The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  In the end, Tobie set out to find him. The gates were locked. Nicholas de Fleury must be within the confines of the fondaco. He began with the roof, and worked down.

  Nicholas heard him come over the grass. He heard because he was lying on it, his shoulders and head supported by the trunk of a tree. He supposed that, if he had asked him, Tobie would have explained that wine after abstinence doesn’t necessarily result in oblivion. He stayed because he felt too delicate to move, but without much hope that Tobie would pass him. He felt Tobie kneel, and opened his eyes. Tobie said, ‘Umar is dead.’

  Nicholas said, ‘Oh, yes. But we knew that already.’

  ‘Now you can accept it,’ said Tobie.

  ‘Now I know the details, yes. It is a great step forward,’ said Nicholas. His stomach knotted and he told it to unknot.

  Tobie said, ‘I’m sorry. It was bad, then. I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me?’

  The words became lost, in some fashion. Some time later, Tobie repeated them. He appeared now to be sitting beside him. Nicholas said, ‘I’m sorry. Something I drank.’ The wind had risen again but it was very warm, and the trees tossed against the twinkling windows of the fondaco. The spray from the fountain, blowing across, was quite pleasant. He made an effort and thought about Tobie. Then he remembered. He said, ‘So did you see Gelis? You didn’t bring her, I hope. She might go home and never try to come back again.’ He thought the idea vaguely funny and smiled.

  Time passed. The words hung about, and when he next came to himself they were still there. He said irritably, ‘Well? What about Gelis?’

  Tobie was on his other side this time. Tobie said, ‘Hold my arm. I’m going to lift you up and take you to bed.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Nicholas. ‘You’re not as pretty as Zacco.’ He stayed where he was. ‘What about Gelis?’

  ‘She’s all right,’ said Tobie. ‘Look, get up. You can’t stay here all night, and I want some sleep if you don’t.’

  She’s all right. Would anyone, placed as Tobie was, use that offhand phrase to speak about Gelis? Nicholas said, ‘Why are you lying?’

  Tobie was silent. Then he said, ‘Come upstairs.’

  ‘No.’ All at once, it was easy to be sober. Nicholas said, ‘Tell me. Now.’ He reared up like a dyeframe triangle: spine braced, palms between rigid knees.

  Tobie knelt back on his heels. He said, ‘She isn’t here. She changed her mind and took the galley from Venice.’

  Nicholas remembered. He released his hands and placed them on either side on the grass. He said, ‘The party who wanted places on the Ascension Day boats?’ He was surprised, but relieved. The galley had arrived safely at Jaffa: the Consul had said so. He said, ‘So where did she go?’

  Saying it, he recalled the contradictory impression he had received from Tobie’s first words. He said, a little more sharply, ‘Shouldn’t she be here by now?’

  Tobie said, ‘Come upstairs.’

  Nicholas looked at him.

  When Tobie did not speak, Nicholas said, ‘You have told me. Now tell me the rest.’ Every physical complaint had gone. Everthing had gone, except hearing.

  Tobie said, ‘The galley arrived safely at Jaffa, but had been forced to stay at sea because of the war. Her food and water were tainted, and illness broke out, and spread. Forty-nine pilgrims died on the way. Among them were the three who had been with Adorne: the Duke of Burgundy’s chaplain, the monk from Furnes, the merchant Colebrant from Bruges, and a fourth who joined them late, whose name was not recorded, but whose wedding ring was brought ashore with all the rest of the luggage.’

  He paused, and then said, ‘It bore your name and hers. It was all there was. Those who perished were all buried at sea.’

  The fountain wakened him, or the unyielding stone under his cheek. The cold was so great he was shaking. He said, ‘They rescued an earl and a bishop.’

  Someone beside him said, ‘There were survivors. One day, you will hear the whole story. Not now.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I must go.’

  The voice said, ‘There is nowhere to go. Come upstairs. Come with me. Nicholas?’

  His name was Claes, Nikki, Nicol. His name was not Nicholas. What was his name?

  Who sculptured Love and set him by the pool, Thinking with liquid such a flame to cool.

  Someone was shaking him. He said, in explanation, ‘My mother is dead.’

