Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [73]
‘Now find my purse!’ said the boy. ‘Ask it. Please, Pan Nikolás! Please? Is it in this room?’ And taking Nicholas by the arm, he lifted the broad, adult hand that was free and laid it, palm down, on his own young, bony shoulder. His eyes were not grey but brown, and full of expectation. Where is maman?
He did not need to formulate any question at all. Of its own accord, as the boy cried out, the pendulum began to move in a slow circle. No.
‘Is it in the hall? Is it in the hall?’
No. No. The loop, revolving more briskly, rasped his finger.
‘Is it on the roof? Is it in the privy? Is it in the cellar?’
No. No. No! ‘Keep clear,’ said Filippo Buonaccorsi, his voice curt. ‘It is rising quite high.’
It was rising quite high. It was describing a full circle now, and increasing slowly in speed. The small, pale face at the end of its cord made a whispering sound.
The boy’s face was red. ‘Is it in the kitchen? Is it in the dairy?’ Whirr, whirr, went the stone. Under the cord, the diviner’s hand wore a rough inflamed ring pricked with blood. It was painful. Beyond the snarl of the ring, Nicholas could see the scholar’s large eyes and curling hair and ascetic face printed with growing alarm. ‘Is it in the garden?’ shouted the boy.
And NO! screamed the ring, just as Nicholas flung out his free hand and stopped it.
The prince said, ‘But …’
‘Sometimes,’ said Nicholas, ‘it is sick, and does not speak the truth. I am sorry.’ He spoke with difficulty.
Zygmunt said, ‘Then it couldn’t find silver. The purse is in the garden; I put it there. It didn’t know. It can only tell if it is raining.’
Nicholas kept his fist closed, the ring burning his palm. He said again, ‘Sire, I am sorry. It is not the ring’s fault, but mine. Some day it will perform for you. Let someone recover your purse.’
‘I shall do it myself,’ Zygmunt said.
He rose, and Cailimaco rose with him. Lipnicki came, at a sign, to the prince’s side. The boy said to Nicholas, ‘It was not your fault. Such things happen. It was probably the fault of the purse.’ He left with the secretary. Nicholas straightened.
Cailimaco said, ‘What was unleashed?’ His face was a little pale.
‘Anger,’ Nicholas said. He remained standing, the cord and ring crushed in his hand. After a while he said, ‘It knew what its real errand was. It was being asked the wrong questions.’
‘Ask the right one,’ Cailimaco said. ‘Or do you lack not only wisdom but courage?’ Then he stopped speaking, as Nicholas opened his hand, and let the cord unfold from his finger.
The face in the stone was a sweet one. He wondered where Cailimaco had found it: in Constantinople, perhaps. He wondered, fleetingly, what else Cailimaco might have brought back from Turkey. The ring hung, passive, waiting. The anger, he well knew, did not reside in the stone; the grief, the anger, the despair. He said, ‘No.’ And even as he spoke the word, the ring started to move. Its first essay was short. In the second, it stretched out as far as the wall.
Cailimaco said, ‘It is swinging, not circling. Nikolás, it answers you yes. What did you ask it?’ Faint from the garden, there came the sound of the prince’s high voice.
‘I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. He had asked it nothing. It had lifted the question, he thought, like a print from his mind, and was forcing on him an unwanted answer. Yet if he were ever going to get rid of anything — music, anything — he had better start doing so now. He said, ‘Would you allow me to borrow this, and try somewhere else?’ He paused. ‘I shall tell you what happens.’
‘I think,’ said Cailimaco, ‘that you have already paid what you owe. Go. I shall find Father Ludovico for you. Then you may bring me your final decision. Look. It swings for you still.’
Nicholas caught it and left, walking unevenly. He felt like a cripple. He felt as he had on the raft, fighting Benecke. The house next door was empty: Friczo Straube and his lodgers were attending the games. Advancing experimentally, Nicholas stopped inside the hall. Looking down, he opened his hand and,