The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [141]
To his surprise, pain crossed her face. ‘No!’ she said. She touched his hand. ‘No, of course not. It is far too old, and black-haired and of quite a different mould. No. But if he does not know of it, some troublemaker may take pleasure one day in telling him, should he continue to seek the girl’s company. No doubt you know men who would like to provoke him.’
‘You are asking me to break the news first?’ Gregorio said.
Through his alarm, he realised she was smiling. She said, ‘I shouldn’t presume. I have told you only so that you can protect him a little, at need. I do not want to know what is wrong. But if you do, it may guide you.’
He wondered how, hardly acquainted with Nicholas, she knew that something was wrong. He thought of the Nicholas of nearly a decade ago: the incorrigible apprentice; the young married man evincing the first gleams of brilliance; and, pervading it all, the aura of boundless goodwill. Then had come the double blow of the death of Umar and the betrayal of Gelis, after which self-sufficiency had changed – she was right – into ruthless detachment. Thinking of his long vigil that night of his wedding in Bruges, Gregorio was swept once again by the overwhelming pity he had felt for the man, emerging from his wife’s room to stand motionless at the window while the first light of dawn changed into brutal, dazzling day. ‘It’s Simon’s child, Nicholas!’ she had called. When he had told Margot of it, she had wept.
Gregorio wondered how Margot did tonight, nursing another woman’s unwanted child; and whether her task was worse than his. But she had been right to go, as he had been right to come here, despite his increasing apprehension. He should have come the first time. Or perhaps he was wrong, and the uncomplicated, self-centred character of Julius had been what Nicholas had wanted and perhaps needed then. Julius would have heard, delighted, this tale of the Hamilton girl, and – carrying it crowing to Nicholas – would have enabled him to respond carelessly – genuinely perhaps – in the same vein. Whereas Gregorio could not imagine himself being able to mention it at all.
The company retired. Gregorio, procrastinating, climbed the stairs some time after his bedfellow, and entered the room they were to share with reluctance. ‘¡Buenos días, caballero!’ remarked a sly voice at his shoulder. He whirled.
The parrot. He had forgotten. He had forgotten the scene with the hat. He had forgotten Nicholas de Fleury, the comedian.
He was there too, sitting crosslegged on a stool, wearing his ruined hat and a length of pink bed-curtain. He was nibbling a fig, and there were others in the palm of his hand. He and the parrot were staring at one another. The parrot, Gregorio was thankful to see, was in its cage.
‘Well hurry up, I need you,’ said Nicholas, still gazing at the cage.
‘I’ll get the ladder,’ said Gregorio with a surge of relief.
‘Don’t think you’re being funny: it may come to that. No. You’ve got a mirror. Hold it up to the cage and let it see itself.’
‘What with? It bites!’ Gregorio said. He pulled out the mirror and stood. ‘Where are my gloves?’
‘Never mind your execrable gloves,’ the other man said, his eyes fixed on the parrot. ‘You heard it. You understood what it was saying. It was talking Spanish. It was meant for me. It was talking in a style we both know, and using phrases we both remember. Go on. Whose?’
Gregorio sat down, holding the mirror. ‘Ochoa de Marchena,’ he said faintly.
‘Ochoa de Marchena, Spanish shipmaster of the Ghost, which disappeared off the African coast with a cabin full of African parrots and hats, and a cargo containing three mule-loads of African gold belonging to us. Yes.’
‘His parrot?’ said Gregorio.
‘His voice,’ said Nicholas de Fleury. ‘So let us re-create the cabin. So let us hear what he has been sent to say.’
The answer was nothing. The night wore on, the figs were shared, the parrot fell in love with its reflection