Caprice and Rondo by Dorothy Dunnett

Author:Dorothy Dunnett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307762283
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-17T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

OCHOA HAD BEEN RIGHT: it had been a long time since Nicholas had touched a woman of his own kind. Closing his arms about Anna had been an instinctive gesture of comfort. But then what had been distant was transformed into light, yielding substance, scented and warm, and all his senses awoke with a shiver. For a moment, they held each other unmoving; he felt her hands spread at his shoulder and waist and, looking down at her profile, saw the tears below the closed eyes. Then her brow creased, and she loosed herself from his embrace, but instead sought his right hand and clasped it tightly.

She said, ‘I have been so afraid. Come and sit by me.’ And kept his hand as they sat close together, his free arm laid in a sheltering way along the wood of the settle behind her. She said, ‘You didn’t come home. The Patriarch said you left by yourself. I was afraid they had killed you.’

‘The bears?’ Nicholas said. Her lips were quivering.

She made an attempt at a smile. ‘Worse than that. Nicholas, have you not heard? Did you not see the change at the gates?’

It was safe to say that he had observed the change at the gates. The guard had not wished to let him through, and he had been stopped several times in the streets. There were soldiers everywhere. By now, he also had a good idea of the reason, but he let her tell him. He had been fishing, and she had steered the business alone through an upheaval that might well have wrecked it.

For, it seemed, the Khan Mengli-Girey had not persuaded the Genoese to appoint the Tudun he wanted. Politely, he had agreed to discard the possibly traitorous Eminek. He had even agreed, a very special concession, to ride down from his snowy mountain to Caffa and attend the installation of Eminek’s successor. The outrage occurred when it was discovered: the Khan proposed that the successor should be his secretary, the noble Karaï Mirza.

‘Of course, the Genoese had been bribed to appoint the widow’s son Sertak, and they forced the Khan in the end to agree. But it was ugly, Nicholas, for a while, and they are still suspicious of anyone who has had to do with the Khan or, of course, with Karaï Mirza. They questioned Sinbaldo, and came here to talk about the business. I thought I had persuaded them to leave us alone when —’ She stopped.

‘What?’ Nicholas said. ‘The Genoese are your friends. They won’t harm you. And I can look after myself. What frightened you?’

Her face was pale, looking up at him. ‘The furs came,’ Anna said.

‘All the furs that you and Julius were owed? But that is wonderful!’ Nicholas said.

‘More than we were owed. An ox-cart full. Ermines, martens, sables, everything. A surplus more than we could ever pay for if it wasn’t a gift. If it wasn’t a bribe from the Khan, made possible by his friendship with Moscow and Mánkup.

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