Caprice and Rondo by Dorothy Dunnett

were useful for horses and wagons, and the tower and two of the wings were used to store grain. The best chambers had been commandeered by the officers of the castle’s small, perpendicular township, who were also petty landowners and members, some of them, of the Confrérie of St George.
    Elzbiete had avoided such properties on the way south, which was why they had bypassed Rudolf Veldstete’s fine farm and made the forty-mile ride in one day. Although strenuous, it was not a penance in May. For once, the weather was dry. To begin with, they had the pleasant company of the Mottlau and the Radunia, so cleverly engineered by the Knights, who had been good for one or two things, Kathi sometimes thought, especially when she considered latrines. It was not until after their circumvention of Dirschau that Kathi saw the mother river itself: the mighty Vistula, broad as a lake, with a dim line of trees and white sand on the far bank. Then she noticed the swaying flats and glossy swirls of its currents, dredging their own fickle channels. Hence the need to sail in the spring, when the river was brimming and swift from the Carpathian rains, and before the low waters of June and July. Hence you sailed, even though last autumn the rains had not come, and seagulls stalked on the water, and men sat and fished from the sandbanks, which rose all around them like opening graves.
    For all the fortune of Poland flowed north on the river: the slithering grain and the unwieldy timber; the long tulip-barrels with their wax and their dull lumps of ore; the glittering hunks of sheared pitch; the faggots of gnarled iron bars and the bundles of stinking blond cable. A challenge, to vigorous men. A challenge to headstrong, irresponsible men like Paúel and Nicholas.
    The travellers from Danzig arrived at the high ridge of Mewe just before dusk, when the rafts were already coming in on the broad shining curve of the river, small in the distance as woodlice, lumbering the water below like great turtles. Elzbiete was impatient to move, but Robin and Kathi stopped in silence to watch as the sun sank and the lights began to prick and ripple below, and the water brought them the thin, fluctuating clamour of voices: greetings, laughter, curses, the barking of excited dogs and even the screaming of children, for half the populace of Mewe was making its way down to the strand. The other half was up at the castle, preparing the wagons of grain or setting up the trestles within for the paperwork. Obeying Elzbiete at last, Adorne’s niece and her husband rode downhill past the church and the market to the handsome house where she had promised them a night’s lodging.
    The woman who was called by her servant to greet them was handsome, too, and extremely hospitable, as could be judged from the laughter within, and the smell of ale, and the clinking of tankards. She and Elzbiete kissed. Robin said, ‘Excuse me, but this is …?’
    ‘A tavern,’ said the woman in German, smiling at Elzbiete and then returning the smile, with appreciation, to Robin himself. The German was accented with Polish. ‘You don’t object? Of course, I do not offer bed-space, except when Paúeli’s friends want to set down their mattresses. Have you seen him? Is he here yet? And Colà?’
    ‘Ah! You have had your eye on Colà. I heard,’ said Elzbiete prosaically. ‘And was Colà fortunate, Gerta?’
    ‘Not with me, although your father was most generous, I believe, all through the winter. He likes to share with his friends.’ She turned, and laid her arm round Kathi’s thin shoulders. ‘But you are new-married, I’m told, and are not interested in such talk, with this young Adonis to sweeten your pillow. Shall I show you your chamber? Take off those cumbersome clothes. I shall send you a tub. Rest a while. And when you are ready, you will join us at table. We had a pig killed just last week.’
    Upstairs, they were shown to their chamber. An elderly woman, winking broadly,