The Unicorn Hunt: The Fifth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, did not wish to be reminded of Alexandria, home of such toys. In Alexandria, extirpated from, the civilised comfort of the Genoese fondaco, they had been refused a safe conduct to travel out of the city, and kept under guard until prepared to disemburse the gigantic sum the Emir now saw fit to charge them. Meanwhile fresh officials continually pestered them, demanding dues, imposts, fees for some imaginary service, all of which they were forced to pay. Leaving finally, they had covered the sandy miles to the river by night, supposedly for fear of Bedouin bandits, arriving exhausted and half dead of thirst at noon.

  The journey to Cairo could hardly be spoken of – the switch of boats; the commandeering of their wine by drunken Mamelukes; the wading up to the shoulders in water over lacerating ground when the crew suggested the vessel could not otherwise progress between current and shallows – none of them would forget that, or what (or who) caused it.

  When, therefore, Anselm Adorne learned that he had a visitor and saw, by opening his lattice, who it was, he refrained from waking Jan, who slept late like all students, or young Lambert who was as bad; or – even worse – the other two. Instead, completing his attire, he descended alone and quietly to the parlour he and his party had been given.

  Nicholas de Fleury stood up, releasing the cloth from his face. His beard, though strong, was of only three weeks’ growth, and had been darkened. Pale against tinted skin, his eyes were large and curious as those of the Seraph. He wore a white buttoned robe of thick cotton.

  Anselm Adorne said, ‘Ah. Nicomack ibn Abdallah, I believe. What may I offer? Have you eaten?’ The servant waited.

  ‘I wish nothing, my lord,’ said the other man. He spoke Italian with an Arabic accent. Adorne signed to the servant, who left. Then he sat, folding his own blue galabiyya over the skirts of his doublet. De Fleury, he saw, wore native clothing apparently to the skin. Adorne said, ‘I suppose you have come to apologise?’

  Nicholas said, ‘You expected me?’ He was still standing. It was very early. Behind the lattice, they were watering and sweeping the yard. The Seraph lowered its neck.

  Adorne brought his eyes back. ‘I saw you from above. You would have been foolish not to come to Cairo, since I had so naively dispatched you to Matariya. I hope you are not going to apologise, for I have no intention this time of forgiving you. Four of my party have never harmed you and the fifth was a sick girl.’

  ‘Tobie removed her,’ said the other man.

  ‘You are right to give him the credit,’ Adorne said. ‘Now I have something to tell you. When you were a boy and transgressed, you were punished. I am not your magistrate now, but I do have some power. In particular, I have the power to have you arraigned for attempting to kill me in Scotland. I am proposing to use it.’

  The other man’s face didn’t change. It had shown no alteration from the beginning. He said, ‘You have the right.’

  Adorne felt himself frown. He said, ‘Do you understand what I am saying? When we both return to Bruges, I shall lay formal complaint against you both there and in Scotland. I do not need to tell you what will follow, unless something occurs which forces me to change my mind.’ Exasperation suddenly seized him. He said, ‘What delusions are you labouring under, Nicholas? You have proved yourself capable, able to generate wealth, able to take part in the world’s affairs. Is that not enough? I have enjoyed our duel, so far as it went, but need you press it further?’

  The anger was against himself, as much as anyone. Obedient, patiently standing, the image he saw insistently before him was that of Claes vander Poele, the submissive, sweet-natured youth he had known.

  Nicholas de Fleury said, ‘So far as it went?’

  Adorne sighed. He said, ‘Sit. Of course you are gifted. Of course you have used those quick wits to master every opportunity that appears. But every man has his limits. You must recognise yours. You came to Scotland. You befriended the King’s sister Mary. You persuaded her to flee with her husband to me, so that her land would fall vacant, and I should lose face. But what happens?’

  ‘Tell me,’ said the other. It sounded flat.

  ‘Do I need to? My credence with the King was always bound to be greater than yours. In your absence, the land fell to me. With a change in the English wars, the Lancastrians challenged York, and the Duke of Burgundy thought it politic to favour both sides, and was not displeased that I should shelter Thomas Boyd. And the King of Scotland, anxious for his sister, rewarded me for protecting her. While I,’ Adorne said, ‘thought it wise – and was given leave – to absent myself from my house for as long as Boyd and the Princess were staying there. A situation which, in the long run, has not turned out to your advantage. But I am not to blame.’

