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

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Her chamber was a mess: the nuns at Haddington would never have countenanced it for a moment. Entering, Gregorio made it clear at the outset that he wanted no secrets: only to know if she had heard any news of Gelis van Borselen. She had not. She had not even known that Gelis was expected in Venice. He felt a pang of guilt for having told her at all. When she asked after Margot he saw that she knew nothing of her movements either. They finished by talking of Scotland.

  She missed it, he gathered. If the Princess Mary was ever allowed back with her babes – assuming the second was born – Katelijne would not mind returning with her. She missed Whistle Willie and Betha Sinclair and dear Phemie Dunbar.

  ‘Do you ever hear from them?’ Gregorio asked.

  She had smiled. ‘Phemie writes. She sends poems. They are meant for me, but I rather think she likes my uncle to see them. He sends her back commentaries sometimes.’ She turned aside and began to show him some music.

  He made some sort of response. He had wondered, hearing nothing, but assumed that communication from a priory was difficult. He began to think back.

  The girl said, ‘You must rest before Tuesday. You are all so busy, my uncle too. What are you wearing for the last day of the Carnival? My uncle won’t go. Jan is to be dressed as a cockerel.’

  Gregorio said, ‘I don’t know. Something very ordinary, I’m afraid. Julius is going to parade as a Venetian Senator, and Tobie as a fisherman, or so he says.’

  Native caution, even at this moment, warned him not to mention the disguise he thought Nicholas might have chosen. Nicholas had thanked him for allowing Margot to depart.

  Gregorio took his leave of Katelijne Sersanders and, instead of going back to the Casa, walked to the quay to which the boats from Chioggia usually came.

  Monday arrived, and the solemn meeting in the Doge’s Palace between the Senate and the Persian Envoys, attended by delegations from the House of Niccolò and from the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Rhodes, represented by Tobias Lomellini. The magnifico Marco Corner spoke for the interests of Cyprus and Venice. And, of course, of the prince Uzum Hasan, to whom his wife was related.

  It was noted that the Bank had pledged itself to supply, at the stated prices, a reduced quantity of artillery, ammunition, handguns and other offensive weapons, together with four trained artillery officers, as per the lists the lords had placed before them.

  It was noted that the Bank, contrary to the trend of the preliminary discussions, was providing no shipping, and no band of mercenaries. Further, to the distress of the Signory and the Ambassadors, it had notified its intention of lodging a claim against the Knights Hospitaller for the very sum of money which the Knights had proposed to devote to the purchase of most of these items for the war against the Grand Turk.

  The Senate expressed its disappointment at this move by the Bank at a juncture so important to the welfare of all those present, and was only partly reconciled by the news that the way was not closed (were the money to be returned to the Bank), for a grant to be made to the alliance at a later date.

  There was some vigorous discussion, and resolutions were taken which did not, however, change M. de Fleury’s attitude or affect the final result. Impasse being reached, the Senate assembled a final accounting of the aid the alliance was being currently promised, presented it to the Envoys of the lord Uzum Hasan, and received their somewhat modified gratitude. In a buzz of angry conversation, the meeting broke up.

  Outside: ‘I regret,’ said the lord Hadji Mehmet. ‘You have, of course, a duty to Burgundy. Your worth as a merchant and an ally has been known to the prince Uzum Hasan, and he cannot but feel severe disappointment. There may, perhaps, be other occasions when your freedom is less circumscribed. The prince would like to see you in Tabriz. He will welcome meantime what help you have been able to give.’

  They were speaking in Turcoman Arabic, but could not be sure of privacy even then. In any case, they were practised, Mehmet and Nicholas de Fleury, in communicating with their eyes. Nicholas said, ‘If they are wise, Venice will appoint someone of worth. And perhaps, one day, I may come.’

  Marco Corner, father of the Queen of Cyprus, was less gracious. ‘I am afraid, Ser Niccolò, that you will look in vain for your concessions on the Tyrolean border – or may not find them quite what you hoped.’ He was flushed.

  ‘That depends,’ Nicholas said, ‘on what success my lords the Envoys have with the Holy Father in Rome. I gather the Patriarch of Antioch is to join them there. You may find me, in the end, as generous as the Order with the possessions of others.’

