The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [121]
Everyone understood. Everyone was offended. Everyone forgave him at a bibulous supper at which he drank water flavoured with wine and parried jokes he had heard in Greek and Latin and Arabic, and usually better told. In the middle, Tilde let it be known that she wanted to see him, and when he came lifted her arms to his neck, and pulled him down to the pillow to kiss him.
In view of the paternal rigours ahead, he was allowed to retire early, and gradually the noise died down below, and everyone else went off to bed.
Not quite everyone. When Nicholas left the house, he was stopped at the gates by an anonymous figure, the rain soaking into the shawl it had clutched round its head. Tobie. Tobias Beventini, physician and pest. Tobie said, ‘Where are you going?’
It was raining hard, that was true, and he was not suitably dressed. Nicholas said, ‘For a walk.’
‘There’s nothing out there but drunks and stray dogs and a few prostitutes.’ Tobie was grim.
‘It’s the dogs,’ Nicholas said. ‘I could never resist them.’
‘Well I doubt, looking at you, if it’s anything else,’ Tobie said. ‘Unless a death-wish for the rheum. When did you last have a night’s sleep?’
Instead of shouting, Nicholas made his voice kindly. ‘You’re going to prescribe me a posset.’
‘It makes a change,’ Tobie said, ‘from sawing out cross-bolts.’
‘Yes. Well, I don’t need one,’ Nicholas said. ‘A refreshing walk in the rain. Nature’s remedy.’
‘Rubbish. Per intoxicationem, three drops: five hours’ sleep and no thinking.’
‘I like thinking,’ said Nicholas. He moved.
Tobie moved too, and repositioned himself in his path. Tobie said, ‘I’m asking no questions. I’m simply saying, as a doctor, that you won’t solve the little matters of Loppe, or Umar, or Simon, or Henry, or Gelis or whatever else this way.’
‘By thinking,’ suggested Nicholas.
‘By imagining that you can do any damned thing without sleep. Like thinking. Like not thinking.’
‘What about like talking things through with a friend?’
Tobie was silent. Then he said, ‘I wasn’t going to suggest it. I was going to remind you that you’ve stood injustice before. Thought it through, understood it, accepted it. Do it now, or nothing will mend.’
Nicholas said, ‘I am more optimistic than you are. I think everything will mend. On my terms. Or above there will be the Angry Judges, and below will be Chaos.’
The rain fell. ‘And that is straight thinking?’ said Tobie. He sounded tired. He said, ‘They say you’ve quarrelled with Gelis because she won’t go to Scotland. Or they say that’s why you’re going to Scotland.’
‘And thou shalt not sow thy field with diverse seeds, it says somewhere. Leviticus. Do you like Leviticus? Are we having an ordinary conversation now? I have not quarrelled with Gelis. The pumpkin gives birth and the fence has the trouble. Do you like quotations?’
‘Is that how you do it?’ said Tobie. ‘Fill your mind, push it away? But what if the block comes and goes as it pleases? What if you can’t stop the verse?’
‘Then I come out and talk to the dogs,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or the drunks, or the prostitutes, or some quack with an overpriced mixture. Do you know about candied marijuana seeds? They have an amazing effect in spiced wine.’
‘Five hours,’ Tobie said. The harshness, Nicholas knew, was to hide the relief.
He had not meant even to appear to give in. He agreed largely because he had begun to think in Arabic and knew (O Believer, shall I direct you to a commerce that shall deliver you from a painful chastisement?) that he must cut the interview short, or soon he would speak it aloud. The well of memory. The well of his innermost being. It was one of the worst fears he had.
Indoors, the draught was duly produced and convincingly swallowed. Gregorio had said it. Keep your