The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [171]
Where would a rich man go, bruised in flesh or in spirit? The rich had no refuge at all. Except in the past.
*
Against the later splendours of Spangnaerts Street, the Charetty dyehouse always looked shabby, even though the offices had been rebuilt after the fire they had had, and the house reconstructed for Henninc, and new and better storehouses had risen in place of the old to contain the perennial crates and baskets and sacks, the fleeces and the yarns, the bales of cloth and the barrels of alum, the parcels and parcels of dyes. The smell stayed the same: of wet wool, and queer herbs, and urine.
There had always been a wall. There had always been a place in the wall where apprentices could climb in and out to avoid the porter, or Henninc.
Tobias Beventini of Grado, physician, was ten years older than Nicholas, but he could still scale a wall, to the harm of his gown and his temper. Inside the yard, all was quiet.
Once the apprentices had slept in these sheds, side by side in the straw of the upper floors; and on Sundays filed down the ladder for Mass, while Marian de Charetty stood at the door and neatened their hair. Now they were used only for storage, because the apprentices slept in the house.
The shutters were closed, and the first doors Tobie tried were all locked. He had keys. Seized with this stupid idea, he had brought the keys with him from Spangnaerts Street. Nicholas carried the master. Tobie paused, and then continued to look.
It was the whine of the dog that brought him to the door furthest away. It gave to his hand, so that the warm stench flooding out shook his senses. It was followed by the nose of a hound. There were always dogs, and this one knew him, and knew Nicholas. It was glad to see him, and a little anxious. Because, of course, it wasn’t alone; otherwise the door would be locked. Nicholas wouldn’t confine it, and probably couldn’t contrive to expel it. Or didn’t care either way.
Tobie fondled the dog, and then went inside, closing the door. He felt for the lamp on its hook, and its tinderbox, which gave him a dim, unprovocative light to carry. He made no effort to call.
The ground floor held only merchandise. A ladder, inviting, led him to the airless heat of the loft. The dog padded below, its eyes shining. The muted light fell upon the humped shapes of sacks, patched with labels and scrawled over with writing. He understood what it said. Two years ago, he had taught himself in Oran, while waiting for Nicholas to come back from the desert.
Nicholas de Fleury lay near the centre, with the dyes, the drugs, the writing under his cheek, and his bent arm laid over them. Tobie buried the lamp in a corner, dimming it further. Then, sweating, he began to pick his way over.
Nicholas had been enveloped, too, by the heat. His discarded shirt, when Tobie touched it, was sodden. He himself lay on his face as if asleep; indeed, he could not have been awake and lain as still as that.
Tobie felt no professional misgivings. With Nicholas, of course, there was a history, but what he had glimpsed did not suggest fever. And however low he was brought, Nicholas fought. Conceding, tolerating, conciliating, he still pursued, with deadly accuracy, whatever objective he had set for himself. Which, of course, only he knew.
He was here because he was aware that he needed a respite. The desert had given him skills: he could identify stress, and recognise different kinds of exhaustion. Here he had sought, perhaps, the weightless peace of his boyhood. Or, more complex than that, the cradle of some early kindness linked, by the script