Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
‘Let me think. No,’ he said. ‘I believe I might even risk wine.’ And as she smiled and started to pour, he said, ‘Of course. Isn’t Gelis a short form of Egidia? And Egidius was the Vatachino’s third agent.’
She said, ‘I thought you would guess that. David was convinced that you … that you wouldn’t.’
‘Ah yes, David,’ Nicholas said. She had hesitated, remembering Cyprus. He said to Martin, ‘So you and David enjoyed working under my wife?’ Martin missed it: Gelis ventured a glint of acknowledgement. Once, her name and David’s had been linked. Even before Famagusta, Nicholas had been sure there was nothing in it.
‘We worked together.’ Martin was correcting him. ‘I do not work under a woman.’
‘Then for Adorne?’ Nicholas said. ‘Or for whom?’ He refrained, with an effort, from emptying his cup at a gulp. He would have only one chance. And meanwhile, he might as well learn what he could. Martin said, ‘None of us knows. The owner of the Vatachino prefers to remain anonymous.’
‘Then it might be a woman,’ Nicholas pointed out reasonably.
Martin stared at him with dislike. Then he said, ‘Do you want to know what else Gelis has done?’
‘Let me tell him,’ Gelis said.
There were some surprises, and despite everything, he was glad of them. But in general, he was familiar, of course, with the areas where the Vatachino had bested him: in the sequestration of paper supplies, which had put a stop to his printing; in the alliance with the towns which had hindered his strategy in Scotland; in the Iceland expedition, which had been intended to tower over his supposed minor investment in herring.
He heard now again about those, but in terms of Gelis’s personal involvement. All of it was clever. She had connived at Adorne’s vital post as the new Conservator. She had learned of his new Danzig ship and had enabled it to be delayed. She had been deeply involved in Medici alum negotiations to his prejudice in Rome.
Some of it hurt. She had encouraged the Duke, at second hand, to send to Scotland for the materials of the Play, and to ask for him to come as director. It bastardised all he had done, and was an insult to Adorne’s son who had died. Or perhaps only he felt that. And perhaps even he had no right to feel it.
The recital came to an end. She had proved the point he had asked her to make. She had damaged the Bank, especially in those early days in Cologne and in Bruges; and even before that, when she had set out for the Holy Land with Adorne. She had impeded his business to the point where he would have to ask her, or to force her to stop. And he could not use force.
She said, ‘Well?’ She looked like the girl of five years ago.
He remembered fragments of something Kathi once had said.
She may be cleverer than you are. If she will only be happy when she thinks she is, give her that happiness now
.
Kathi had been right. He had not thought so at the time. Paradoxically, his consideration then had been for Gelis: how she would feel, discovering one day that she had been allowed to prevail. And below that, another thought, born from his own experience. How, knowing what she had done – the brutalities of the wedding night; the poisonous revelations; the challenges; the cruel deceptions over the child – she would find a kind of absolution in what he, in return, had inflicted upon her. Beginning, of course, with his abduction of Jodi, and his consequent control of all that she did. For although he had invited her to leave with the child, he had known that she would not. She knew, as he did, the bond – the raw, speechless bond – that lay between them.
But now, it was different. Now, day by day, he was beginning,
despite his elation, to glimpse that he had perpetrated something in the course of this feud which might deserve a far greater punishment than anything that Gelis had incurred. He had already been made to suffer by Gelis. Now, to throw away his advantage, to concede the battle, was the final restitution he could make for both her sake and his own. Then they could surely go forward, even though Gelis did not yet know what he was capable of. And after she had chosen her prize (for he was sure what her choice was going to be), he would tell her what he had done, and the reason.
So, he conceded. He said, ‘I don’t know what I could set against that. I could show you the successes of the Bank.’
‘I know them,’ she said. ‘I can tell you precisely how much greater they would have been, but for me. Do you want me to stop working against you?’
He said, ‘You are asking me to give in.’
She said, ‘Only if you want me to stop. If what I am doing is of no consequence to you, then I shall continue. But this time, of course, I should work openly for the Vatachino. It might puzzle some of your friends.’
‘It might puzzle Jodi,’ he said. He saw she had forgotten Martin. She had forgotten everything, except that she had succeeded. She had forced him to comprehend, at last, what she could do. Now, she believed, he must ask her to stop.
