The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

‘He is afraid you will marry King Ferrante’s daughter,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Monseigneur,’ said Rizzo di Marino, and laid a hand on his reins.

  The King continued studying Nicholas. ‘You know a lot, don’t you? Or you think that you do. I was told that you called at Naples on your way to Alexandria and were kind enough to discuss my marriage with Lorenzo Strozzi.’

  ‘I wanted you to go ahead with it,’ Nicholas said. ‘And place yourself in bad odour with Venice. Did you think I wished you a trouble-free life?’

  ‘She was a prostitute!’ Zacco said.

  The name of Primaflora had not been mentioned, and he didn’t propose to mention it now. He said, ‘My lord, I have to go.’

  ‘No. I want to talk. Bring him,’ said Zacco. Di Marino tightened his grip, then released the King’s reins. The escort moved close.

  Nicholas said, ‘My lord, I have a journey to make, and it is late.’

  ‘An excuse. What journey?’ said Zacco. ‘It is night.’

  He had been going to lie. Instead, he said, ‘I have to ride to Famagusta on an errand. It is so that I can decide on my answer tomorrow.’

  The lustrous eyes studied his without changing. Whoever knew that particular secret, it was not Zacco. Nicholas found he was very glad. Then Zacco said, ‘It is more than thirty miles. On that horse?’

  It was a hired one; well enough. He had begun to explain, but was stopped. The King said, ‘You will take one of mine. Or something else. I remember you once had a racing-camel.’

  ‘It will be barren,’ Nicholas said. For a moment the King looked at him; then dismounting, he threw back the reins and walked off, without looking behind, over the courtyard. The chamberlain glanced at him, and then followed. The escort waited, then scattered. Nicholas watched for a moment, then moved. Before he had turned to the road, a groom was at his side, calling.

  With him was the horse which Zacco had been riding, still saddled, with the red Lusignan lion on its horse-cloth. ‘My lord says,’ said the groom, ‘that this will be sufficient to gain you entry to Famagusta, should the gates be shut when you arrive.’

  He looked at it; then, dismounting slowly, took the velvet reins and laid his hand on the horse’s white neck. The groom said, ‘What of your own, my lord? I am to ride it home for you, or stable it.’

  He didn’t want questions. He said, ‘Stable it. I shall send for it tomorrow,’ and gave the man a piece of silver once he was mounted. There were lanterns hung among the lemon trees. Outside Nicosia the grape harvest had begun: it would be the fig festival soon. Riding from Nicosia in the past, the road to the south was the one he had been used to: the road that lifted over the hill and wound down to the sea and to Kouklia, and his estate; and the shrine of Paphian Venus.

  It was warm. The sky, sprigged with stars, had none of the clear, open quality of Sinai, even at night. Two hours before dawn, the star of St Catherine, of Venus, would hang to the east and south of the monastery. It was the same sky: it would shine upon Cyprus as well. The Bride of Christ, the pagan goddess, born both in one isle.

  He it is who appointed for you the stars, that you may be guided by them in darkness on land and on sea.

  A hatchery of chicks is ready and will be emptied tomorrow.

  He was not tired, but clear and empty, like the air over Sinai.

  At first, when Nicholas didn’t return, Tobie tried to get the girl to retire and then, failing, settled down with her to wait for an hour. After that, she seemed to agree that it would be better to sleep, taking her reassurance probably from his manifest state of annoyance. She was actually asleep, he thought, when the hammering came to the door and the porter led in Ludovico da Bologna, under the delusion that he was about to discuss something with Nicholas.

  The idea that Nicholas was not in the house was not one he readily entertained. Striding here and there, flinging doors open, he wakened not only the household but Katelijne, who sat up and gazed at him in astonishment. ‘So where is he?’ demanded the Patriarch.

  ‘With King Zacco, I should imagine,’ she returned crossly; moving Tobie to a mixture of admiration and alarm. The Patriarch grunted and withdrew.

  In the chamber, ‘Is he?’ he said.

  ‘How should I know?’ said Tobie. ‘I haven’t seen him since we were all at the Palace. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Sometime,’ said Ludovico da Bologna, ‘I’ll tell you, when you’ve managed to get that man under control.’