  And the other man, in anguish almost as great as his own, seemed to say, ‘I know. Is that not the root of it all? I know, Nicholas. I know.’

  Wine after long abstinence has a curious effect. Waking and sleeping through the long night, Nicholas de Fleury was aware that Tobie was somewhere in the same room, but could not always think why. Towards morning he remembered very well. Soon after that Tobie himself fell asleep, his chin masked with fair bristle, circles under his reddened lids. Nicholas rose and, presenting himself early at the baths, was clean, shaved and dressed by the time Tobie awoke. He had also spoken to Achille, and had a tray brought with food enough for both. He did not try to eat himself, but laid the tray beside Tobie’s pallet. He said, ‘I have to thank you.’

  Tobie pulled himself up. After a while he said, ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘All of it, I think,’ Nicholas said. ‘Gelis died on the galley from Venice. Some things will have to be done. I don’t know how the child is being cared for. The news will have to be sent to her family.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Tobie said. ‘I shall tell Adorne, as well. And the child, presumably, is already in the best hands. Gelis expected to be gone a long time.’

  ‘But not quite so long,’ Nicholas said. ‘Would you do one more thing for me? Would you prevent Adorne or his niece coming to speak to me?’

  ‘They will understand,’ Tobie said.

  Nicholas experienced a fleeting amusement. He said, ‘I doubt it.’

  Tobie left later, having satisfied himself, Nicholas assumed, that despair was not about to drive him into doing something irrational. He had not asked what Nicholas intended to do, understanding perhaps that as yet he had little idea. His own main concern, from the outset, had been to appear as normal as possible and to get rid of Tobie.

  It seemed that Tobie had somehow diverted Achille as well, for no one came near him except a page who scuttled out with the tray, and some time later appeared with another one. Nicholas let him leave it. The interruption made him realise that the pain came from his hands, cramped round the arms of his chair. Then it was dark, and the daily hubbub lessened below, and gradually the intrusions – everything – stopped.

  And everything had stopped. Wheels within wheels within wheels. John had said that. So withdraw the innermost wheel, and silence falls. Nothing happens, because nothing makes it happen. The panorama is frozen. The mechanical figures cease to climb. The outlying animations – in Scotland … in Flanders … in the Tyrol, Venice, Cyprus, Egypt, Persia – all slacken as well, and sink below, weighted with sand from the ballast. Joining the wheel already broken, which he had never fully acknowledged till now.

  There is no cradle under my roof …

  I want the teachers of your line to help instruct the poor fools sprung of mine … All now truly gone, from today.

  From yesterday. Time was passing. So what was he going to do? His mind reached that point, always, and jibbed, and went back. Back, and back. And then forward again. Was it quick for him? How was it for her? Slow this time, and seeping: seawater, fresh water; the pendulum swinging. If the mould was broken, how could you ever put anything together again?

  Some time during the night he lit a candle and, sitting, dazzled, took out his maps and his jewel. His hands beat slowly and heavily, as his heart did, and he thought that was bad. Although he knew it was pointless, he cast over Jaffa and all the coast that lay between there and Alexandria, but of course there was nothing. He waited, and then thought to ask the jewel what he should do.

  Divining tools cannot make choices. Remembering, he set himself,
with an exhausted kind of persistence, to ask specific questions. Should I go here? Or here? Or here? It amused him, distantly, to leave his future to fate when suddenly he had no care for the future. The sparrows were chirping and the morning wind was stirring through the window before he remembered the question he had not thought to ask.

  It meant another map, one he had just acquired. He got it out, moving stiffly, and glanced outside at the lightening sky. Soon the gates would be unlocked. Soon anyone could leave if they wished. He lifted the cord, thinking of several things instead of concentrating on one.

  It was odd therefore that the jewel should begin to move for the first time in the positive direction; that the cord should rasp on his finger as it sped, and that it should rise, as it so seldom did, to its full spinning height.

  He knew then that he didn’t want to go back to empty rooms in Bruges, or Venice, or Scotland. He didn’t want, and might never want, to confront familiar faces or to take prosaic decisions, as if life had merely suffered an interruption, and could continue, somehow, in another way.

