The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [164]
‘He’s sick,’ Nicholas said. He was reading. He said aloud, ‘No. Worse than that.’
‘Let me see,’ said Gregorio.
It was in Tobie’s writing, and explicit. Godscalc’s life could be measured in weeks. He would survive until Nicholas came.
‘I’ll pack,’ Gregorio said. ‘Get the horses.’
He looked back. ‘Nicholas?’
Crackbene hadn’t moved. Nicholas said, ‘Look at the date on the letter. It’s taken too long. It will be over.’
The fireworks had stopped. The trumpets proclaimed the end of the contest; a voice boomed; another fanfare announced that the King’s procession was about to form up and leave for the banquet. Everyone was standing outside except themselves.
Gregorio said, ‘I didn’t, I think, hear you speak. It doesn’t matter how the letter is dated. This is Godscalc, departing life, and calling you home.’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. He heard himself say the word. It was not a rejection of Godscalc. It was a rejection of what going back now would mean. Whom he would see. What would happen, before he was ready for it. He thought, in a moment’s odd desperation, that even Godscalc wouldn’t ask him to do that. He tried to hold on to the thought.
Crackbene said, ‘You won’t persuade him by force.’ He was speaking to Gregorio, who had made an impulsive movement. Gregorio, who was never impulsive. The tent wavered, and Nicholas wished, with a surge of bitterness, that he had managed to keep to his rule about wine just this once.
It would have been satisfying to smash everything he could see, including Crackbene and Gregorio. It would have been a release beyond measure to find himself alone.
He said, ‘You go. Or Bel. Why not Bel?’
‘There isn’t time,’ Crackbene said. ‘I don’t mind going. But I’ve worked a long night at your bidding already.’
It was like watching a hare racing over a field, watching the mind of Gregorio following that. Gregorio said, ‘A long night?’
Outside, the tent-makers waited. The crowds, by the sound, had begun flowing home. The royal procession had gone to the Greyfriars whose establishment, as memory served, was the only one qualified to contain so large and prestigious a company.
Crackbene glanced at Nicholas, and away.
Gregorio said, with sudden comprehension, ‘You arranged it, both of you. You arranged for Boyd to escape. You helped his wife to go with him.’
Never underestimate Crackbene. Never. Never. Never.
Gregorio said, ‘Go to Bruges. Or I tell the King what you did. And why you did it.’
‘Try it,’ said Nicholas pleasantly. ‘Crackbene would thank you. I imagine they’ll hang him.’
‘No,’ said Crackbene. ‘I think I’ll be on the high seas with you and with Master Gregorio long before that. But, of course, you couldn’t come back, if Master Gregorio chooses to tell them.’
Nicholas had men within reach. What of it? He couldn’t silence his own shipmaster or his own partner by force. If he didn’t go, Gregorio would do as he said. He knew Gregorio.
The unicorn, lightless now, had nothing to say. The crowd was silent. The King, entertaining his future bride at the Greyfriars, would be surprised at his newest knight’s absence and then perhaps a little relieved, since certain accounts might not be presented at inconvenient moments.
Nicholas said, ‘You will know when I call in this debt.’ He spoke to both of them, but he meant it for Crackbene.
The third stage was not over. Born, it was frozen at birth because of the innocence of Godscalc, the naïveté of Gregorio, the duplicity of a Scandinavian shipmaster. And because of them all, he had to face Godscalc, and the mirror which Godscalc embodied.
Which – Do you hear me? Do you hear me? – if he had to, he would smash.
Part II
High Season:
DOUBLING
Chapter 23
DEATH WAITED, his hand on Godscalc’s shoulder, and was patient. Father Godscalc, untouched by doubt, woke each thick, aching morning to a patient day which might bring him his last benison, his last opportunity for grace, his last words with the child Claes, the man Nicholas.
It had not become,