  ‘I’m only his doctor,’ said Tobie. ‘If you’re talking about spiritual health, maybe you should begin with his wife. She’s here, is she? On Cyprus?’

  ‘God save us, of course not,’ said the Patriarch of Antioch tartly, and banged the door shut.

  It opened again almost immediately and Katelijne came in, wearing a sheet. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Haven’t you got a bedgown yet? It’s all right, he’s a priest. Ludovico da Bologna, the –’

  She sat down. ‘The man who came to the monastery. We heard. He brought the lady Gelis to see M. de Fleury and then took her away. Will he go to the Palace and make trouble?’

  ‘I think,’ said Tobie, ‘that even the Latin Patriarch of Antioch would hesitate before doing that.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t say why he was here. Would he go to the King’s mother?’

  ‘You were listening,’ said Tobie accusingly. He regulated his thoughts. ‘The King’s mother isn’t here.’

  ‘Yes, she is. She sent her ladies to look after me at the Palace. I didn’t know that Henry’s mother died in Famagusta. The lady Gelis’s sister.’

  He had no trouble concentrating now. He said, ‘She was caught in Famagusta while the siege was on, and was injured by the King’s cannon.’

  ‘By M. de Fleury’s cannon,’ she said. ‘Or so they said. He and M. le Grant directed the siege.’

  Cropnose. What was the King’s mother playing at? Tobie said, ‘They ended it as well, at some danger to themselves. Nicholas was captured, and spent the last days nursing the starving. Nursing Gelis’s sister until she died.’

  ‘And Diniz. Diniz had been caught in Famagusta as well?’ the girl said. She had been told the whole story, he could tell.

  Tobie got up and said, ‘Well, if we are not going to sleep, we might as well make ourselves cool.’ The water was fresh, and he mixed it with fruit juice and brought two goblets over. He sat down beside her. ‘The King’s mother has a great deal to do with her son’s life. She knows Nicholas, and her ladies were probably sent to tell you what they did. Do you understand?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Kathi, ‘that that is a compliment. So Diniz didn’t think M. de Fleury was responsible for his aunt’s death?’

  ‘Ask him when you get home,’ Tobie said. ‘He will tell you he made some mistakes when he was here. He fought Nicholas, and wounded him, too. As badly as Nicholas wounded your uncle. That was a misunderstanding as well.’

  ‘But Diniz and he are friends now,’ Katelijne said.

  Tobie said nothing. He could see no grounds for friendship between Nicholas and her uncle. Nor could he point out that between Diniz and Nicholas there was a kinship of marriage, and perhaps even of blood.

  The girl said, ‘Where is she buried?’ When he looked startled she repeated impatiently. ‘Katelina van Borselen. Was she brought home and buried at Veere? Or at Kilmirren with her husband’s family?’ She had a picture, perhaps, of Henry visiting his mother’s grave.

  Tobie said, ‘She died during the siege, so her funeral Mass was in Famagusta. She left a letter asking to remain there.’

  ‘Where?’ said the girl. She was frowning.

  ‘You were there,’ Tobie said. ‘The Cathedral next to the Archbishop’s Palace.’ He had stepped into it briefly himself. He had known where to look, but there were no coffins visible now in the aisles. He remembered the building during the siege. It was immense: golden and Gothic like Rheims: built for the coronation of Lusignan monarchs. The Cathedral of St Nicholas.

  He w
aited for her to name it, but she didn’t. If she had noticed, Nicholas had only entered the central door for a moment and stood, looking in. Tobie wondered what else the old bitch had got her women to tell her. About St Hilarion, for instance. Naphtha and poison. And the truth about Tzani-bey al-Ablak.

  He sat with her for a bit, sipping his drink; half expecting the door to open and Nicholas to come in, perhaps with the Patriarch with him, bickering expertly. After some time, it became apparent that she had been told nothing more, and that she now understood that she would learn no more from him. Her lids had started to droop.

  It was a surprise therefore when she opened them and said, ‘Why does nobody stay with him?’

  His own head had started to nod. He lifted it. ‘Who?’

