I thought of complaining. I thought of describing how he tried to kill me in Edinburgh. But for that, I should never have had to strike that poor man in self-defence.’

‘It was not how I heard it,’ said Gelis. ‘So why not give up before you are killed in self-defence too?’

‘My dear! Is that a threat?’ said David de Salmeton. His lashes were wonderful. He said, ‘You’re going to say it’s a promise.’ He sounded mellow with pure delight.

‘I’m going to say that mercenaries make good assassins. You are going to Nancy eventually?’

‘Eventually,’ de Salmeton said. ‘I have my little tasks to perform here. But then, certainly, I must pay a visit to dear John, and dear Tobie, and dear Kathi’s child husband. With so many pleasant duties in store, the order of execution hardly matters.’

‘Why?’ Gelis said. She could hear heightened voices and the scraping of chairs. The Duchess had gone back into the Salon. She said, ‘What do you want, that you don’t have? Nicholas had every excuse to call for your death, but he freed you. You have gold. Perhaps you have more gold than you should have. Is that why you want Nicholas out of the way?’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ said David de Salmeton. His brows, perfectly trimmed, rose in astonishment. ‘I have money, yes, and position. But how does that compare with the pleasure of reducing an inferior to his proper state of humility?’

Gelis gazed at him. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You mean the way you were thrown out of Cyprus? I heard about that. Really, more people ought to hear about that. I’m sure it would give them incomparable pleasure.’

Clémence was touching her arm. Her cloak appeared. The noise had now regulated itself into the unmistakable ritual of closing speeches and farewells. Since she could not re-enter, she might as well wait until the Duchess emerged.

She turned. David de Salmeton’s dark eyes were still examining her. He said, ‘What a foolish woman you are. You have just killed your husband.’ Then he left.

She stood shaking. Clémence said, ‘What a very small man. But not malnourished. He could hold his own, I would imagine, against a person of his own height. Against a taller, he would lack the reach.’

The perfect nurse. Nevertheless … ‘There is always the stab in the back,’ Gelis said.

‘That is true,’ Clémence conceded. ‘But that gentleman does not wish merely to kill. He wishes to mortify his chief victim. He wishes your husband to watch what is going to happen to you. So he will plan to trap him or ambush him first. Or, of course, bring him wherever he wishes by deceiving the pendulum.’

He had done that once before, by using her wedding ring. Tonight, he had not taken her wedding ring, or anything else belonging to her. He had other plans.

Well, she was a van Borselen. One did not hide, like a beast in a thicket. One gambled, and threw. Straight-backed, Gelis, lady of Fleury, left the safe purlieus of the Ghent Hôtel de Ville, and walked down the steps.

W
ITH
DARKNESS
, the fog outside seemed to have thickened. It swirled, grey and curdling round the clusters of lamps, the arrays of four-pound candles with their dim, tinkling bells, the rimed garlands, the group of long whitened trumpets, gripped in numb hands. The sensible Ghenters were indoors, but the guilds stood in their ranks, with their emblems staunchly upheld, and the burgesses and their wives shivered shoulder to shoulder. Bells clanged as if muffled with cloth, and unseen fireworks pattered like used raindrops, discarded from shivering trees. The Ladies of Burgundy emerged to fanfares and cheering, and were handed into the velvet-draped wagon with its silver harness, its gold fringes and sculptures. The two horses stood to the whip and, stirring, dragged it into motion. The outriders paced at their side. One by one, the other carts followed.

Squirrel skins cushioned the cold. The ladies of honour, jolting together in the freezing air of the third wagon, envied the best-wrapped of their number, and did not know that she would have exchanged her dress, down to the skin, rather than be where she was. The head of the procession turned west past Sint Niklaaskerk, crackled over the bridge and moved north along the banks of the Leie. The rest followed.

Nothing happened. The Duchess and her step-daughter clung with one hand and waved with the other as their vehicle of state rumbled and slid over the half-frozen silt that coated the cobbles. They reached the fork where one river became two, enclosing the fish-market, and beyond that, the invisible bulk of the castle. Now, the number of spectators had dwindled, as had the noise, although the bells, the trumpets, the cries still hung behind them, wrapping the tail of the cavalcade. The van moved away from the slow, mist-filled Lieve and, passing between the blurred lights of mansions and warehouses, made its way west at last to the glare in the fog which was the fine castellated entrance to the Hof Ten Walle, the Duchess’s palace.

