Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [273]
‘You’re a mean bastard,’ said Colard, without rancour. ‘You’re a mean, sober bastard who likes to see other men drunk.’
Nicholas went to Godscalc’s room that night, after he had spent time with Tilde and Catherine and Diniz, and had told Gregorio not to wait, since he was too tired to see him tonight.
Godscalc smiled when Nicholas reported that to him. The priest was not in bed but, wrapped in a robe, was resting in a chair with a back, his feet propped on a stool. He said, ‘If you hadn’t brought Margot, he would be a sorrowful man. Are you tired?’
‘Not for this,’ Nicholas said. ‘Are you in pain?’
‘A little,’ said the big man. ‘But I have my life. I am glad you have yours.’
‘It was given me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I should like to do something in return. I have something to show you.’
He had brought all the books with him, apart from those he had left at San Michele, and several Tobie had kept. The crates were too heavy to bring up, but he had filled a satchel with the best, and now he put them on the table at Godscalc’s side. The priest touched them with the heels of his hands and then, applying his wrists, lifted one down to his lap and pushed the boards open. After a while he looked up.
‘You knew what to choose. I have never seen this before. Once I could have copied it for you.’
‘I know. I don’t want it copied,’ Nicholas said. ‘I want it printed, and I want you to help me do it.’
‘In Venice?’ Godscalc asked. He was gazing at a page.
‘No, here. Colard will translate. And Tobie will help, when he comes. You’ll see, we have a great many medical treatises, and Tobie is looking for more. There’s room to annotate them. Even to publish our own. If you would be interested.’
‘Some of these are from the Sankore libraries. You were planning this then?’ Godscalc said.
‘I had time,’ Nicholas said.
He left an hour after that, for although he was not tired, Godscalc was. Towards the end, it came to Nicholas that Godscalc wished to talk of the journey that had crippled him; that one of his greatest deprivations had been the absence of a soul other than Diniz to share it with. And Nicholas in return had described something of what he had found in the city, and Umar had shown him. Something only, for it was too rich in some ways to share. And in other ways, too private.
‘It is strange,’ Godscalc said. ‘Once I believed I could help you, and longed for you to come, so that I could try. And now you are the rock.’
‘None of us can claim to be that,’ Nicholas said. ‘Our weaknesses are different, that is all.’
The next day, came the celebration, and Gelis.
The home of Louis de Gruuthuse, Knight of the Golden Fleece, lieutenant-general of Holland, Zeeland and Frisia, famous jouster, famous bibliophile, counsellor of Duke Charles and leader of the Burgundian armies, was a red-brick palace on two canals, surrounded by gardens. Nicholas and his entourage reached it by way of the Bourse and the length of the marketplace, and this time attracted quite a lot of attention, as even his pages were jewelled.
For himself, there was very little of his draped hat or brief doublet where mere cloth could be seen. His horse-harness was of gold, and so was the staff of his standard. Invisible assets, in Venice and Bruges, were no assets at all; gems were what the town and the seigneur de Gruuthuse expected. Accepting the parade as the duty it was, Nicholas felt less elation – less of anything – than he had the day before at his entry. The unaccustomed freedom from skirts slightly disturbed him.
Eight years ago, he had entered this house, an impertinent apprentice called Claes who had married his widowed employer. Then, he and Marian had been insignificant guests among hundreds; the occasion a requiem for a monarch of Scotland.
This time, Marian’s daughters walked behind him, with Gregorio his deputy and Diniz Vasquez the Charetty manager. This time, Louis de Gruuthuse himself stood in the tiled hall to greet him, his van Borselen wife at his side. Then they went up the grand stairs to his reception.
The hall with its ceiling-high