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

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Because of the dazzle, he did not at first notice the boats. He heard them first: a shiver of bells, then the rise and slur of the flute, the finger-drum’s hiccough, the eerie drawl of a fiddle. His eye and ear attuning, he presently saw the vessels themselves, glinting with the jewels of their passengers; the wings of their sails set with lights and with bells. He watched them until, the light fading, they changed into streams of glowing dragonflies mounting the brimming veins of the city; fanning the air with slight music. Fires of joy rose silent over the Citadel and burst like pollen in the last of the sun.

  The flood of the Joliba, the Nile. Rejoicing, placating, the Bucentaur in Venice with its five thousand escorting vessels attending the Doge and his solemn Espousal. God be praised, the ocean has opened again. Those who dived got to keep what they found, and were assured of good fortune.

  God be praised; God is great.

  Kiss any arm you cannot break, and pray that someone else breaks it.

  Tobie’s step. Nicholas unclosed his fist, releasing what hung at his throat, although Tobie must surely have noticed: had even possibly knotted it there. Its shape was imprinted in blood on his palm: they must have had to break it out after he surfaced.

  This ring. This circle of hatred.

  This milestone which signalled: The hunt is resumed.

  Part IV

  THE WHIPPING-IN

  Chapter 40

  THE ESSENCE OF the problem, if you were to ask Jan Adorne, had little to do with the dangerous journey itself: with the heat, the sandstorms, the cold, the trackless wilderness of barren grit, the precipitous mountains, the circling Bedouin, the treacherous guides, the stinking food and dried wells, the wild beasts and the vermin, the horror of picked corpses of men and of camels. He was prepared for all that. He had been prepared for Alexandria, for Cairo.

  That was the trouble. Here he was, a man on the greatest adventure of his life; and his father was with him.

  He loved his father, of course. But other people made their way on their own, or with friends their own age, not with little girls and old men. He might not have minded had they gone straight from the Nile to the Holy Land, where you were herded about by the Muslims, and no one had any initiative. But outside the Holy Land, his father – it was now clear – was always going to take command. And even more so on this expedition.

  Not many pilgrims came this way, and a lot of them died. The Sinai peninsula was a wilderness. It was where Moses did all his wandering, and heard the voice of the Lord coming out of the Bush that burned but was not consumed, and received the Tablets of the Law from the top of Mount Sinai. Naturally, Christian hermits had been drawn to the site; had come to live by the score in huts and caves until, in the fifth century after Christ, the Emperor Justinian of the Eastern Christian Church had had a fortified monastery built at the Bush. And after the body of St Catherine had been carried by angels from Alexandria into the mountains, the monks had found it and taken it into their church.

  The monastery was still there, alone in the wilderness; a vestigial fortified city, containing the smallest and richest independent church in the world, protected by all those to whom it was useful: the Western Church of Rome, the Eastern Church, Greek descendant of Byzantium, and the authority of Mohammed, as expressed through the imams of the Sultan of Cairo. It had a mosque inside, as well as St Catherine.

  Jan Adorne did not know why his father proposed going there. It was not for the sake of Katelijne – he had not offered to take her, originally. Of course he himself was devout. There were Crusaders and Knights of St John in his ancestry; the family had always been concerned with the Levant; their private church reproduced the Holy Sepulchre. He came to gain merit, and from piety.

  He came also, Jan took for granted, to settle some matters of trade and to exchange information, not necessarily on his own behalf, with other lords and informants. The Duke of Milan and the Duke of Burgundy had each, in the past, sponsored the tour of a noble pilgrim whose duty was not simply to report on the marvels of travel. It was possible that his own grandfather and great-uncle had combined patriotism with pilgrimage. It was remotely possible that James, Lord Hamilton had made his tour of the sainted shrines for the same purpose, and that Father was performing the identical office for the present Scots King. A waste of time, in Jan Adorne’s view. He had a low opinion, at the moment, of Scotland.