  ‘I see that. It is my fault that you are following me,’ the other said.

  ‘It is your lack of foresight,’ Adorne said without rancour. ‘Coupled with some ill luck. The death of your priest brought you from Scotland too soon. You were not to know, leaving Alexandria, that an Indian spice ship had reached Damietta and twenty thousand camels entered the city the day after you left it. We received harsh treatment, and for that you will pay. But there were some compensations,’ Adorne said, ‘before we were arrested.’

  ‘Then are we not even?’ said the other. If it sounded less than peaceable, the difference could hardly be named.

  ‘No, we are not,’ Adorne said. ‘You must learn. Or you will never know your proper place in society. So think of what I have said. Reconsider your plans. You have a good business in Bruges and in Venice; your associations in the Levant are recent and slight, as are your attempts to found a business in Scotland. I suggest you go back to Bruges. I even have something to tell you. It concerns Gelis, your wife.’

  He had spoken briskly, because he was angry: he was dealing with a man, as he saw it, only four years older than his own son. When de Fleury said nothing, he looked at him and saw a face grown as blank as a shield.

  Adorne said, still more crossly, ‘I am not taking some sort of revenge upon you. There is no positive news, but a fact of some relevance. While we were in Rome, a Scots orator expressed a wish to come with me to the Holy Land. He was delayed by business, so my ship sailed from Genoa without him. I have since learned that, disappointed, he then attempted the journey from Venice.’

  He stopped. Nicholas de Fleury said, ‘Please go on.’

  Adorne said, ‘It now seems that he travelled on the same galley as de Francqueville and the rest, and died with them. If so, this unfortunate man may have been the fourth member of the party, not Gelis. But there is no absolute proof. And there remains the mystery of her wedding ring. If she were not on board, how did it come there?’

  Marian de Charetty, on her wedding day, had looked into those prodigious grey eyes. Adorne himself had faced them often enough, stick in hand, full of exasperation that he still hoped was good-humoured. Nicholas de Fleury lowered his gaze. He said, half to himself, ‘To mislead me.’

  Exasperation overcame Adorne once again. He said, frowning, ‘By getting another to carry it?’ It made no sense. The girl was hardly to know that her friends were going to die.

  Nicholas said, ‘No, of course. I spoke without thinking.’ His face conveyed, briefly, a polite mixture of bafflement and apology. Behind that could be glimpsed something of much greater intensity, matched in degree to his present extreme pallor.

  Adorne rose. He said more kindly, ‘It is not certain. But word will come. I suggest you go back to Damietta and take ship for Venice. If they have no news, go to Bruges. Surely your wife is what matters.’ A voice called outside, and he frowned. The voice came nearer. The door crashed open.

  ‘Father?’ said Jan, his student son. Then his gaze passed to de Fleury who, drawing a breath, had looked up.

  ‘You!’ said Jan Adorne. ‘You, you false-hearted animal!’

  And another voice, even more inopportune, followed behind. His secretary, priest and chamberlain, John Gosyn of Kinloch, entering, exclaimed: ‘Cl
aes vander Poele, as I live! You have apprehended him. I shall call the Dragoman. We shall see what the penalty is for a Western merchant using an assumed name and Muslim costume in Cairo!’

  ‘No,’ Adorne said. De Fleury got up, his eyes intent on the priest. He would know, of course from the doctor that John Gosyn was the John de Kinloch he had crossed in the past. Adorne continued adroitly. ‘No, Father John. This young man’s punishment already awaits him in Bruges. We are Christians. It is not for us to throw him to the heathen. For my sake, the Chief Dragoman will put him on a boat for Damietta, where there is a house of the Knights of the Order. They will send him to Genoa. My relatives will take care of the rest.’

  Once, a schoolboy in Bruges, Jan Adorne had applauded the impudent marriage of an apprentice. Now he said, ‘Father, he would only escape. He is a barbarian. Let barbarians deal with him.’

