The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [42]
The black hat turned. The sculptor looked down his aged nose at Nicholas, the rain soaking his smock. The artist’s experienced gaze examined the large-eyed face, the athletic shoulders, the narrow flanks, the long legs. “Oh, bring him,” he said. “He knows what he’s talking about.”
The red-headed man spoke to Nicholas. “You would miss the procession. We’re leaving the float and going back to the Maestro’s workshop.”
“I’m not here for the procession,” said Nicholas. “I thought you were German.”
The nun had arrived and was standing exclaiming at the foot of the steps. She expressed rapture at the St Anne, and at the sculptor of the St Anne, who carefully descended from the cart, bowed, and began to make his way, with difficulty, through a large number of admiring citizens. Nicholas laid down his head and handed a number of flushed young women up the steps into the cart, where they disposed of themselves prettily. The red-headed man vaulted down and a man came up leading horses. “No, I’m not German,” said the red-headed man. “I worked in Germany for a while. John le Grant is my name. And young King James is my lord, if I have one.” He stopped, finding himself alone, and turned round. “You don’t like Scotsmen?”
“Lions aren’t particular,” Nicholas said. “I like them, as you might say, but they don’t like me. My name is Nicholas. I have with me a most discreet hermit. Did you hatch this between you?”
Godscalc rose and left his float, with some dignity. “No, we didn’t,” he said. “I assumed one mathematician would smell out another. And the Maestro, of course, has been working on the Martelli chapel in San Lorenzo. Nicholas, that was Doria’s page who came with the leopard.”
“Doria?” said John le Grant.
“Pagano Doria,” said Nicholas. “He sent a man last night to tamper with the lynchpin of Godscalc’s float. The page came to check that it was still tampered with, which it wasn’t. It’s quite safe, Father Godscalc, if you want to go back to your cave.”
The red-headed man said, “What’s the point of that? I invited you. I’m inviting him. The workshop’s not much, but we can rise to mulled wine.”
“I need a sailing-master,” said Nicholas.
“Don’t rush it,” said John le Grant. “You’ve got your foot in the door for mulled wine. From an Aberdeen man, that’s enough to be going on with.”
Chapter 7
THE COMPLEX OF dwellings, garden and workshop to which Nicholas and Godscalc were taken belonged to the Cathedral, and stood on a corner behind it. Even on foot, they reached it in minutes. Disregarding the house, which had the appearance of a classical quarry, the Maestro led the way along a well-trodden path to his bottega, holding Nicholas firmly by the arm. John le Grant and Godscalc followed, talking English. Once within, the master sat himself on a box covered with a burst satin cushion, heavily stained. Godscalc disposed his damp cloak about him and found a place on a bench, while John le Grant went and poked in an oven and began to busy himself with heating some wine. Nicholas climbed out of his skin and hung it beside two nightcaps, a hat and a towel, on a stand whose arms ended in fingers. He began wandering about rather silently, looking.
The mulled wine, when it came, was exceedingly strong. Afterwards, Godscalc remembered a number of things about the bottega: the smell of oil and earth and mineral and insect colours familiar to him from his cell; the glisten of marble dust that covered the stools, the bench he was sitting on, and whitened the cloth full of rasps, files and chisels that lay near the yard door. He remembered the covered work-tubs, breathing chill odours of coarse wax and glue. He remembered