  All right, the Adornes were great men: Doges, ducal Receivers; their homes used by princes. Everyone knew Anselm Adorne was pernickety: para tutum was the family motto. He had been a kind enough father, and generous. He was used to organising. He was not accustomed to being crossed. When, as became clear, stout Reyphin, however jolly a drinking companion, couldn’t hold his wine or his water or keep his head in an emergency, his father had gritted his teeth and given him the clerking to do.

  When, as he might have expected, he grew thoroughly sick of long-faced Kinloch and his complaints and his sermons, he had set him to compile a Flemish-Arabic dictionary to supplement the one they already had (which had included, before his father had vandalised it, the words ‘Woman, will you sleep with me?’ in thirteen dialects). When Lambert and Jan himself became too noisy, his father became at first sardonic and then, as his temper worsened, issued penalties.

  But when his father wanted to do something, he did it. When he wanted to see someone in Cairo he disappeared, bare feet, Coptic blue robes and all, and only turned up when the Dragoman needed paying. When they had to abandon all the diversions of the Abundance to trail out to the first staging-post of their journey, Jan and the rest were left among the Arab tents at Birkat al-Hadjd while his father wandered off before dawn on some errand. In the event, he didn’t return until noon, which would have let them swim at the Garden of Balm if they’d known. He said someone had delayed him, and was angry when some officials arrived who delayed them still further. The only person to leave happy was Kathi, who had received a message she wouldn’t show anyone.

  And that was the last thing. Cousin Kathi, the ailing, the female, had pleaded to come, and his father had let her.

  Lambert was ecstatic. Jan was not. They had to drop their swearing-competitions, and the secret refills from the wine-skins, and the wagers Brother Lorenzo thought sinful. Not that Kathi minded wagers; but she was a girl, and couldn’t keep secrets.

  Normally, it was fifteen days to Mount Sinai. His father said he wanted to do it in nine. He said they could count on twenty-five miles a day at the rate that a laden camel could go, which was two and a quarter miles every hour. There were only four places where they might find some water. They set out crouched in panniers, two to a camel, and from the start, began their travels in darkness, eating cold food because fires might warn robbers. They had six camels and a guard and three drivers and Brother Lorenzo. Jan kept his wax tablet at his belt, so that he could say he was making notes all the way. Their first full day, they set out by moonlight and didn’t dismount at all until evening. He grew tired of Lambert always calling to Kathi, who was perfectly well.

  The Sinai peninsula lay between Egypt and the Holy Land, its upper edge along the shores of the Middle Sea. Moses and the Holy Family had crossed it in different directions. It hung like a breech-clout between the gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, which forked at the top of the Red Sea. After rounding Suez, they travelled down the side of the Red Sea, and were shown where the Children of Israel had crossed. He had wanted to stay there. The water was deep blue and pleasantly ruffled, and full of coral and curious fish and extraordinary vessels. Also, they were on a beaten highway of sorts and were making good time.

  Father, however, would have none of it. Three days out, they had joined, for better security, a large caravan belonging to the Emir of Tor, and Father was in a ferment of anxiety, claiming that they kept forgetting to behave like Greek monks (their disguise), and that the Governor was growing suspicious. The wretched Scots priest kept grumbling as well.

  The Emir’s concubines had come along with him. They travelled in
exquisite panniers, fitted with cushions and curtains and awnings. He and Lambert and Kathi had gone to admire them, which may have caused the misunderstanding which led to their eventual parting. Under the veils, some of the girls were quite pretty. The worst offender was Kathi, who was dressed like a boy and got her face scratched.

  In the end, they sneaked away before dawn on the sixth day, just before the junction where their road led them inland. Continuing south, the Emir’s party could no longer trouble them. On the other hand they were now alone, but for the ever-composed Brother Lorenzo, their single guard, and their camel-drovers. Here, among the limestone rubble, the low hills whose hollows were filled with wind-designed russet sand, were no tracks. And ahead, about to close in on them, were the mountains through which they must weave, changing direction whenever they required to avoid danger: danger from Bedouin troupes, Bedouin ambushes; danger from the pebbled heights, the scorching wind, the dearth of water. He had not really been frivolous. He had been afraid, and anxious to push it aside while he could. But he was not going to admit that.