  It came to him that he had felt this way before. He thought it curious: a childish flaw he believed he should have outgrown. But at least he didn’t fancy he could work his release by flinging himself mindlessly into battle for any man. It reminded him of Erizzo, who would not, either, have been vouchsafed a tomb; a casket bearing a legend; a coffin marked by some dying white cyclamen and a fillet of grass. His mind, bruised with thinking, slid back and clung yet again to the question the jewel could not answer. Perhaps because that was why, in the end, he did not want to go back to Bruges.

  He made his decision. He put out the guttering candle, changed his creased clothes and, returning, summoned Achille while he began to write letters. One of these he sent by hand to Tobie. Before noon, Tobie had arrived and was announced. He was not alone. Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, had come also, with Katelijne his niece.

  It was an example, there was no doubt, of Tobie’s authority, not his lack of it. He had not promised, in so many words, not to bring them. Both Adorne and the girl had been primed: he wore a look that was grave as well as friendly; she gazed at Nicholas with simple compassion but not with surprise. He knew how he looked. He had seen it reflected in the eyes of his servants, of Achille. Adorne, plainly dressed without any outward manifestation of his new honours, took his hand and said, ‘We have a reason for coming, otherwise we should not have intruded. Nicholas, we are so sorry. We pray for you, and for her.’

  It looked almost genuine. He was a handsome man, fine-featured even when tired, and he sounded sincere. Katelijne also came forward and, seating herself, shoved back the veil she had worn for the streets. She said, ‘I’m sorry. Dr Tobias brought us.’ She paused and added, ‘You always said he had too many patients.’

  It meant something. He suspected vaguely what it was. He said to Adorne – to the Baron Cortachy – ‘It was good of you to come. I trust your pilgrimage has fulfilled so far all you expected of it.’ His mind was far from clear. He did not want it clear.

  Adorne said, ‘Our journey is of no matter. It is yours that concerns us. Nicholas, we hear you are leaving Alexandria?’

  Tobie, without speaking, had carefully removed his straw hat and was mopping the shining bits of his scalp. His eyes, when he looked up, were round, blue and threatening.

  Nicholas said, ‘Yes. I’m going to join John le Grant. My agent.’ He had sent for a merchant’s pass for Damietta. From Damietta, if you had money, you could disappear anywhere. You could disappear before that, if you had the right dress and spoke native Arabic and had the friendship of Abderrahman ibn Said, who happened to be going to Cairo.

  Adorne said, ‘That was what I understood. It is what I plan to do too, but not for several weeks. Nicholas … I have a great favour to ask you. Would you take my niece and Dr Tobias with you? To Damietta?’

  ‘Now?’ Nicholas said.

  Adorne smiled. For the sake of his niece, perhaps, there was only a hint of anxiety in his face. He said, ‘Of course, if she waited for me, she would have my interpreter. But Dr Tobias thinks she should seek treatment now. You have heard of Matariya, the place of the Garden of Balm and the Well of the Virgin? It is reached by sail up the Nile from Damietta. It means hiring a boat, and although Dr Tobias speaks well, his Arabic is not as fluent as yours. Would you help them?’

  ‘Or perhaps John might, if you can’t,’ Tobie said. His tone, like his gaze, was intimidating.

  Tobie had guessed, of course, that John hadn’t stayed in Damietta. He had probably guessed that Nicholas planned to meet him in Cairo. He certainly suspected the discomfort and worse that Nicholas had prepared here for Adorne.

  True to his code, Tobie had kept all this from Adorne but he was here, wordlessly staring, to intimate that there was a price for his silence. Katelijne was to leave Alexandria with Tobie before the unpleasantness began. And Nicholas was to accompany them.

  Nicholas attempted, from the profligate store of his masks, to select one that was deprecating. He said, ‘You surely can manage without my help, or John’s.’

  He had addressed the remark to Adorne. But Katelijne, as he ought to know, was never greatly interested in pretence. She said, ‘We were only being polite. You’d be better for a little while with Dr Tobias, and I’m willing to share him with you. I had a cousin who drank for six years when his father died.’

  Adorne said, ‘Katelijne!’ Below his tan, he had flushed a little. Then he laughed.

  Nicholas said, ‘That’s quite an analogy.’ His head swam and he sat down.

