The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [166]
‘I hope He will. And then what?’ Godscalc said. His inner eye saw it: the siege towers, the cannon. His inner eye had always plagued him.
‘Then we put up our prices,’ Astorre said. ‘Nicholas told us to stay on in Burgundy. I didn’t want to. But he was right. Is he here yet?’
‘Any day now,’ Tobie said, coming in.
Then one evening Tobie came in alone. He shut the door meticulously at his back and stood and said, ‘He is here.’ His stillness, and the closed door, told the rest.
Godscalc was very tired nowadays. Not in pain, but aware of the labour of lifting himself into full consciousness, and the relief of sinking back into sleep. Latterly every effort to return had been a rehearsal for this hour. For these moments. Do you want to leave me? Yes, but I dare not.
So he looked up at Tobie, his grim, pink-faced companion and doctor, and replied to the warning, not the words. He said, ‘I know what to expect. That is why I wanted to see him. Did you think it was for myself?’
And when Tobie had gone, and the door opened again, he said, without even waiting to see who it was: ‘I have to apologise, my child, for the inconvenience. But the appointment was not of my choosing.’
It was Nicholas de Fleury, bending his head under the lintel and removing his hat. A large man, he was as quiet as an animal. Godscalc smiled, with a twist of the lips, waiting for him to move, to walk from the shadows. When he did, Godscalc searched the face he knew as well as his own.
Yes.
He said, ‘Sit. You look as tired as I am.’
Nicholas said, ‘They didn’t tell me, before.’
‘You would still have gone to Scotland,’ Godscalc said. ‘Don’t be afraid. You won’t hurt me by telling me that you didn’t want to come now.’
‘I ought not to have come,’ Nicholas said. He had accepted Godscalc’s great chair and was hunched, his head lowered as if pondering. His eyes saw Godscalc’s hand on the coverlet, and he took it slowly in one of his, as if testing it.
‘You can do me no harm,’ Godscalc said. ‘You could lie, but I’d know it. You have been a pastor to me, and so I must be to you. By letting me speak, you will suffer me to perform the last act of my ministry, to the one I love best.’ He closed his hand on the fingers beneath it. ‘No, Nicholas.’
The withdrawing hand stopped. Nicholas sat, his face averted, but did not move again. Godscalc could see his cheekbone, and the hint of nostril and nose, and the ends of his lashes. He saw when he opened his eyes.
Godscalc said, ‘What brought us both here? A joyous adventure. Yourself, nameless, bereft, but with enough spirit to animate all this old town and its people. And enough compassion to take a woman and her fatherless family and make them part of your own upward flight.’
Nicholas did not speak. The light illumined his neck: the arch that Donatello had drawn; the forms of bone and muscle that defined the flank of his face, of his jaw. He had never had beauty. It was craft that had gone to his making, as the sculptor – and others – had seen. And the lines were still clean and uncluttered and young.
Godscalc said, ‘I remember Marian de Charetty, who also died happy. I remember the courage of the years that came after, and the agony at Trebizond when you strove to do what was right. I have heard of the tragedies of Rhodes and Famagusta, and how you overcame those, and the joy and the triumphs and the merriment you created as well. Not a man of those out there would have followed you otherwise. And in Africa –’
Nicholas turned his head. He said, ‘No. That is why I did not wish to come.’ His eyes were dry, and grey-black as iron.
Godscalc met them. He gathered his strength and spoke calmly. ‘ ’Tis often so. The worse the loss, the more unforgiving the anger. Umar did not want to leave you, or his wife, or his children. You think he should have told you, let you try to rescue him, or at least share his fate. Don’t you think he knew that? Don’t you think it belittles him, to resent what he did?’
‘I know that,’