In the courtyard, the household was waiting to welcome their mistress. Once the first wagon was emptied, the steps were put in place for the others. The man Manoli, Jodi’s personal bodyguard, was the first to rush forward to these.

Clémence, descending, spoke first. ‘Master Jordan?’

‘He’s safe. He’s asleep. No one tried to harm him. But what about you?’

‘Nothing happened,’ Clémence said. ‘I am concerned.’ She was joined by her driver and three of the outriders, all with swords and mail tunics.

‘Where is the Lady?’ Manoli said. Behind, the third wagon rumbled over the stones, then the fourth. After that there was a space.

‘In the last, as we agreed.’ Clémence shook back her hood, revealing a frown of anxiety above Gelis’s squirrel-skin mantle of yellow silk. ‘Come. We must make sure.’

She had sensible shoes, as a precaution, below her fine gown, and was as agile as anyone, clutching her skirts and racing with Manoli and the rest through the fog to the entrance to the palace and beyond. Halfway down the road, they began to hear the shouts of men in dispute, and then came upon the cause of the trouble, a vehicle stuck on the road and holding up all the others behind it. One of the horses, breaking free, had added to the confusion. The wisest travellers had kept to their wagons; others had left them to indulge their curiosity, or even to set out for the palace on foot. The ladies of the last wagon, invited to leave, had all jumped down with a will, exclaiming over the cold, and pleased at the prospect of riding home pillionwise, with an arm round the warm waist of a soldier.

It was not an easy task, in the fog, to question and count them. All the same, it only took moments to discover that Gelis van Borselen was missing. And a little later, that one of the outriders had gone.

S
EATED
IN
THE
LAST
WAGON
, wearing Clémence’s good velvet cloak, Gelis had not been surprised at the halt. This was the only occasion on which she would ever be within reach of de Salmeton’s men. Deceived by the cloak, they would attack, discover their mistake, and be captured, she hoped, in their turn. After that, they would be encouraged to mention who paid them.

She did her best to remain in her wagon. When the hanging was pulled quickly back and a handsome outrider courteously invited the ladies to descend, she settled back in the gloom, and prepared to remain where she was. The voices receded, to join themselves to the other sounds of commotion ahead. The fog made her cough. A man, swinging up into the vehicle, gripped her arm and placed a palm over her mouth. A second, arriving as quietly, took both her wrists and lashed them together, while the first replaced his hand with a ball of cloth and a scarf.

‘Apologies, my dear,’ one of them said. ‘Please don’t kick. My friend here has a very bad temper.’

She had agreed it all beforehand.
If anything happens, exercise restraint. Do not invite retaliation; you won’t be hurt until the bastard has the right audience
. But of course, being a van Borselen, she hurled aside all restraint: she sank her head in a groin, ground her joined knuckles into an eye, and scraped her buckled headdress across someone’s face from ear to lip. Which was foolish for, panting, they simply slapped her unconscious; and kept her so.

• ••

S
HE
AWOKE
SEVERAL
HOURS
LATER
in the hold of a boat. This took a while to establish, as her head thudded, her body ached, and the darkness about her was total. She also discerned that the boat was not moving. Although welcome, this deduction was of limited use: Ghent was a major port, possessed of three rivers and a canal leading to Damme. Not all were frozen, and their banks were lined with moored boats. This one smelled of mildewed grain and cooked sausage; a watchman’s fire, somewhere, had softened the worst of the cold.

Before wasting effort on her surroundings, she had established that she was leashed: her hands were shackled together and attached to a chain which rose to a wall-staple. She had further confirmed that her clothing was undisturbed: she had not been undressed or molested or used. The advantage — the only advantage — of eight years of celibacy was the austere witness it supplied to that fact.

Last of all, came the realisation that she was not alone.

