The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [142]
Gregorio said, ‘We were wrong.’
The parrot’s friend took off toga and hat and removed an ostrich feather from behind his ear. He said, ‘It’s Ochoa’s vocabulary. It’s Valencian dialect.’
‘African parrots are grey,’ Gregorio said. ‘Grey and red.’
There was an unexpected silence. The other man said, ‘So they are.’
Gregorio looked at him. He said, ‘I was wrong, wasn’t I? I thought you had some deep plans for Scotland. But you do really fancy laying hands on the gold. And that business about the Tyrol, and their power-hold on the highways to Italy, and their nuisance value to Burgundy and to the Germanies and to France … You are going back. You’re not staying in Scotland after all, are you?’
‘And that’s what they call logic in Padua?’ The padrone’s voice was different from the comedian’s. The padrone said, ‘I’m interested in the Bank, but I employ other people to polish its door-knob. If the situation in the Tyrol looks promising, if the Vatachino become a little too vivacious in Rome or the Levant, if the parrot comes up with a name and address – I have you, don’t I, to go back and deal with it?’
Gregorio felt himself flush. He said, ‘What were you doing with the King’s uncle?’
‘I wish I could shock you. But we were discussing the Boyds.’
Gregorio picked up the bed-hanging and threw it over the cage. The parrot swore. ‘How much did you tell him?’ he said. ‘Hearty James doesn’t care for the family, but his niece and Tom Boyd are married. He’ll warn her.’
‘He has,’ the other man said. He settled back into bed, clasping the feather. ‘She came to me later on for advice. If – for some undisclosed reason – she found herself having to pay a short trip to the Continent, would the van Borselen be prepared to receive her?’
‘And you said?’ Gregorio asked.
‘That Henry van Borselen was old; and Wolfaert’s new wife was a Bourbon; and my own wife was in delicate health. But …’
The feather twirled.
‘But?’ said Gregorio.
‘But that I was sure that Anselm Adorne would be happy to have her. So what about Beltrees tomorrow? I have to leave early: I want to call at Lucia’s old house, and then Semple’s. You could come, or you could meet me at Beltrees. Bring the parrot, why not.’
Lucia’s old house was called the Little Hall of Kilmirren. Lucia’s property had once been part of Kilmirren, until Diniz had sold it to Nicholas de Fleury. The paperwork for that was complete, but the company lawyer should know, surely, what the place looked like. Also, according to Semple, someone he was rather fond of was there now. Gregorio said, ‘I don’t know. I ought to come with you.’
‘Then come with me,’ said de Fleury, and threw the feather away.
Riding north through the long, sunlit morning, Gregorio wondered what other visits his partner might have paid, secretively or otherwise, to this countryside, and what he made of it. Marsh and peat moss, lakes and patches of timber, small turf and wattle settlements with their churches and keeps, makeshift fords, dirt roads deep in mud – none of it, surely, could appeal to a man brought up in towns, used to the rich buildings, the comforts of Bruges, of Venice, of Florence.
The wild mountains of Trebizond had been set about with precious churches and monasteries, and the marble halls of the lords of Byzantium. Nicholas de Fleury, with Loppe at his side, had fought and worked in the sugarfields under the hot sun of Cyprus, but had lived in a sumptuous home, in a land still touched by Gods, where pillars, arcades, amphitheatres dazzled the eye, and painted treasures breathed in the shadows. In Africa, destitute of all but the means to survive, there was still Timbuktu.
Kilmirren lay in this green, empty land with its small towns and its rolling land contoured with cloud-shadows. The Bretons, Normans and Flemings who came here in centuries past found a country not unlike the one they had left and, settling, married