  Tobias Lomellini, Genoese Treasurer of the Order, walked with him to the wharf. ‘I cannot begin to describe my disgust. On a caprice, you have reversed all we talked of on Rhodes. You have betrayed the Religion and, of course, the offer made by the Patriarch is withdrawn.’

  ‘You stole my money,’ said Nicholas. ‘I was going to forgive you, but my company showed me I was wrong. What powers do you possess to withdraw the Patriarch’s offer?’

  ‘The fullest powers,’ said the Genoese. ‘I have the papers of authority, should you doubt me. A note of my decision will be prepared for your wife, who I believe was involved. She can obtain it from any clerk of the Order. Or I shall present it to her at the banquet. I suppose, in spite of everything, the Signoria has summoned you to the official banquet?’

  ‘I’m on the list,’ Nicholas said. ‘And I do lend them large sums of money.’ The gold from the Ghost, he imagined, would long since have been melted into bullion. Perhaps it had already gone. At the very least, the Knights would now quietly use it to buy what they needed, no doubt some of it from him. But they were answerable at law for what they had done. However worthy the cause, they had no right to support it by piracy. Although of course, the litigation would take years. Ochoa was in their power. He would say whatever they told him.

  ‘And your lady wife will be there?’ Lomellini repeated.

  ‘Nothing would please her better,’ Nicholas said. ‘If she arrives in time.’

  The banquet for the Persian Envoys was one of the better ones, and Julius enjoyed it. Calling above the roar of conversation he said to Tobie, ‘I thought his wife was going to be here?’ And, observing Nicholas had overheard: ‘The Sersanders girl said Gelis was going to be here? When are you going to tell her you’re setting up family life in Bruges, and not Persia?’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’d practically settled on Innsbruck. No, she isn’t here. She may come later.’

  ‘You’d think she would enjoy all this,’ Julius said. ‘And the child. Isn’t she bringing the child? I thought she must be, because Margot isn’t here. Poor Gregorio. He hates it so when Margot isn’t here.’

  ‘I don’t suppose for a moment that she is bringing the child,’ Nicholas said. ‘Venice, in Carnival-time? It would grow up depraved.’

  The Baron Cortachy, Envoy of the most noble, the most high and most powerful prince, the lord Charles, Duke of Burgundy (and counsellor of James, King of Scotland), conducted himself at table with all the address of one accustomed to the ceremonial of Brussels.

  To Tobias Lomellini he said, ‘I, too, am dismayed, although as a merchant I shall benefit. M. de Fleury has forfeited the right to act as exclusive purchasing agent for arms. I am told the Patriarch of Antioch has been in Caffa, consolidating Genoese privileges in order to placate the Order in Rhodes. It could have been worse.’

  It could have been worse. The words, Adorne’s own, stayed engraved in his mind as his name was engraved on a block of stone; on a wall. Was that to be the epitaph of this pilgrimage, this journey which circumstance had forced on him and his son, and which, at another time in his life, could have been glorious?

  He should have come for his soul’s sake alone. The sufferings and the rewards: the solitudes and silence of Sinai, the exaltation of the spirit he had experienced over and over in the Holy Land should have been sufficient. The jars and phials, the trinkets and the indulgences brought
so far with such pains should have been acquired for those dear to his heart, and less for those from whom he or his Duke desired favours. And some of his party were dead.

  Yet he served two princes, and was loyal to them, and had worked in their interest. And for his family, too, he had worked – this immense, growing family with which Margriet had blessed him; and which meant that he could not ignore the opportunities or the dangers which the future might offer his investments and his trade.

  And likewise, he could not ignore his competitors. He wished de Fleury had not come, and that the child Kathi had not encumbered him, dear though she was. He wished he did not know, as now he did, that Jan was not of the stuff of which great statesmen are made. But the lad’s future was safe, with a Pope who favoured Genoa, and the Adornes.