  ‘Not from sorrow: he found his father had two previous wives and a lot of legitimate sons. It was the shock. It will wear off.’

  ‘Kathi is an expert,’ said Tobie. ‘But it is true. We are travelling in the same direction; we would welcome your help. And perhaps you would welcome our company.’ He was glaring again.

  Nicholas said, ‘In that case, what can I do but offer it gladly? Will Tobie make the arrangements?’

  Adorne rose. ‘He will stay with you now. You have relieved my mind enormously. I hope perhaps in return you will draw some comfort from the arrangement. Although, God knows, the loss of a wife and a lover is something that no man can suffer lightly. I will not attempt to tell you what we feel for we, too, have lost our companions. Friend, I confide my niece to your care.’

  Nicholas stood. He said something. Adorne left, and the girl, who looked over her shoulder, a tooth sunk in her lip. The door closed. Tobie said, ‘Sit down. Don’t bother saying it. I’m going off to pack, then I’ll come back to help you. In the meantime, take this. You’ll get a few hours of sleep, and then we’ll all get some good out of you. And I’ll look after that.’

  He had picked up the jewel. Nicholas roused himself. He remarked, ‘A nut, a ring, a pebble – anything on a string would do just as well.’

  ‘Then get one,’ Tobie said. ‘But don’t get attached to it. It’s the mystique that does all the harm.’ His gaze dropped to the maps and the candle grease on them, but he said nothing further. He put some pills on the table and left.

  Nicholas lifted a pill and examined it inconsequentially. He might take it. He had come to Egypt for a brief season, expecting to rouse some new game and lay a few snares for the old. He had time to fill in.

  But although he was leaving Alexandria, this time it wasn’t the end of a stage, a phase completed, a milestone satisfactorily passed.

  You couldn’t reach or pass milestones when the travellers had failed; when the journey had come to a halt.

  Part III

  Close Season:

  THE EMPTY FIELD

  Chapter 36

  THE WAY TO THE Garden of Balm is by water, sailing blown by the wind between sweet-smelling shores rich with cane sugar and vineyards, date palms and orchards, floating not in a bath but a cradle, to the music the Nile makes.

  Many months later, Nicholas came to recognise the drugs Tobie had given him. At the time, he was hazily aware of the
long day and night ride to Damietta; the absence of any effort on Tobie’s part to find the departed John le Grant; and the relative ease with which Tobie produced sufficient ungrammatical Arabic to obtain a boat capable of sailing upriver.

  The fiction that Nicholas intended to stay at Damietta seemed to have dissolved. The fact that he was on his way to Cairo appeared to be taken for granted. Since no one could now transmit the information to Adorne, he supposed it didn’t matter. The Garden of Balm being located at Matariya just short of Cairo, itself six days away, he assumed that he would part company there with the rest.

  The days of the journey flowed past and were lost in much the same way that time, numbers, calculation sank from consciousness after his son – his son Henry – had tried to knife him to death. The presence of the girl Katelijne perhaps enhanced the illusion.

  It all seemed remarkably simple. Tobie, the girl and their servants were dressed in the coarse robes of pilgrims; Nicholas, in a last flash of commonsense, as their dragoman, in the Arab clothes he had worn in Alexandria. He had not shaved since they left. He was not hungry, but the girl had brought baskets of delicacies: figs and melons, grapes and dates, and Tobie bartered for rice and plump quails, eggs and fish on the way. It was like the Joliba, except that Bel was not there.

  The consonances were perpetually soothing. The honey-smell of bubbling sugar swam over the water so that he thought they were passing Episkopi, and he was charmed to notice sea-lizards stir by the shore, disturbed by the boatmen’s small tapping drums. On the Gambia, they rapped the wood of their boats with their oars. Gelis had done it for hours until she was exhausted. He wondered, drowsily, if there would be any orgies. Katelijne said, ‘What are you smiling about?’

  He smiled back but did not, then, reply. On the shore were camels, buffalo, water-wheels. Because the water was low, the boat kept in mid-stream: once they were stuck on a shoal, and he wakened to find they were all being compelled to slide overboard and wade through the water. Katelijne was supporting his arm. He said, ‘What are you holding over your head?’