Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [157]
‘Then I shall do it,’ Nicholas said. He had not given either Scheves or Andreas a chance to speak. ‘I shall need a pendulum.’
‘Here is a pendulum,’ Tobie said. His mouth was dry. He felt as he had at the foot of a mountain in Cyprus, waiting for disaster to strike. What was hoped for was not always what happened. He held out what he had, which was a small silken cord with a crystal, such as he used to test the turn of an eye. Questioned by a practising diviner, a pendulum conveyed yes or no, by its swing. The process took a long time. A voice spoke: Andro Wodman’s. ‘Nicholas? Here is a bowl.’
The soup bowls had been mainly of pewter, but Wodman’s was of bronze. He had rinsed it with wine. Nicholas took it and stopped: the first unpremeditated move that Tobie had seen him make that whole evening. Then he said, ‘There are letters on it already.’
‘Then you won’t have to paint them,’ said Wodman. There were letters; Tobie could see them: an alphabet embossed inside the rim. The pendulum, swinging, could spell out its answers.
The fire crackled. The stench hung in the air. Overcome by the heat, some of those further back were comfortably asleep in the dark on their cushions. Two of the musicians were dozing, and Willie Roger kicked them vaguely, his hands slack. Tobie could see Kathi’s bright eyes, and the bulk of Tam Cochrane beside her. Gelis had leaned her head on her hand, her eyes closed, and Liddell was blinking. David Simpson said, ‘I know it is customary for necromancers to serve up a potion, but you appear to have anticipated us, Nicol. What did you have them put in the wine, or the soup?’
‘Wine and soup,’ Nicholas said. ‘My lord King? Shall I go on?’
‘Or doctored wine, as you did once at Linlithgow?’ Simpson said. ‘Or so I am told.’ Albany turned, one hand on the back of the throne. He looked as he usually did, except that he was frowning. Scheves stood up.
The King said, ‘Go on!’ in a thick, angry voice. Nicholas was looking at Wodman. Then he bent to set the bowl on a stool at the King’s feet and, kneeling, looped the silk on one finger.
He had spoken the truth, Tobie knew. Nicholas de Fleury had ceased to divine, not because when he did, nothing happened, but because he didn’t know what would happen. He had not chosen the pendulum: for good or ill, the pendulum had chosen him, and had given him its own mindless answers, ever since that day in the Tyrol when, before Moriz and John, the Duchess Eleanor had made him aware of his power. Tobie had seen his hand scored and bleeding where the scything cord and its bland missile had flayed it.
Now the crystal hung, shivering, so that light danced like honey-bees inside the bowl and glimmered in the grey, intent eyes of the diviner, fixed on the King’s face. Nicholas had stripped to hose and shirt, like the King, and his throat glittered inside the white, open cambric. He said nothing aloud, but watched the King, and the pendulum. And the pendulum gradually steadied.
Someone groaned. Someone else—Buchan, the King’s half-uncle—belched, coughed, and made in a lumbering way to the garde-robe door by the fire. The King said, ‘Ask it! Ask it, damn you! When and how will we die?’
It was not a joke any longer. Nicholas lowered his eyes to the pendulum. Gelis, smiling, had fallen asleep on her cushion. As she slipped, Leithie Preston and Cochrane caught her between them, and gave her into the ready arms of Kathi, who settled her with her head on her lap. Tobie saw her glance at Nicholas, but Nicholas had not seen. He was sallow under the sweat, and his mouth was set along its full, curling length, with no puckering dimples. His nostrils looked pinched. There was a small chime, then another; and David Simpson said, ‘Ah!’ Beneath the theatricality, there was a hint of genuine puzzlement. He had expected nothing to happen, Tobie deduced. There was another small musical sound, and two more: inside the bowl, the suspended crystal was making a peregrination.