The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [248]
She looked at the piece of work. There was nothing amateur about it. To John’s eye, it was indistinguishable from true native weaving. Katelijne said, ‘Can you make hats?’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘Buy some straw and I’ll show you tomorrow.’ He looked at Tobie, but Tobie was looking down.
That time, John said nothing until they were in their own Venetian fondaco, and alone. Then he said, ‘You will stay? I’ll go on to Cairo.’
‘Yes. It was as well not to mention it. Yes, I’ll stay. It doesn’t mean, my dear ingenious John, that I mean to alter my programme.’
‘She’s a nice girl,’ said John le Grant.
‘Certainly she is. She knows about her uncle and myself. Tobie will protect her.’
‘Poor Tobie,’ said John.
‘Not at all. Tobie will enjoy it. So when should you leave? In a week? Then we’d better get the other meetings in place. Let’s look at the papers. Bring up Achille.’
The sun was going down. All the others, work done, were in the gardens or on the roof of the fondaco, sipping their wine in the milky breeze, watching the sky changing over the sea, and the masts, tipped with lights, rocking together in the calm of the harbour. He could hear the sparrows bustling in the palms, and the drilling voice of some bird, repeating the same few notes over and over. Nicholas was sitting, the lamplight on his papers.
John came back and sat down. He said, ‘You haven’t told me. What did you discover this morning?’
Nicholas said, ‘Tête-Dieu,’ and flung down his pen.
‘Don’t you think I’ve been fairly patient?’ John said. ‘I’m asking you whether you’ve found a clue to the gold. I thought that was one of the reasons why we were here.’
Nicholas said, ‘We’re also here to get this agency up from its knees, plaster the cracks the Vatachino have made in it, fortify the bits that Sir Anselm Adorne undoubtedly has got his eye on, and make some very long-term arrangements indeed looking East. That’s enough, I should have thought, for the moment.’
‘All right,’ John said. ‘I know our concern is the trade, not the gold. But what you know, I’ve got to know. Or where will the Bank be, supposing next time you do eat the pigeon?’
There was a silence. ‘You have a point,’ Nicholas said. ‘The other way of looking at it is the opposite. It might be safer if you didn’t know.’
‘To hell with that,’ said John mildly. ‘I’m not moving from here until you tell me.’
Nicholas looked at him. Then, slowly, he pulled one of his faces and sat back.
John said, ‘Aye. Wheels within wheels within wheels. You don’t need to tell me. You get lost in the gears and forget what you were making. There are business secrets, and they’re different from personal secrets. This is a business secret, and I’m in the same business. So is Tobie.’
Nicholas had relaxed. Still leaning back, he said, ‘Well, he’s in the Hippocratic business as well. Let’s leave Tobie until he has decided whose secrets he’s keeping. I don’t mind your knowing.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said John.
‘I hadn’t made up my mind what to do about it, that was all. So. I did find the place on the map. It was a church: the Greek Church of St Sabas. The object they gave me had been left, as the parrot was, by someone unknown, with instructions and money enclosed. It came in this.’ Nicholas stretched and flung on the table the well-used pilgrim’s satchel, its cross still faintly embossed.
John drew it towards him and opened it. There was nothing inside. He looked his question.
‘I burned it,’ said Nicholas. ‘It was a writing tablet, an old one, with the wax filled in, but blank. Have you seen a message sent that way before?’
John shook his head.
‘You would have enjoyed the Medici ciphers,’ Nicholas said. ‘This wasn’t a trick worth the name. You melt off the wax and the message is cut on the wood underneath. In this case, just the name of a place. Guess what it was?’ His eyes in the lamplight were grey