  Jan had shown himself a good son, and in this interim should be permitted some frivolity, although his father could wish he were absent less often, and were seeing less of Simon de St Pol whose life he, Adorne, had saved in the salt-houses in Scotland. Splendid jouster though St Pol was, he had the name of a profligate. It was a tragedy, too, to see developed in Nicholas de Fleury what had seemed, long ago, merely the irresponsibility and lightness of youth. Now added to that was the sin of impiety. And what St Pol lacked: a chilling mastery of manipulation in business which others, too, had begun to identify as a threat.

  With a fortitude supplied him by God, Anselm Adorne confronted an eventual return to his home and an untangling of the ludicrous situation precipitated by these poor, warring monarchs of England. Unrecognised for months by the Duke, the Yorkist King of England had been skulking in Holland as a house-guest of Louis de Gruuthuse. At the same time, thanks to Nicholas de Fleury, the Scots traitor Boyd, Earl of Arran, was raising a family in the Baron’s own household.

  Adorne owed allegiance to the Scots King who had condemned Boyd to death. His own daughter served the English King’s mother. He could extract himself from the predicament with some honour, but it was de Fleury he blamed, and de Fleury on whom his thoughts constantly dwelled. It seemed the man was not going East, but had just confirmed his stake in the West: in Flanders, Burgundy, perhaps even in Scotland. But there, of course, the Baron Cortachy had already forestalled him. And now there were others. In future, Nicholas Fleury would find his opposition of a different calibre. He would face a coalition.

  The pendulum gave him nothing. He sat finally by the light of one guttering candle, gazing at the lines on map after map; concentrating his being on Gelis, on Margot.

  Nothing worked. Unless he had lost his mind, they were not in Florence, nor in Venice. He could not be sure of the sea: perhaps the boat with Margot in it was already sailing in from the mainland. Perhaps the faint shocks that sometimes touched him from this road or that village were traces of the passing of Gelis, or of the persons to whom she had given her kerchief, her cloak, her gold ring. She was shrewd. She had studied his power, in order to learn how to counter it.

  The child, of course, he could not reach, knowing nothing of it. All he knew was that it was his, and alive, and a son. Two years ago, he would have perjured his soul for that knowledge. Now he could hardly assimilate it, his anxiety was so great. He had broken his pact with the Patriarch. He had been wrong.

  At some hour during the night, Tobie thumped his shoulders. ‘Sit up. You’ll set your hair alight, and burn your papers all over again.’

  He had brought a cup. After a certain argument they had had, the cup was strictly regulated, to yield so much sleep and no more. There was no time to waste. Margot had not come, and could not be found. Neither could Gelis. And the next day was Tuesday the twenty-sixth day of February. Martedi Grasso, the last, the most joyous day of the Carnival, when the lords of the night watch are blind, and nothing is outlawed but grief.

  He was nowhere near his maps, in the end, when the power struck as suddenly and as sickeningly as it had that first time in the Tyrol, when he had been thrown to the ground amid images of water and fire. On this occasion it drew fewer eyes, occurring when, after a morning of festival ritual, the guests of the Doge and the Signoria had crowded into the Senate Hall to witness a spectacle. Miniature castles had been built on the floor and a score of scarlet-clad Senators were attacking them. Nicholas abruptly ceased watching.

  Tobie, nearest to Nicholas, saw the shock run through his body. He rose. Gregorio, not far away, noticed and began to come over. The men about them, jovial in liquor, cheering on the performance, paid no attention. Tobie said, ‘What?’ and touched Nicholas on the shoulder. He was shaking, and had buried his head in his hands.

  Tobie said, ‘Come,’ and put a hand under his arm. Then Nicholas straightened and, guided by Tobie, got out of the room. Gregorio, following, saw that both John le Grant and Father Moriz had noticed: he shook his head at them, and they stayed. Julius had observed nothing.

  Outside, Nicholas said, ‘I am sorry.’ The Piazzetta milled with men as richly dressed as themselves; even his pallor was not unremarkable in a city where, for the moment, licence ruled and dissipation was the norm. Nicholas said clearly, ‘They are both here,’ and turned to Gregorio. ‘Gelis, and Margot. But not together.’

  Until he saw Gregorio’s face, even Tobie had not understood the extent of his anguish. Now Gregorio said, ‘How can you know? Nicholas? How can you know?’