  That night, on their own in the desert, his father gave him a lecture. It had to do, as usual, with the spiritual objects of pilgrimage, with Jan’s place as heir to the family tradition, and with the example of pious devotion which a young man of his high education would be expected to display.

  Jan listened, saying nothing. It was all right for an old man like his father to speak of a symbolic tryst in the heavenly kingdom. His father had one foot in it already, and would probably get there this journey, if he didn’t stop his eternal agitation. Jan Adorne loved the Baron his father, but at the end of all this, there awaited him (if he was lucky) some portentous dull job in the Curia. Time enough for solemnity then.

  At the end, as usual, he was sent off to write up his notes, despite his objection that brigands would be drawn to the sight of his candle. Then, he saw, Kathi was being marched aside for a session on her own.

  She knew she deserved it. She was stiff. She had been frightened, of course, as Jan was, but she had also been dazed by the novelty all about her: by the sight of the Red Sea at sunrise, laid like turquoise silk on white clay; by the hills that had edged the sea plain – stacked brown slabs, dun-coloured tabernacles inlaid with ivory; baroque cliffs banded with shadowy patterns and rock faces fringed, fluted, garlanded, or carved like a rood screen with lotus leaves and lions’ paws. All done by the wind which, swirling last night, had filled all she had with hot sand, and flayed her skin till she covered her face. She did not mind anything. She would rather be here than anywhere else in the world.

  Her tent was not far away: even when travelling in company, they slept in a circle round about their possessions, or their camel-drivers would steal what they had. And every day, whether they were in company or not, came the demands from the drovers which Brother Lorenzo dealt with so calmly. Demands for extra wheat for the flour they mixed to a paste on a sheepskin and cooked into cakes on turd fires; for cheese and raisins to buy the goodwill of (putative) robbers. Demands, of course, for more money, without which they would suddenly be reminded of an urgent appointment in Damietta.

  And from today onwards, naturally, they would pretend – until Brother Lorenzo reminded them–to forget the way to St Catherine’s. Brother Lorenzo, with his firmness and his fine local Arabic, had saved them more than once when her uncle’s patience had given way.

  Kathi worried about her uncle Anselm, as she supposed he was concerned about her. As their journey since Bruges had unfolded, marked by turbulent travel and indifferent food and the increasing strain of his responsibilities, she had watched him begin to lose the even temper and the suppleness of the jousting-saddle which had always been his. It made her angry, sometimes, that he had been forced to leave home. Or at least, had been put in such a position that he felt it advisable.

  Sitting facing him now, she spoke, ashamed, in the dim light. ‘You are right. I am sorry. I don’t deserve that you brought me.’

  He said, ‘I brought you because you wanted to come.’ He paused, and then said, ‘You have been in such high spirits. I should not chide you.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘Who taught you the song? Dr Tobias?’

  She didn’t know he had heard. She had learned it in Scotland, and was teaching Lambert in secret.

  Bon regime sanitatis

  Pro vobis, neuf en mariage:

  Ne de vouloirs effrenatis

  Abusez nimis en mesnage;

  Sagaciter menez l’ouvrage,

  Ainsi fait homo sapiens,

  Testibus les phisiciens.

  The next verse was worse. She could only make her peace by answering what he really was saying. She said, ‘I was going to tell you.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. He seemed to hold himself a little less stiffly. He said, ‘I should not make it more difficult for you. You have, I think, done your best in a conflict – in a conflict of interests in which you should not have been placed. We speak, I think, of Nicholas de Fleury. I do not want to hear what you should not say.’

  ‘He wouldn’t mind,’ Kathi said. ‘It was Dr Tobias who wrote to me. M. de Fleury has come to no harm, and will have left Cairo by now.’

  His eyes were downbent; the light played upon his cracked lips. She wondered how long it was since he had sung, or touched the strings of a lute. He said, ‘I knew you wanted to come. Which of us did you think needed protection?’ He looked up. ‘No. I can guess. You didn’t tell me till now. So he, too, is on his way to St Catherine’s.’

  It was not put as a question. She said, ‘You guessed?’

