The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [220]
‘Back?’ said Nicholas.
‘To Scotland. That would be after you left. The death of poor Godscalc. You gave up material things in order to be at his side. The Lord will honour you for it. And it will please you to know that your friend Anselm Adorne reaped the benefit.’
John had stopped looking at him. ‘In what way?’ Nicholas said. But he guessed.
‘The land,’ the Patriarch said. ‘The land the poor silly girl forfeited when she absconded. All the estates belonging to Arran her husband. The King partitioned it out. This servant, that friend – even some musician, I hear, received plenty. But Sir Anselm – now there’s royal generosity – was given a barony. He is Heere van Cortachy now. A good bit of well-paying land in the north-east, so they tell me. And since Adorne is to lodge the Princess Mary in Bruges – did you know that? – the King has been properly lavish with bits of Boyd land to help the new Baron there with his expenses. That is,’ the Patriarch said, ‘although the King wouldn’t mind Thomas Boyd’s head on a hat-stand, he wouldn’t let sister Mary come to want.’
‘So the Princess and her husband are staying in Bruges?’ Nicholas said. The door had opened and Father Moriz came in, a servant following. A hearty smell of meat joined the thick air from the stove.
‘By now. At the Hôtel Jerusalem, with the good Vrouwe Margriet as his hostess. The new Baron himself, of course, is not there, and so will escape any ignominy. Is that ale? Take it away.’
This time, Nicholas refused to respond. The Patriarch, intent on the board, had already unfastened his knife-case.
Father Moriz took a seat not far off. ‘The new baron? You speak of Anselm Adorne?’
‘Now my lord of Cortachy,’ elucidated the Patriarch, filling his mouth. ‘Back from Scotland with more on his mind than trade meetings. He’s planning to travel this spring. Quite a programme. Rome, of course. Genoa. Egypt. He should be in Alexandria by the summer, and Cyprus and Rhodes, they say, just after that. A holy pilgrimage, naturally. A visit to friends. The Levant is stuffed full of Adornos. A son’s going too, and a niece. They say he’s leaving next month, with the Duke of Burgundy’s blessing.’
It was like one of his own traps. So neat, so comprehensive, so final. Anselm Adorne, waiting only for his departure, had scooped the honours in Scotland and was now proceeding to forestall him in the Levant. And so the snare could be closed.
‘No,’ said Nicholas.
Father Ludovico concentrated on his food: his mouth was as full as a nesting-box. Behind the mess was a smile.
John said, ‘Nicholas –’
‘No,’ said Nicholas for a second time.
Father Moriz said, ‘I think, Nicholas, that you will have to listen. And, very likely, have to go.’
He did not need to listen. He knew why the Franciscan was here. Ever since the first missions of the Observatine monks to the East, Ludovico da Bologna had travelled the world, from Persia to Tartary, from Rome to Egypt, from Poland to Germany at the bidding of Popes. At the bidding of Bessarion, Cardinal-Protector of his Order. He had lived in Jerusalem for years, and had failed, as Nicholas had, to reach Ethiopia.
Because Nicholas travelled too, they frequently met. And wherever they met, it seemed to Nicholas, his private and business activities were immediately commandeered for the Patriarch’s purpose, which was to cajole and threaten Christians and Muslims alike to halt the advance of the Ottoman Turk.
For that, he preferred Nicholas to be in the Levant, not submerged in a vast operation for Duke Sigismond. The threat to spoil this winter’s work was real enough. The other threat, it was clear, was that posed by the discerning, the increasingly competitive Anselm Adorne.
Shrewdly, the Patriarch was proposing a scheme which was not in itself unattractive. Nicholas had always meant, at some point, to visit Egypt. David de Salmeton was there. The gold was worth looking