Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [61]
They knelt.
‘Right. You see that hook at your feet. There’s the other. There’s the pulley. There’s where the other hooks used to be. But when we fix the dove there, it doesn’t work.’
It was supposed to swoop down from the roof to the altar. Nicholas got to his feet, intrigued if unshriven. ‘Where is the bird?’
‘Here.’ The Patriarch proffered a bundle. Inside a napkin was a half-eaten pullet. The Patriarch blessed God’s left toe and disappeared with it back to the cloisters. Julius, his head tilted back, said, ‘I’m not going up there. Are you going up there?’
‘I need someone. There’s scaffolding,’ Nicholas said.
‘And there’s lunacy,’ Julius retorted.
‘Then I’ll take someone else. Father Ludovico?’
‘Now, there’s an idea,’ Julius said. The Patriarch had just re-entered bearing the dove, a ponderous object in sleek silver-gilt. It looked new and expensive. Nicholas said, ‘Is this the same weight as the last one?’
‘So that’s what’s wrong,’ said Father Ludovico.
It took a while to assemble the new chains and brackets and wheels, and by the time that was done, the Patriarch had found a smith and his apprentice who were perfectly prepared to do all the work on the scaffolding except that, by that time, a number of spectators had arrived and sotto voce wagers had already been laid on the Flemings. The Patriarch, who otherwise had been violently opinionative throughput, expressed nothing but indifference when, in place of the smith, first Nicholas, then Julius ran up the ladders that led to the top of the chancel arch. His confidence didn’t surprise Nicholas: Father Ludovico knew precisely what each of them was capable of. It did surprise him that, having contrived this encounter, the priest had failed to talk about anything at all but the bird. Then he put his mind to it, and thought of a reason.
It was this distraction, perhaps, which made him careless. Or the fact that he had drunk rather too much rather too often in recent days. Or the further fact that Julius, feeling cross about Anna, had transferred his annoyance to Nicholas and, as soon as they were working aloft, began to lecture him about Gelis.
‘Forget her lovers: what do they matter? Get her to bed; give her your best and she’ll forgive you. Then you can think about going back to Bruges — even Scotland. Adorne’s fifty. He could drop dead in Persia. The niece and nephew won’t give you away. And you never did try to apologise to Diniz and Tobie and Gregorio. What are the grounds for annulment, anyway?’
‘A flaw in the contract,’ Nicholas said. The nail he was hammering broke, and he fished out another.
‘What flaw?’ Julius said.
‘I don’t know. They haven’t found it yet,’ Nicholas said. ‘Will you hold that bloody thing straight?’
‘Then how do you know —’
‘Because lawyers will do anything if you pay them enough.’ The piece of wall he was working on crazed, and the second nail dropped. He stared at the wall, then took out the last half-dozen nails and stuck them into his mouth like short straws.
‘You’ll have to move further along,’ Julius said. ‘I’ll hold you.’ His hand, approaching with sudden intimacy, removed the nails from between Nicholas’s lips. ‘I’ll keep these, you’ll swallow them. Would you like me to talk to her?’
‘Yes, if you’ll let me entertain Anna.’ There were so many people below that falls