  ‘M. de Fleury. You went off to be a camp doctor. Master Julius stays for a time, Master Gregorio stays for a time. The same with M. le Grant, Master Crackbene.’

  Tobie sat up. ‘We must get some sleep. You ought to look at other companies. They switch their people about, to learn skills and use their experience. It isn’t a bad thing to let people go now and then, and get them back with more to offer.’

  ‘Tommaso Portinari’s been in Bruges since he was twelve,’ said Katelijne Sersanders. ‘The Medici family all live in one district in Florence. Can’t you keep up, or doesn’t he want you, or don’t you want him? I heard the Patriarch.’

  Tobie tried to remember what the Patriarch had been saying. Something about failing to get Nicholas under control. One could see the problem: it was nearly dawn now. On the other hand, he didn’t see why he should be blamed. He said, ‘I don’t think, Kathi, he’d take kindly to ephors. It probably works best as it is. We all take a share, and he doesn’t get tired of us, and vice versa.’

  She didn’t reply. He said, ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But there isn’t much point in saying so. I’m sure it’s what he thinks he wants, and maybe you think he wants. But this way, who will ever get to know him?’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to,’ said Tobie. He didn’t know what made him say it, except that he was tired.

  ‘I know you don’t. None of you do,’ said Katelijne. ‘Because you’re all afraid, in the end, of what you’d find.’

  Chapter 46

  IT WAS STILL DARK when Nicholas entered the land-gate of Famagusta.

  He had stopped twice in the course of the long ride. A woman milking a goat by candlelight had given him some dates and a bowl of the milk, still warm; and he had picked up a handful of dried carob pods, wrinkled and sweet.

  At the deep gate the sight of the King’s horse, its head hanging, had roused astonishment and alarm, but then one of the guards had recognised Nicholas despite the beard and the grimed tabby silks, and eagerly claimed him in talk. He parted as soon as he reasonably could, and made his way, pace upon pace, yard upon yard, through the narrow dirt-packed streets of the silent town. In the square, he stopped before the incense-breathing mass of the Cathedral, and looked up to where the night-burning lamps lit the carving within the three great porches, and defined the triangular gables above, created for the island of Venus more than a century before by French hands. By a craftsman versed, like ibn Hayy, in geometry and astronomy; and formulating with passion various astronomical equations. Oh, with passion.

  It was between Matins and Prime: had there been any sound, he would not have entered. As it was, he tied the horse to a ring, and made his way slowly inside and knelt. The tiled floor was clean. The roof soared dark over his head; the altar was far away, crowded with paintings and statues.

  He had knelt here before, in physical pain which he had forgotten; in agony of another kind which he could never forget. Gelis had no need to remind him, over and over, of what had become of her sister. Katelina van Borselen of the long brown hair, the dark eyebrows, the round, small breasts … who had commanded him to her bed. Gelis says that you’re the most passionate lover in Bruges, according to all the girls she’s been able to ask. Then, unknown to him, had become pregnant with his son, and had married Simon to conceal it. Arigho. New corn, the first fruits of the harvest. And who had ended here, attempting to punish him, and herself, as now Gelis was … As he supposed Gelis was doing.

  Except that in the end Katelina had forgiven him and, he thought, herself: the pain blotted out by the act which had caused it. Palpitating moths, and a waterfall, and Aphrodite. A sunlit vale in Rhodes where he had found her in terror, and had brought her joy, peace, release. Even though she was by then Simon’s, and he had been forced to pledge himself to someone else.

  He could never tell Gelis that, although sometimes he made himself remember, before the memory was overwhelmed by what happened afterwards, when he found Katelina here, dying, in a starving city under a siege directed by himself.

  Gelis knew about that. He could never tell her the rest. He could never say, Your sister was a sweet lover, and urgent as you are, and wilful as you are, but never, never with the glorious madness that you bring, that you brought …

  He was in a church. Hunc praeclarum, this celestial chalice. His hands, and Godscalc’s, and those of his wife, making a promise. He had made no promises to Katelina, nor she to him. She has won the Truth; she is in Paradise, they had said. He prayed, kneeling, that it was true. Then his thoughts turned to the corn, the second fruits of the harvest.

