The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Having several untoward things she wished to say, Katelijne Sersanders took a lantern and made her way, with discretion, to that small gallery high under the wall where she had once before found M. de Fleury.

  He was not there. She walked from level to level, brushed by low devotional murmurs; touched by moths; accosted by whispers of prostitute fragrances. Above the walls, above the patchwork of roofs hung the sky, with St Catherine’s star and the dark, silent ring of the mountains.

  Below the star, there was a light in St Catherine’s church of the Franks. It was the usual lamp, hung before the iconostasis beam with its four painted figures, but she sensed somewhere a shadow, and when she opened the door, the palm-leaf mats masked another sound, she thought, by their stirring. Then Nicholas de Fleury said, ‘Come in. I have found a remarkable poem.’

  She had hoped to discover, through him, an understanding of her uncle’s condition. But if he had knelt it was to commune, not to weep; if he had sought solitude, it was not from personal agony. His voice was abstracted and sweet, as if music was not far away, but his mind had not yet had time to turn to it. She said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘A misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘Your uncle was convinced that the gold must be here, and the Abbot invited him to look for it. It isn’t, of course.’

  She said, ‘You believed it was here.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘I thought it was yours.’

  He had put on a kindly face. The dimples, the trenches in his face, in his beard even looked natural. He said, ‘It is, but people forget. Your uncle had some idea that it was meant for the Mamelukes, as part of a plot to invite them in strength to St Catherine’s. The Abbot explained that there were no stocks of gold and no plot, and when your uncle seemed unconvinced, invited him to search the monastery for the gold, if he liked.’

  ‘He was shamed,’ Katelijne said.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said. He made it formal.

  She said, ‘So am I. I had better go. We are climbing tomorrow.’

  He seemed less interested, now, in deception. He said, ‘As you must guess, I have done my duty by Mount Sinai already. Take your uncle. Be careful. But it will help you and him.’

  ‘Did it help you?’ she said. She identified his expression. It was well intentioned, and absent.

  He said, ‘I got what I deserved. And later, a prize I didn’t deserve. Sore feet, too.’

  She said, ‘It was your wife?’ And when he looked at her, ‘They said the Patriarch of Antioch had been here, with a young man. Someone who worked for a while on the irrigation wheel.’

  ‘Did she?’ he said. ‘Yes, it was Gelis. She has gone. We have arranged to meet again, in proper gender.’

  ‘You thought she was dead,’ Kathi said. ‘She wanted you to meet on Mount Sinai.’

  ‘She has a touch for drama,’ he said. ‘Land of salt, land of manna, land of fauns and of satyrs. Place of temptation – oh, that. To humble thee and to prove thee, I bring thee here.’

  She waited until he looked round. He said complainingly, ‘You are a very quiet child.’ Then he touched the poem. ‘Jan’s?’

  Jan’s. The coat of arms, nicely painted, identified it. He had worked on it all through the desert. His father had told him to. Every pilgrim party was supposed to compose one. And studying it was the man Whistle Willie invited to lyrical battle.

  Salve virgo Katherina

  Salve quidem castissima

  Stirpe regia regina

  Fuisti nobilissima …

  He didn’t read it aloud. He said eventually, ‘The last two verses scan.’

  ‘Good night,’ she said. Against her intentions she smiled, implying that she perceived and accepted the compliment, and was immediately filled with remorse. She crept into her chamber, and arranged herself behind her improvised screen, and considered with furious despair the prospect of a night and a day climbing mountains with Anselm Adorne and his son.

  She fell asleep.

  Coming back in the quiet of the night, Nicholas de Fleury found the lamp lit in his part of the guest-quarters, and his two business partners awaiting him. John le Grant said, ‘All right. Now you’re purified, sit down and tell us.’

  ‘About the gold,’ Nicholas said. He had hoped to have a moment with Tobie. But after all, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered too much.

  ‘That’s why we’re supposed to be here. But the St Sabas message was wrong, or out of date, or maybe the parrot was drunk. The gold isn’t here, only a puckle left in the tomb. Who did that? Ochoa?’

  All the way to Sinai, the notion of a hard-swearing Catalonian sea captain immured in a monastery had confounded Nicholas. Now he laughed. ‘No. Ochoa hasn’t been here. Just the token dust in the egg, to lure us onwards.’