As, of course, he must. He drew a breath. He saw her lean forward a little, and then bite her lip, for a door had opened quietly: the door to the antechamber behind her. Nicholas heard someone speak his name, and looked round. Tobie stood there.
Nicholas said softly, ‘Tobie, go away.’
And the doctor said, ‘Nicholas. No.’
Behind him was a boy, and a man, and a group of powerful soldiers. Three of them had faces Nicholas knew: he had fought them by the Loire close to Chouzy.
He fought them again now, as they moved into the room, but he knew it was useless. Tobie and the other man were unarmed, and there was Gelis to think of. In the end he relinquished his sword, and two of them held him until he recovered his breath and temper, and addressed the newcomers, as he should have done at the beginning. ‘Monseigneur le vicomte de Ribérac. And Henry.’
‘Monseigneur le bâtard,’ returned Jordan de Ribérac. ‘And madame. And – What are you doing here?’ He was staring at Martin. His draped hat, his immense cloak filled the room.
Nicholas said, ‘Won’t you sit? Master Martin represents, as you know, the Vatachino. So, I have just learned, does my lady wife. We
have been attempting, without much success, to resolve an unusual domestic embroglio. Perhaps, therefore, the lady might leave.’
‘Unusual!’ repeated the vicomte, with a vast and increasing surprise. His eyes gleamed, studying Gelis. ‘The
Vatachino!
You have been acting for this contemptible firm against your own husband, madame? For how long?’
‘For long enough,’ Nicholas said. ‘She has probably done you quite a bit of damage as well. You must take it up with her.’
He watched, out of the corner of his eye, the expressions cross Tobie’s face: shock, anger, incomprehension. He wondered how this little company had forced its way into the Abbey, and then remembered that today, all the gates to St Maximin’s stood open. He tried not to look at the handsome boy, at his son, who had fixed upon him from the beginning a blue stare of unwinking hatred. He tried not to wonder where Jodi was sleeping, or whether Mistress Clémence might not unsuspectingly enter the room. He speculated on where John might have gone, having failed to find Tobie. He wondered whether Adorne, if he were the anonymous employer of Martin and Gelis, might not come to witness the discomfiture of Nicholas, and remain to expel Jordan. He thought it unlikely. He wondered how long the vicomte had been in Trèves.
He said, in an interested way, ‘Was it your man they hanged?’
‘No,’ the vicomte said. ‘I am not now in the employment of France. That is what I came to discuss. But first, I am interested. Who betrayed the noble lady’s guilty secret? You have just learned it, you say?’ His gaze, roving, settled on Martin.
Martin said, ‘She told Lord Beltrees herself. The sieur de Fleury and his lady have been in contest with one another, as I understand it, to decide who has the better talent for business. The lady has been making her case with my help.’
Nicholas glanced at him but Martin, disappointingly, failed to drop dead. Nicholas said, ‘And since she has now done so, perhaps she might leave and wait somewhere else. I am longing to know why you are here.’
‘I thought I had told you,’ said Fat Father Jordan. He had taken a seat. It creaked, but could not be seen under the spread of his mantle. He said, ‘So she has put her case. And have you put yours?’
Of all his enemies, this man could best detect what was raw, what was bruised, what was sensitive. Nicholas said, ‘The debate is over. I have conceded.’
‘Conceded!’ the vicomte exclaimed. ‘With all the tally of Nicholas de Fleury’s extraordinary achievements to place on the scales! Do you tell me that the efforts of one young demoiselle, however talented, can outstrip his successes at the French Court, or in Scotland alone?’
‘Forgive me,’ Nicholas said. ‘But since you were not here when the matter was weighed, you cannot pronounce on the outcome.’
Martin said, ‘But the matter was not weighed. Lord Beltrees put no case at all.’
The seigneur de Ribérac stared. ‘My dear man! You must not throw away a suit without debating it! I shall be your judge. I shall be your judge and your witness as well, for few know as well as I what you have been responsible for.’
‘It is over,’ said Nicholas.
‘You ceded it. Why, Nicholas, did you cede it? A girl’s skills against yours?’
‘Because,’ Nicholas said, ‘I prefer to live, and I am tired of being attacked in the flesh as well as in the pocket. The Vatachino have tried to kill me once too often.’
‘That isn’t true,’ Gelis said.
‘You know it is true,’ Nicholas said. ‘Ask Martin here. Ask your precious David, when next you see him, how I came to be tortured, how I came to be left to drown in the cisterns of Cairo.’