  ‘He is a Christian,’ said John de Kinloch reflectively. ‘And might well try to escape. But what could he reap from such a foolishness, other than painful martyrdom or lifelong obscurity?’

  ‘You hear,’ said Anselm Adorne to his prisoner. ‘Shall I call on the rest of my party for their opinion? I would consign you to Genoa, my son would let the Mamelukes have you, and Father John, if I understand him correctly, feels indifferent, since any escape will bring its own punishment. And indeed, you would be naked of gold or resources, for John le Grant and his house would be watched.’

  For a moment he thought that his pace had been a little too leisurely, and that Reyphin and Lambert would appear. Past experience of Nicholas de Fleury would suggest a ready recovery, followed by action. But that was not always the case. Anselm Adorne ended, and Jan immediately began to say something, but de Fleury paid as little attention as if Adorne and he had been alone in the room.

  De Fleury said, ‘True to the hand, the tongue, the loins. The choice is mine, you are saying. Ainsi soit-il.’

  He moved on the words, while indeed he was speaking. Jan, throwing himself in his way, found himself left stumbling behind as the lattice was wrenched open and de Fleury ranged the balcony and then encompassed the steps to the courtyard. By the time they reached the gates, the crowded alley beyond showed no trace of him.

  Returning, Jan was pale with anger. ‘He laughed!’

  ‘He was looking up at the Seraph. It was too tall to be ridden,’ said Adorne pacifically. ‘Alas, when I have informed the Dragoman, I fear he will not laugh long.’

  John of Kinloch made the sign of the cross. ‘We should pray for him.’

  Adorne saw his son had calmed. Picking his way round the room, the lad stopped and turned. ‘What will happen to him? Claes?’

  Adorne sat. He said, ‘He is not an agent, like John le Grant, following the expected forms of behaviour. He is a rich and powerful young man who has chosen to mingle disguised in the marketplace and whose company, it would seem, already lies under the Sultan’s displeasure. He has done what is forbidden, and may lie in prison for life. He may be tortured to find what more he has done. If they think him a spy, he will be put to death afterwards.’

  ‘How?’ said his son. Then without waiting he said, ‘But he has killed people. He tried to kill you.’

  ‘So he deserves to be punished,’ Adorne said.

  Had they looked, they would have found Nicholas close at hand, although not in the street. The mosque was small, and its madrasa no more than a tree in the yard under which the teacher sat, his boys intoning around him. Inside the mosque, his sandals laid sole to sole neatly before him, Nicholas occupied a corner, impalpable as a shadow. For the moment, he was as safe there as anywhere. And he could not have gone further. No man should be asked to die twice.

  Ma fat mat: what is sped is dead, said the Arab. But what had sped was not dead. He believed the insubstantial thing he had heard, for there were so many reasons for believing it. And most of all because someone had made sure the message should reach him. Someone who – perhaps? – had been most alarmed to discover that the game had unwittingly stopped.

  It was quiet. Men came and went noiselessly on the carpets. The buzz of prayer was thin and homely, and quite unlike the thrilling resonances from the Jingerebir. His thoughts began to assemble again, doubtfully, as if afraid of abuse. He did not at once remember the dangerous talent he had found in the Tyrol: the gift he had already employed on this journey before arresting its tortuous, finely judged progress. When he did, he drew a short breath. Then he closed his eyes, and concentrated his thoughts on one thing.

  Presently he rose, having performed, deep in thought, the rite he knew so well, and went out through the school. On the way he capped a delighted child with his headscarf, and bought another, chaffing the vendor, from among those that hung for sale on the wall. Then he set off towards the Khan el Kalili bazaar.

  He remembered where he had been sitting, the day the eunuch had leaned, scented, beside him and whispered an outrageous invitation from his mistress. He remembered where he had been trading verses and music when the other, more courteous approach had been made; and the house he had been taken to.

  It was not hard to find it again: a merchant’s home, rising two timber-built storeys above the shop-arches below, with its windows projecting over the alley. Fear of Adorne was not in his mind, nor even concealment. He stood looking up at the worked wooden mashrabiyya, behind which anyone might be watching. So hidden, the merchant’s concubines had witnessed his entertainment that day. He had felt invaded by their desires, their agitation as he sang. It had disturbed him. He had not asked himself why.