Captors gloated; murderers would be brandishing lights. She tried to tell herself that only another prisoner would be lying still in the dark, far across the deck of what must be the hold of a barge, hardly stirring, barely audible except for the stifled sound of his breathing. If it was not David de Salmeton or one of his henchmen, it must be a captive like herself.

Her head cleared then, and she knew. Her body, which had been chilled, began to fill with slow waves of warmth, drowning any sense of amazement, or consternation, or dread. She knew who it was. She had begun to speak his name when a bolt crashed overhead, a lantern waved from the hatch, and an armed man slid down the ladder, to be joined by another. They crossed first to her, grinning, to hang one lantern above her, then took and hung the other above the man whose breathing she had heard, who did not resist when they kicked him and left, but lay bare-headed where he was chained, in his ruined outrider’s dress, his bruised face transfigured, his grey eyes resting only on her.

Nicholas.

She said, ‘I solved your grandfather’s code.’

‘I know. I felt it,’ he said. He spoke like a boy.

The two men had left, and could be heard talking above. They sounded deferential. Someone new began to descend. Gelis did not even look up. She filled her eyes and heart with the sight of him: the low, calm brow and wide bones of his face, the stubborn hair, topiary-trimmed (by Adorne’s barber?) to cling to his throat; the length and bulk of his body, part hunting-cat and part bear. They had torn off his boots and cuirass
and greaves, leaving him in a soiled jacket and hose. He had drawn up a knee, and was supporting his weight on one hip and his elbow. His wrists were shackled like hers, with a little slack, and his broad, craftsman’s hands were clasped lightly before him. She wondered, with a deep, lunatic pang of pure love, how he had managed to put the croak into the frog.

Gelis looked up at his face, and said, ‘I would walk over, now.’

The third visitor stepped down into the light and stood, looking down at them both. ‘We must arrange it,’ the newcomer said.

It was not David de Salmeton; the man who had threatened her, who wanted Nicholas dead, and who bore a grudge against all who had slighted him. This was Julius’s wife, Anna von Hanseyck.

Chapter 41

F
OR
N
ICHOLAS
, the materialisation of Anna von Hanseyck should have been fearful. He had expected de Salmeton, and a long, teasing exchange involving physical discomfort, probably imposed by David himself, artistically supported by henchmen. De Salmeton would, however, have been gallant to Gelis, and might even have spared her, at the end.

Anna was different. She, too, would enjoy playing her fish before killing it, but she would make sure that Gelis would suffer as well. Also, she was who she was. Dealing with Anna would be far, far more difficult and delicate than dealing with a good-looking man whose hatred for Nicholas was rooted in envy. Nicholas should have been appalled, had he not possessed a boon which outweighed all these hazards.

He was with Gelis again. She was not going to die: he would see to that. But even so, he had her avowal: he could see in her face the same smothered radiance that suffused him. Whatever came to them both, they were together.
I would walk over now
, she had said.

But now, he must not look at Gelis; he must act. Nicholas sat up as best he could and, exhibiting incoherent amazement, exclaimed,
‘Anna!’
The name rang round the hold, and the cloaked woman standing alone on the decking before him smiled with pleasure and spoke.

‘Would you have preferred David de Salmeton? I am sorry. He has gone, I am told. Some unexpected change in his plans.’

Gone?
He could not ask where. This was not about David de Salmeton. He frowned at the mocking, shadowy face, and spoke sharply. ‘They were
your
men? But why?’ The chain clanked with his changing position and he gave it a short, angry tug, confronting her with his bound hands. ‘What’s this, Anna? Another performance? Is Julius coming to run me through, this time? And what is Gelis here for?’

He glanced at Gelis when mentioning her name. She was pale, but watching him with composure. He was reminded that she was now a woman of business. In three years, she must have learned to recognise
and deal with the critical opening moments of a negotiation. She had also worked with him before, on certain projects in Scotland. It might be enough. Anna and he had never performed together as part of a team. She would always either be her own mistress, or yours.

Julius’s wife looked round for a box, pulled one forward, and sat on it. Beneath the cloak, she was wearing an exceptionally beautiful gown; as fine as the robe of occasion Gelis wore, and the cap confining her hair was decorated with jewels. Her smile, a little pitying, had widened.