  He spoke with confidence. It was true that the gold wasn’t here: he would have believed the Abbot, even if his pendulum hadn’t told him. His pendulum had told him, over and over, about a presence of power in the tomb. And of course, had been right.

  John said, ‘Lure us here? Why?’

  ‘Or lure us beyond here?’ said Tobie. ‘Is that it?’

  Sometime, he would have to talk to Tobie about Gelis, who had been the bait which had brought Nicholas to Mount Sinai. Gelis, and his discontent over Adorne. He knew, from John, that before Gelis walked out of the monastery she had been confronted by Tobie and treated to a barrage of questions which she had refused, with apparent indifference, to answer. He also knew that it was Gelis who had sent Ludovico da Bologna to look for him when he had failed to return from the mountain. She didn’t want the game to end before time.

  Now he said to the others, ‘A lot of people are trying to push us about for various reasons: business, personal; because of the gold. The gold is what we came for: we haven’t got it; and Tobie’s feeling, last time we spoke, was that we ought to abandon it and go home. Meaning west. What do you think?’

  Tobie’s face had altered. He said, ‘Home. As soon as may be. Diniz won’t mind. The Bank can stand it.’

  ‘Seconded,’ said John le Grant. ‘It’s getting too dangerous. If Adorne thinks he can plod on and find it, then I wish him good luck. We can aye pester him with some litigation, even if we’ve no chance of winning. He might even drop charges against you for half killing him.’

  ‘There is that,’ said Nicholas. Tobie looked at him. Nicholas said, ‘All right: we agree. Alexandria? The spice ships will be in: the Sultan’s goodwill should go quite some way to compensating for the gold. We’ll need camels and an escort to take us there: a few weeks of business, then back on the first ship to Venice. We could be there by November. Achille will have news of Scotland and the Tyrol.’

  ‘Scotland?’ said Tobie.

  ‘I can go there next year,’ Nicholas said.

  They extinguished the lamp very soon. John fell asleep. Some time after midnight, mingled with the psalms of the night office, came the subdued sounds of stirring next door, as Adorne’s party prepared to visit their church before leaving. Nicholas, listening, became aware of movement much closer than that. Tobie, too, was quietly dressing.

  For the sake of young Kathi, of course. Perhaps even to watch over Adorne, not yet restored to full health. In war, Tobie served like this, riding, walking, his box at his side; treating those he despised and those he hated, impartial with everyone. A good physician daily faced the great mysteries; it was not surprising that Tobie, too, might want to scale Mount Sinai, and stand on the peak of St Catherine.

  John slept on and Nicholas lay, all his mind concentrated, like a spear, on one thought. After a while, when it was quiet, he rose and went to where the little box waited.

  Chapter 43

  KATELIJNE CAME TO the end of her strength on the second mountain, the Mount of St Catherine, which was over eight thousand feet high, and took five hours to ascend and three to come down. Guided by Brother Lorenzo, they had already climbed Mount Sinai before dawn, and prayed with Father John in the chapel. From there they had descended the west side to reach
the convent of the Forty Martyrs, which was ruined, but maintained its precious gardens, and where two monks in a hut brought them water and fruit.

  There was no path up St Catherine, and although from the top they said they could see the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea southwards to Tor, and the whole peninsula for as far as it would take six days to travel, Katelijne stuck halfway up, and Dr Tobias stayed with her.

  When they came back at dusk, most of them were hardly able to walk, and the girl was in a camel-litter. Guiding her through the postern vault, Tobie heard the squabble inside the monastery at once.

  Reduced by space, even voices upraised in anger remained slight, although it was evident that the sound came from above, where the monks’ galleried cells clung to the north wall. John was not in their room. Tobie got the girl settled quickly, and ran.

  It was over by then: the cell empty, and only John standing outside, in a fury which he turned on Tobie at once.

  ‘So where were you? You knew he was doing this?’

  The bloodied fingers, the deepening eyes: yes, he had known that Nicholas was divining. Tobie said, ‘They found him at it? Or someone told them?’

  ‘Both,’ said John. ‘For my money.’ His fist was split.

  ‘Kathi knew,’ Tobie said. ‘But she wouldn’t tell. Perhaps Gelis guessed, and told Adorne. What happened?’