‘You weren’t tortured,’ Gelis said. ‘As for the cisterns, the Mamelukes lied to him. But in any case, you got away easily.’ Her brows were drawn. She looked, for the moment, like her sister.
Tobie said, ‘I was there. He was tortured. He would have drowned, but for a miracle. David started it, and did nothing to stop it.’
‘He said you knew about it,’ Nicholas said. ‘He had your ring.’ He looked curiously at her face, and the horror on it, which she couldn’t have manufactured. She hadn’t known. He said, none the less, ‘And in Cyprus.’
She said, ‘He was to kidnap and ransom you.’
‘Perhaps he meant to,’ Nicholas said. ‘But when Zacco fell ill, I was left to starve. And then of course, there was Martin, who almost managed to pitch me over the battlements of Edinburgh Castle, and sink me in Iceland. Even Sersanders, even Katelijne would have been killed, when my ship was sent to the bottom – I wonder if Adorne ever realised that?’
Martin was standing. The fat man’s lazy regard dwelled on each speaker in turn. Then he returned it to Nicholas, as if encouraging him to continue.
Nicholas didn’t mind. Nicholas said, ‘And there was the pact between Martin and Simon. Did you know about that, Gelis? Of course, the Vatachino and the vicomte are rivals, but Martin did persuade Simon to join him in attacking their mutual enemy, the Banco di Niccolò. It was after that pact that the wagon rolled downhill towards Jodi. It was after that pact that the ice gave way in
the Nor’ Loch and the horse-shoes were spiked in an attempt against all of us, but chiefly, Gelis, against you.’
Martin said, ‘I had nothing to do with it. Simon did these things himself.’
‘Did he? Who is to say?’ Nicholas said. ‘But at least I can absolve Gelis from both, whatever earlier murders she was willing to help with. In these cases the Vatachino operated against her, as they did against me.’ He turned his eyes to the fat man, brows raised. ‘So you see, I do have reason for ceding the fight. The sooner she leaves the Vatachino, the better.’
‘These are lies,’ Gelis said. ‘I attempted no murders.’ But her voice was flat, and she was staring at Martin. The boy Henry laughed.
‘Be quiet,’ said the fat man softly. ‘Madame, you may have attempted no murders, but you have been singularly blind, it seems to me, as to the characters of your associates. Do you still regard yourself as worthy of your husband’s steel?’
Nicholas answered for her. ‘I have told you. I have asked her to leave the Vatachino for the sake of myself and the Bank, which she was disrupting.’
‘Which she was disrupting? Or which you let her disrupt?’ de Ribérac said.
The shutters were closed, sealing off the lower part of the one handsome window. From behind them, and from the glazed upper half came the constant confused sound of wheels, and trampling feet, and raised voices. The vicomte said, ‘If you shout, Nicholas, my men have orders whom to kill first. Concentrate instead on the discrepancy here. This lady says she has won. You agree. You have even named her a murderess to support it. But do we really believe that, all this time, she has deceived you? You!’
‘You heard Master Martin,’ said Nicholas.
‘I heard you,’ said the vicomte. ‘It was most instructive, for it was not, of course, true. I refer to my friend Wodman, who has some interesting tales to tell of your two Scottish households, and how the one spied on the other. There were some ledgers which were left out to be seen, and others which were not. The same at Antwerp, he learned (it was expensive: your servants are loyal), and, later, at Bruges.’
‘I am glad it was expensive,’ said Nicholas, amused. ‘You are describing what every merchant does, to confuse competitors and even the tax collector.’
‘To confuse the Vatachino: my point,’ the fat man said. ‘And specifically to mislead the lady your wife. Certainly, there were some transactions which could not be hidden, where you had to limit the
damage; and others, I am sure, which you allowed her as a sop. But it was your wife you were keeping your business from, not only Martin and Simon. Nothing ever leaked out, for example, about your real plans for Iceland. You must have given orders to someone not to tell her. Dr Tobias, for example?’
Tobie said, ‘I learned about this for the first time tonight. We were all warned, naturally, not to tattle.’
‘But especially, and repeatedly, not to tattle to the lady Gelis, I suspect. Come, Dr Tobias: admit it. She has betrayed her husband’s plans to his rivals. Does it not please you to think that she received nothing from it? That he knew all along?’