  ‘I was told.’ He did not say by whom. He said, ‘I am trying not to harm him, Katelijne. It is difficult. I have a great stake in Scotland. Your brother is at Court. England is still in a turmoil; the Knights of St John are suffering; my house is suffering. And there are interests you know nothing of, in the Black Sea and elsewhere. I am anxious about what is going to happen in St Catherine’s monastery. He is not going there principally for the gold.’

  ‘You know about the gold?’ she said.

  He looked up. ‘Ah. Yes, I know. Does it seem to deny all I have just said to Jan? My life is God’s before it is Mammon’s.’

  She did not answer. Instead, she said, ‘You have set poor Jan a wearisome task. Will he thank you?’

  She saw him stiffen again. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he is made for secular life. Perhaps the new husbandman spoils the first shoot of the vine, and it blossoms but does not come to fruit. I should be sad.’

  She said, ‘Are you sad, then, at my news?’

  The face he showed her was startled. ‘Of Nicholas? No!’ He placed his hand in reassurance over hers. ‘Where would we be without such a competitor? Such a bold, extravagant, unpredictable spirit? No, I am relieved. You have lifted one burden from my shoulders. Although one should send to St Catherine’s, don’t you think, to warn them what is coming? A warning such as the Scythians sent to the Persians: a bird; a mouse; a frog –’

  ‘An arrow,’ finished Katelijne; who seldom recognised when silence was golden.

  It did not occur to either of them that Nicholas de Fleury might already be there.

  It need not be a jewel. A nut, a ring, a pebble will seek out the person you want, provided you are willing to spend what is asked of you.

  The day after the celebration of the Abundance, Nicholas left for Mount Sinai. It was, of course, against Tobie’s advice. The previous night, Tobie had come back to their rooms on the island and forbidden him to make the attempt.

  ‘What does the gold matter? You can’t ride; you can’t walk. Sail to Alexandria. De Salmeton can’t harm you there. We’ll come with you. The Sultan will alter the pass. Surely all that matters is Gelis.’ He had paused. ‘You do believe she’s alive?’

  Coming in, he had turned up the lamps and set one deliberately at the other man’s pillow. He sat down beside it. Nicholas continued to gaze at the ceiling. ‘Yes, I believe it,’ he said. He eased his shoulders distastefully.r />
  Tobie grunted. ‘John thinks so as well. He has another funny idea. He thinks she arranged her own apparent death.’

  Nicholas looked down his nose. It presumably saved him from moving his head. ‘She didn’t mean to. She didn’t want me to divine where she was. Now she doesn’t mind.’ He depressed one cheek and returned his gaze to the ceiling leaving the bearded dimple, as it were, in Tobie’s possession. Tobie analysed it and spoke, with some disbelief. ‘Gelis is at Mount Sinai?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she wants you there?’

  ‘En défaut de mieux.’

  ‘What else is she hoping for?’ Tobie said with impatience. ‘Nicholas? Whatever you are trying to say, you are not saying it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Nicholas. ‘Put the light out. At least you see I must go. I don’t want you or John. You can make for Alexandria.’

  ‘I shall certainly put it to John,’ Tobie said. ‘I feel bound to come with you, myself. That child Katelijne is going to need help.’

  Nicholas lifted his head. Tobie said, ‘Didn’t you know? She’s with Adorne, dressed as a boy. I’ve told her you’re safe: she’d be worried.’

  Nicholas swore.

  Tobie said, ‘Your brain worked better than that at nineteen. You’ve told me half. Do you want me to guess at the rest?’ He saw, as he was speaking, that in fact that was what he must do. It dismayed him.

  He remembered then, as he occasionally did, that he was the elder, and experienced in medicine. He said, his tone changing, ‘Tell me, then. Who gave you the ring?’

  ‘David de Salmeton,’ Nicholas said.

  Tobie heaved a deep sigh and, rising, walked to the window. He spoke without looking round. ‘Gelis sent it, or gave it, to David de Salmeton?’

  He turned. Nicholas didn’t speak. Tobie said, ‘It wouldn’t surprise me, or many others, if you confessed to an estrangement. You were quick to get her with child. But you’ve persuaded yourself that de Salmeton did what he did with her sanction? That she wishes you dead? Why should she?’