Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [62]
‘Try it,’ said Julius. ‘I told you, that patch of wall is no good. If you don’t want to stretch, then we’ll have to wait till they fix some more scaffolding.’ He leaned over the rail at the edge of the platform, shouted down an instruction and squatted down with his back to the rail-post. ‘So why not write to your wife?’
Nicholas studied the wall; identifying three new possible sites and computing, effortlessly, the variations each would require, having regard to questions of weight, angle and speed. He said, ‘All right, I’ll write to her. I’m hungry. Aren’t you hungry? Let’s go down.’
Julius created a negligent barrier with a robustly shaped calf attached to an elegant ankle and foot. ‘Before anyone comes? You have to show them where to put the new nails. So what’s wrong, then, with poor little Jodi? Suffering Christ, why burn the little brute’s message?’
Nicholas turned his head slowly. He could see Suffering Christ from where he stood, as well as St Andrew embracing his own bit of carpentry. In a voice of freezing surprise he said, ‘I needed a spill.’ He and Julius stared at one another. Nicholas said, ‘Where’s all this rubbish from: Anna? You wouldn’t notice poor little Jodi if you were driving a wagontrain over him.’
‘Neither would you,’ Julius said. ‘That’s what women are for. What do you think you are doing?’
‘Climbing over and marking the wall,’ Nicholas said. He had a piece of charcoal in his hand. ‘And then I’m going to break your leg and walk down to my dinner.’ There was a reasonable ledge within reach of the scaffolding and he was under the impression that he was sober.
He arrived on the ledge. Julius scrambled up to the rail and said something. The noise from below increased quite a lot. Steadying himself with one hand, Nicholas viewed the wall, and leaning, scrawled two crosses, each in its appointed place, and sidled along to complete the third. Then he turned and began to come back and stopped.
The sun had moved. The ray of pure light was now focused on the dove, which hung upside down from its temporary harness and, revolving, flashed its blinding light into his face. The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity Disapproves. His foot slipped. Nicholas saw, dimly, the handrail over which Julius was leaning. He saw the platform of planks it surrounded, and their supports. He saw the system of timber and ladders below. He launched himself outwards into space and caught the end of a beam and held on with both hands, his body swinging, his feet seeking a purchase as shouts rose from below and Julius yelled. He saw that Julius was yelling because the shock of his arrival had dislocated the posts holding the rail, throwing Julius downwards as planks began slipping around him. A stanchion, hurtling down, struck Nicholas on the shoulder and neck so that he swung, his arm numbed, and half fell. Below, the spectators had scattered, baring the small, distant tiles of the floor. He made a great effort and, lunging, found a tenuous toehold and a desperate grasp for one hand that brought another clatter of collapsing planks, and Julius’s blundering body down with them.
Once, Nicholas had saved Robin, hanging one-handed like this. Now, Julius could do nothing for him. Julius, passing hand over hand, slipping, falling, clutching, was himself dashing down from the rock, down from the mountain, down from the stars as the dove would come, but not to rest in the dovecote of its master.
Curiously, the dove still shone in Nicholas’s eyes, as if wherever he fled, the blaze of its anger would seek him. Yet despite the glare, there were some things he saw very clearly. He saw the vivid polyptych of the High Altar, the