The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [234]
‘I know,’ said Tobie. He felt warm. ‘I’ve had it since February.’
Nicholas shifted his gaze to the girl. He said, ‘Let me get this quite straight. My ship approaches the harbour. It is boarded by the Emir’s officials, and news of its owner and cargo is sent to the Emir by pigeon. You intercept the pigeon?’
‘And send it on afterwards,’ said Kathi virtuously. ‘You can tell which they are by the mark.’
‘Katelijne, you’ll have your hair made into bowstrings,’ said Nicholas, ‘and John and Achille and I will be expelled from the bellies of bombards. You know you must stop it at once?’
‘I have,’ she said. She looked unperturbed.
Nicholas said, ‘What about the ship that came in after ours. Tobie!’
Tobie looked blank. The girl said, ‘No, I’ve stopped. I didn’t do that one.’
Tobie said languidly, ‘You mean you didn’t bother to go up and read off the note. The pigeon’s probably still on the roof. The Emir’s probably combing the city for it.’
‘How do you get to the roof?’ Nicholas said. And during the ensuing scramble, ‘Tobie! I thought that girl was supposed to be ill? What are you here for?’
‘To stop her doing things like this,’ Tobie said. ‘Now you can take over.’
There were banks of plants on the roof, and some melons, and trees in tubs, their blossom scenting the eternal Alexandria breeze as it tempered the heat. The sun, sinking over the blood-coloured sea, sent long shadows over the flat surface and, below, the courtyards were also filling with dusk, with only the tops of the palms showing bronze. The murmur of voices rose up, with some laughter, and a clatter of dishes. With the working day done, the men and women and children who lived in the fondaco were emerging into the balmy air and mellow light to take their ease; strolling in the gardens, entertaining guests from other fondaci, greeting the newly arrived officers of the Claretti and waiting, no doubt, to be introduced to the banker who owned her.
From here, you could see the harbour quite clearly, and the galley’s tall masts, some half a mile out, The port was crowded with flotillas, although not with Venetian galleys, impressed this year for war. There were only two of these, but four from Genoa, and a swaying raft of fishing vessels and pinnaces. All of them were Christian vessels, and so confined to the easterly, dangerous harbour, closely under the eye of the cannon and easy to guard and restrain. The sails and rudder of every ship in the harbour had been impounded from the moment it arrived.
Kathi’s voice said, ‘Oh, no!’ Tobie turned.
He knew, of course, what she had been doing. He knew the discreet corner where she laid out her lure: the fragments of biscuit and powder and fruit that she thought might tempt the appetite of a passing pigeon. She waited until she heard the trumpets, as a rule, and then came up here, shaking her tin in the way the Emir’s pigeon-keepers shook theirs.
She stood in the same corner now, but instead of reaching her palm to the birds she was kneeling in the midst of the mess, gathering something into her hands. Tobie said, ‘A patient? What’s wrong?’
‘It’s dead,’ she said.
‘An ordinary pigeon?’
‘No,’ Nicholas said. He had been kneeling beside her. ‘Give it me. No. One of the Emir’s. There is the mark, and here is the message.’
Tobie said, ‘What do we do? What has killed it?’ It was stiff, its wings a trifle open, its eyes shut. Nicholas was turning it over, examining it.
Nicholas said, ‘It’s still warm. There’s nothing broken or cut. There’s not a feather displaced.’
‘Poor thing,’ said Kathi. ‘Then it was sick. It could have died anywhere.’
‘All the same,’ Nicholas said, ‘you don’t want it found here. The street, perhaps?’
‘The cats would get it,’ said Kathi.
‘Well, let them. They’ll get a good price for the message.’
‘Or we could cook and eat it,’ said Tobie, his appetite suddenly roused. ‘Camel’s meat palls, I can tell you.’