  ‘Look at him,’ was all Tobie said. He let Nicholas go. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Nicholas again. His eyes were still on Gregorio. ‘I have to go back to the Casa.’

  ‘To use your maps?’ Tobie said. ‘Or one of them is there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. ‘But Gelis is nearer.’ Unexpectedly, he caught both of Gregorio’s hands and set them violently on his own shoulders, covering them with his palms. Gregorio’s eyes were alarmed. Nicholas said, ‘I need to know Margot as well as you do. Can you transmit anything, or take anything from me?’ He was becoming whiter and whiter.

  Gregorio pulled his hands away. He said, ‘No. You are losing too much. If you can reach Gelis, that’s enough.’ He was almost as pale as Nicholas. He repeated Tobie’s words. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Tobie said. ‘I was wrong. The boat will be quickest.’ The crowd was so thick that it took an effort to push through to the landing-stage. He had thought at first that Nicholas was going to faint, and then saw that he had given himself some sort of respite; as if he had had the sense to detach himself somehow from whatever had him in its grip. He waited patiently until they found the barchetta, and then took his place without speaking.

  The Canal was packed with boats and laughter and streamers. The Casa, when they reached it, was silent, all its staff freed for the revels save for the porter, sitting inside the double doors in his black and white unicorn livery, consoling himself with watered wine and bread and salami. It quite alarmed him when the padrone appeared, all out of the blue, instead of being at the Palace with the rest of them. The doctor said something as he passed, but Master Gregorio looked straight ahead.

  The porter jumped up. He said, ‘Padrone! Your honoured lady insisted! She said she would wait in the salon!’

  Halfway up the double staircase, Nicholas stopped. Then he turned, and ran up. Gregorio hesitated, but followed. Tobie was running already. ‘Do you think this is a lovers’ meeting?’ he said over his shoulder. Ahead, Nicholas had opened the door of the salon.

  It was a beautiful room, running the full depth of the house and fronting the Canal with a balcony. The girl facing Nicholas was Gelis van Borselen, strands of fair hair coiling below the fine headdress and back veil, her velvet travelling gown stained, as when she had come to the deathbed of Godscalc. She said, ‘What have you done with him?’ She looked only at Nicholas.

  He moved forward and stopped. ‘With whom?’

  She said, ‘Jordan. Jordan has gone. Where have you put him?’

  Gregorio moved. Tobie grasped him hard by the arm. Nicholas said, ‘I suppos
e I don’t need to ask which you mean. I have not touched the child. I have never seen him.’

  Gelis said, ‘He was in Florence. They were to bring him. I expected to find him in Venice. They say the house in Florence was empty. Someone stole the child and his nurse, and the rest ran away. Your doing. It must be your doing.’

  Nicholas sat down. He said, ‘Do I look as if I have won something today?’

  Then she looked round at the others. Tobie said, ‘We none of us know where your child is. Nicholas divined that you were here.’

  He remembered, now, the severity of the brows, the coldness of the blue eyes. He held their gaze until, releasing him, they returned to Nicholas. She said, ‘I am not wearing the ring.’

  ‘You came an hour ago,’ Nicholas said.

  She sat then herself. Holding Gregorio still, Tobie moved quietly past them both to a ledge by the balcony, where he leaned, and Gregorio sank into a seat. Gelis said, ‘Then you could divine where he is?’

  ‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or I would not have thought I should find him in Famagusta.’

  Her face tightened. She said, ‘The child was not to blame.’

  ‘I understand that,’ he said. ‘If I knew him, I could find him.’

  Tobie spoke. ‘You could find him if you had something of his.’

  ‘Nail clippings?’ Nicholas said. You could see him watch her whiten.

  Then she said, ‘I could bring you something.’

  Up till then, Tobie thought, Nicholas had refused to allow himself to believe. Even yet, you could see him torn by the need to protect himself. Nicholas, who never gave anything away. He said, ‘A garment. Something that touches … Or something he … knows.’

  ‘I will bring it,’ she said, and got up.

  Tobie said, ‘Let us come with you,’ but she shook her head and began to move to the door.

  Nicholas stood. She said, ‘It will be quicker. You could find me anyway.’