Caprice and Rondo by Dorothy Dunnett Page A

dragged in an immense splashing tub, and left after lighting their candles. There were no visible towels. Kathi sank in a chair, her arms dangling. Robin, his head in his hands, gave way to a pent-up explosion of laughter. ‘She must be Benecke’s mistress! Does his daughter know all of them?’
    ‘It depends how many there are. I don’t know about conjugating but he certainly didn’t learn how to decline. Oh, Nicholas !’ she said to the air.
    Robin also had sobered. ‘I know. Kathi … I can’t imagine how it will be, but I think I’d like to see him before you do.’ He looked at her in the fond, earnest way that so disarmed her. ‘You bathe, if you want to, and rest. I’d like to go down to the rafts now, before anything.’
    ‘Before anything ? No, it was a joke. Despite Gerta’s opinion, fortymiles on a horse doesn’t sweeten your pillow.’ She paused, frowning at the comatose tub. ‘You think Nicholas is coming to this house? He may not.’
    ‘Yes, he will,’ Robin said. ‘Not because of the woman, but because he would think this is the last place Adorne’s party might come. And Benecke will bring him here, anyway. He wants us to meet.’
    ‘He wants us to collide,’ Kathi said. ‘He wants us to behave so repellently that Nicholas will never go home. Robin? Don’t go.’
    ‘Why not?’ said Robin, approaching. He added, helpfully, ‘I’ll undo your laces.’
    ‘ No! Don’t touch me! ’ said Kathi.
    She saw him jump, fear and concern darkening his eyes. Then he drew a sighing breath, as he heard what had caused her to say it. First Gerta’s voice approaching the door, with its half-German accent. Then two men’s voices in true staccato Polish, fierce as the rattle of kettledrums.
    One of them belonged to Paúel Benecke. ‘So there’s your damned room, but you have to pay for it, towarzysz . If you can’t, it’s the raft-house, or Gerta. And Gerta is softer.’ The door opened.
    A man walked in whistling, and stopped. It was Nicholas.
    He was six months older, that was all. He had fled in November, with a physical wound which must have hampered his travelling, and had since spent a violent winter, in which everything had been neglected but sport. His hair, thick as copra, was uncut, and his fingernails black. Like Benecke, he was unshaven, half his face furzed with dull yellow. One could understand all of that, on a raft. He had not, certainly, pined: anyone interested in anatomy could admire, if they wished, the structurally perfect interleaved muscles of his bare arms, his chest and his abdomen within the sleeveless waistcoat, the delia , that was all he wore with his leggings. And all the lines on his face were still laughter-lines: below and outside his large, winsome eyes; between nostril and nose; the ineffable dents in his cheeks. Even the lines on his brow were the marks of vivacity. The face of a man devoted to entertaining the world, and himself. The face of a retired clown, who had chosen one face now to live by, and who had cut himself off from his past. There were no scars on his hands.
    He spoke at once, in hilarious German. ‘My dears! Shall I go out and come in again when you’re naked?’ Paúel Benecke, also bearded, ducked past him and pranced towards Kathi.
    ‘… the wrong room?’ Gerta’s voice could be heard saying, without much conviction.
    ‘Oh no, the right room,’ the new Nicholas replied in a clear voice. ‘But nothing was happening. They wouldn’t perform? Or couldn’t perform? Or didn’t want to get wet? How are you, Mistress Berecrofts? And the young Master?’ He had settled propped by the door, in the manner less of a faun than a satyr.
    ‘They’re thirsty,’ said Benecke. ‘Gerta, wine for us all. Perhaps Colà would like you and Elzbiete to join us?’
    ‘Another time,’ the new Colà said. ‘Ah, the Herod-Baba Elzbiete. Nightingales are not born from owls. She brought our devoted young couple from Danzig?’
    ‘We asked her to