  ‘The worst,’ said John. ‘Three silly monks, convinced they’d seen the devil conjuring spirits. If Brother Lorenzo had been here, it would never have happened. Anyway, they burst into exorcising prayers and wails, and when Nicholas got up, tried to snatch his pendulum and set fire to his maps. I don’t think he was in his proper senses: he’d been concentrating too long. At any rate, he fought back, and the fire caught their robes, and I got there in time to save them and sit on him.’

  ‘Heavily,’ suggested Tobie, who at times had some admiration for John.

  ‘My fist caught his jaw,’ admitted the engineer. ‘They’ve locked him up somewhere and gone off to report to the Abbot. Was it exciting on the two mountains?’

  ‘Five broken pilgrims,’ said Tobie. ‘And the girl in collapse, if you call that exciting.’

  The anger left John. He said, ‘It was far too heavy a day. You were mad to allow her.’

  ‘It wasn’t physical,’ Tobie said. ‘Much the same kind of nervous overspill that sometimes afflicts Nicholas, I suspect. She knows more than most about what’s going on, but not quite enough to make sense of it. What was he divining?’

  John looked surprised. ‘The rest of the gold, surely, damn him. Then he’d have reversed all our plans. He could never really bear to let Adorne find it.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Tobie. ‘Well, he’s lost his chance. They’ll fling us out now. Or put a stake through his heart. Or set fire to him.’ He waited for John’s heaviest grunt. They both knew it was serious.

  They got off with expulsion; or a departure as soon as an escort could be collected. It was hardly pleasant, even with the Abbot exercising his authority to calm the more timid monks and Brother Lorenzo adding helpful allusions to the Rod of Moses. A man who could discover water could not be wholly the Devil’s.

  The ordering of mounts and guides and provisions began. Nicholas, returned to interim confinement in their chamber, looked spent and bemused rather than fiendish. The charred maps had been taken, but the pendulum had been returned by the Abbot, with a private exhortation, to Tobie. He kept it hidden until he and Nicholas were alone. Then he produced it.

  Nicholas looked at it.

  Tobie said, ‘I am so very sorry. It’s empty. Take your time.’ With any other man, he would have touched him.

  Nicholas said, ‘You know what was in it.’

  Tobie put the box in his hands. ‘Yes.’ On a long campaign, there were always children. Mothers died. He had suckled a babe from his finger; seated a child in the crook of his arm and pressed out the fringe of its toes so that he could use the small shears from his box. The clippings fell, half-moons and slivers, fine as muslin.

  A whimsical kind of memento, until you remembered what divining made use of. This child had been at least a year old. Tobie said, ‘You knew as soon as you saw it? How did you know?’

  ‘Before I saw it,’ Nicholas said. He had opened the box. As Tobie had said, it was empty. It was the first thing the Abbot had done; shake its contents into the fire.

  Nicholas said, ‘I was given a wisp of hair, supposed to be his. I felt nothing: it wasn’t. I could feel this through granite and marble.’

  ‘Gelis brought you the hair?’ said Tobie. He spoke gently.

  Nicholas said, ‘When I didn’t accept it as proof, she offered to show me the child, at a price.’

  ‘The gold?’ said Tobie. ‘She wanted the gold?’

  ‘She wanted to watch me compelled to find it. That was all. She wouldn’t know, you see, that someone had left this.’

  It was like being in camp, moving among wounded, speaking carefully. Tobie said, ‘Someone? The Patriarch? But, Nicholas … what makes you sure Gelis didn’t help him? She could have had the box made. She must have provided what was in it. She could have made certain that someone would empty it before you could touch it. One of them must have told the monks what you were doing. They didn’t find you divining by accident.’

  ‘But,’ said Nicholas, ‘you see, it doesn’t matter. The power stays, even though it is empty. I know where to start.’ His voice strengthened for the first time. ‘I don’t know where the gold is. I don’t need to know. I can find the child.’

  Tobie said, ‘If you do, you will need me. Not for the child. For yourself. Do you understand?’ It was the least he could do. He should be forbidding this.

  He saw Nicholas realise it. Nicholas said, ‘I know. It will stop.’

  ‘It may take longer than you think,’ said Tobie dryly. ‘You said you knew where to start?’