  The child was not here, within the precincts of the Cathedral. He had known that from the moment he passed them, arriving in Famagusta, just as he had also known that Gelis was not on the island. The summons he felt was not from this place: the beat in his heart and hand that had begun today like a pulse and was now like the dumm, the deep sound that came from the drumhead when it was struck in the centre. The phial from St Catherine’s tomb hung concealed from its cord round his neck but he did not need it here.

  In some crypt, somewhere within the embrace of the Cathedral, Katelina van Borselen lay now. Tomorrow he would ask to be taken there. Tonight he knelt, thinking of her and her sister. Then he rose and walked out, to answer the summons.

  The Cathedral servant, following him to the door, took his coin. The Archbishop’s men would look after the horse. Fabrice was the King’s man, after all. Above his head the rose window was dark, that had thrown a coverlet of jewelled light over the rows of cheap coffins. He hoped to find what he was here to find before sunrise. What would you give now to see him?

  He knew Gelis, he thought. She had made a promise, upon a condition she knew couldn’t be met. The treasure was out of his reach; but the search for it would fetch him here, to Famagusta, the place where her sister had died. That had been her objective. But Ludovico da Bologna had also been involved: a priest who had helped her for his own ends, but who would surely see, also for his own ends, that Nicholas received the reward he was due, whether Gelis knew of it or not.

  So his reasoning said. The pendulum made reasoning unnecessary, but still, he felt safer consulting with both. He was being induced to seek a place of past anguish, where a child of eighteen months could be reared unremarked until needed.

  So, not the tomb, nor the Cathedral. Not the house, now nothing but rubble, where Katelina sank to her death: he had seen that on his way to Nicosia.

  Not – as it turned out – the church of St Anna, where dead children were left.

  Not the hospice of the Knights of the Order, where he had tended the dying, with brethren who did not agonise, then, over which Republic they came from.

  That left the monastery of the Franciscans, where he had been cared for, after Tzani-bey al-Ablak had died.

  The dumm took him there. There was never any doubt that it was right, although he stopped on the way and unlaced the little gold box, and let it drop from his fingers. And arrested it, flinching, as the skin was flayed from his flesh. Of course, Ludovico da Bologna was a Franciscan.

  It was nearly dawn. The bell, when he pulled it, jangled slowly and the eyes of the porter were filled with sleep. When he said who
he was they stretched open, and so did the door.

  My lord was expected. My lord: the young man whom they had nursed with loving anxiety six years before. The Abbot, brought from his devotions, welcomed him and would have offered him refreshment. Nicholas did not know him but saw faces, peeping behind, that were familiar but no longer gaunt. He asked to join in their prayers and, kneeling before their well-kept altar, was sensible of the warmth of their approval and friendship. At the end, as light began to imprint each painted window, he asked if he might be allowed to see to the business he had come for.

  Again, they patently knew what he meant. He followed them to their guest-quarters, recognising every corner, every passage, and returning their gentle enquiries, although the blood beat through his heart like a river-drum, and trilled through his head like the zaghruda of fear, or rejoicing. At a simple door, they stopped, smiling. They produced keys and turned back the lock. Then, with an air of teasing benignity, they retreated and left him alone. A bird burst into song, and the cloister garden exhaled august scents.

  For a moment, such was the pressure, he could not see. Then he raised a hand and lifted the latch. The dim light of dawn showed him the cell.

  A small, simple room with a crucifix.

  A cot, empty.

  A screened hearth, with two fragrant logs burning: the only source of light inside the room. He stepped forward, closing the door.

  The red, uncertain glimmer trembled over the floor. A piece of sacking lay heaped by the hearth, from within which struck a glint of soft colour.

  He approached it slowly. A round, fair shape became apparent, and a tumble of gold, at rest in the glow of the firelight.

  His eyes dazzled. He stood, afraid for a moment. Then he passed forward quietly and, kneeling, laid his palm on the mound of warm sacking. Under his hand nothing moved. Then he felt, probing, frightened, the dead, resisting outline of metal.

  It made a whimper, falling apart; but the blocks, the pipes, the bags of bullion that made up the heap were incapable of protest or fear, and in no need of comfort, being lifeless.