  No one stirred, or came out. But no one barred his way when he climbed the steps and, passing an unguarded door, entered the same room as before. Inside, someone was sitting alone, a fan languidly stirring. Nicholas stopped. The person spoke without turning. ‘Dear me, Nicholas. You are becoming predictable. She said you would come.’

  The voice was that of a man. Recognising it, Nicholas felt little surprise. Equally, he was half prepared for the rush of bare feet which immediately followed; but although his knife was in his hand, he had little chance to wield it before he was knocked down.

  He was aware, between the second-last blow and the last, that the fan was waving thoughtfully over him, and the same voice had made a remark. ‘She said you would do that, as well.’

  The speaker’s face, the beautiful face, was that of David de Salmeton.

  When Nicholas did not return, John le Grant hired a number of burly men who had occasionally served him before, and presented himself at the Second Dragoman’s house. The Baron Cortachy, descending immediately, eyed the escort and said, ‘Your companions are welcome, but might prefer to wait in the courtyard. If you have come to enquire after your friend, all I can say is that he came, and left very soon after. Pray search if you wish. He is not here.’

  John le Grant, whose nature was admirably practical, took the invitation at its face value and searched. He ended in Anselm Adorne’s parlour. Adorne and four others were there. Le Grant said, ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘To prison, I trust,’ said a young man.

  Adorne’s son. John had never seen him before, but nothing was surer, from the fair looks to the French inflection of his schooling in Paris. Le Grant said, ‘Do I gather that you denounced him to the authorities?’

  ‘As he denounced us.’ That came from the chaplain, a spare little man with crossed teeth. They were all speaking, as strangers did, in mongrel Latin. This man’s accent was Scots. John stared at him. He said, ‘Cyprus. John de Kinloch of the Order. I heard you were here.’

  Anselm Adorne cut in abruptly. ‘Father John is my chaplain and chamberlain. Believe him, if not me. Nicholas de Fleury has injured us; injured me, personally. I offered him justice in Bruges, and he fled. Where he is, we do not know.’

  John le Grant gazed at them all, and finally at the priest. He said, ‘So it’s a proud day for God’s Church, and for Scotland. You know what the Mamelukes do to men they take to be spies?’

  ‘The choice
was his,’ said Adorne. His voice was deliberate. ‘In his place, I should have agreed to return quietly to Bruges; especially as his wife might be there.’

  ‘You told him that?’ John le Grant said. Then he added, consciously moderating, ‘You have proof?’

  Adorne looked at him. ‘Evidence of a possible error, that is all. I should have fabricated a better story, I assure you, had I wished to. I shall tell you what I told him. Strangely, he seemed to find it more conclusive than I did.’

  John le Grant listened. As Adorne couldn’t do, he understood. To mislead me, Nicholas had said. If he believed that of Gelis, he would have grounds for thinking she was alive. If a man could divine anything, he could divine his bride’s ring. And if Nicholas thought her so wayward, perhaps he did not want a reunion with her in Bruges – the tempting exit from the Levant that the Baron Cortachy so much desired. Yet surely, all these weeks, the attachment between man and girl had been patent. With the loss of Gelis, it had been as if Nicholas himself had mislaid his purpose in life.

  Adorne was still talking. Suddenly, it seemed to John that he had heard enough. He got up. He said, ‘I think I want other company. The dung-cake makers would do. Whether Gelis is living or not, Nicholas believes that she is. You told him that, and then set the Mamelukes after him.’ He looked round them all. ‘The Vatachino and you. Do you think you have only Nicholas to contend with? I advise you to watch out during the rest of your travels – and when you go back to Bruges – and to Scotland. Today you have started a war. And I have to tell you that the devices of war are my business.’

  He left, without being halted. Once at home, he gave certain detailed instructions to his staff and, leaving circumspectly, made his way to the house of a boatbuilder who was entirely willing, for a consideration, to lease him a room a safe distance from the river at Bulaq. From there, he sent a messenger north bearing a message, written in Flemish, for Tobie. Tobie received it.