  ‘I know where he is,’ Nicholas said. ‘Here, in the Middle Sea, on an island. I have to sail from Gaza.’

  Gaza would take six to eight days to reach. It was on the Middle Sea. Alexandria and Gaza lay at opposite ends of the Sinai coastline. Tobie said, ‘It takes you further from home. You don’t know which island?’

  He remembered as he spoke that the maps Nicholas had used for his divining were burned. There would be others at Gaza. They had an agent at Gaza. He began to say, ‘Could it be Crete?’ and then stopped, looking at the other man’s bent head. The box lay in his hands. Tobie rose quietly and left, without troubling him with anything more.

  That day the problem resolved itself because of the illness of Kathi.

  It had worried Tobie, her collapse. Her uncle, himself overtired, had been at first inclined to belittle it. He had been distraught, on his return, to find the calm of the monastery further destroyed, and the culprit – the practitioner of the unnatural art – to be Nicholas. Then came the discovery that his niece Katelijne had known of it.

  In the end, Tobie turned Adorne from her room. ‘He uses the gift to detect minerals. It isn’t unknown. If you possessed such an ability, wouldn’t you use it to find gold?’

  And – ‘No! On my soul, a thousand times no!’ Adorne had said and, rejecting Tobie in turn, had brought Brother Lorenzo to view his young nephew Stephen (at a distance), and to confirm his belief that the Holy Land, with all its miracles, would surely effect a complete cure.

  At the bedside, Brother Lorenzo murmured politenesses. Outside, he turned. ‘Forgive me, but this I must say. You have no doctor. The Holy Land is Mameluke country, and travel there can be harsh and distressing, as you have already found. Would you not prefer to choose some quiet place where Stephen might wait out the rest of your journey? A return perhaps to my own island of Crete? To St Catherine’s community there?’

  It was a sensible offer and Adorne, prevaricating, longed to accept it. The monk set out to persuade him. ‘I could take him and see him well cared for. He would find some interest in our ikon workshops, our trade.�
��

  It was impossible. ‘I am afraid not,’ said Adorne, with regret.

  The monk bit his lip and seemed to gather himself. ‘Also, the ladies of my family would make him welcome.’

  The tone of voice was enough. With mixed relief and despair, Adorne answered at length. ‘I see you have guessed. I am ashamed.’

  Later, stiffly conveying the news to the doctor, Adorne found Tobie unamazed.

  ‘Monks are wiser than you would think. I thought the Abbot suspected the sex of our Stephen.’ He studied Adorne. ‘D’you think less of the Father for letting it pass? Katelijne was the only one with a real reason for being here.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Adorne. ‘You felt nothing, gained nothing from the mountain? I know, of course, your friend did not. As for the Abbot, I think he would have let her stay longer. It was this despicable matter of necromancy which forced him to cleanse his conscience in other respects.’

  ‘And, perhaps, the little argument you yourself had over the Sultan,’ Tobie said sharply. ‘I suspect we all came for mixed reasons, but some of them weren’t bad. Are you sending Kathi to Crete?’

  ‘If Brother Lorenzo can arrange it,’ Adorne said. ‘We hope to leave her in good hands in Gaza, and the brethren themselves will take her from there to the island. I think he is right: she needs quiet. I know you were worried about her and I was wrong to be angry. I am sorry.’

  ‘And you want to know where I am going,’ said Tobie.

  Adorne said, ‘I am not interested in the gold.’

  ‘Neither are we,’ said Tobie gravely. ‘It appears that we, too, are going to Gaza, the three of us. We could set out on our own, or along with you all, depending on how you feel about the contaminating presence of Nicholas. The friar might have views.’

  Adorne was silent. Then he said, ‘And after that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tobie said. ‘By ship somewhere. We haven’t decided.’

  Perhaps the man was concerned for his niece; perhaps not. He wondered if Adorne ever thought of the strain imposed on a very young girl, set to travel with men, and pretending to be one of their kind. It could be done: you saw that, too, on campaign. Buckets, cloths, unremitting struggle and vigilance on top of the genderless joys of rough travel: plucking Pharaoh’s lice, big as almonds, from her clothes; vermin out of her hair. Gelis, too. He despised Gelis, but never doubted her courage.