The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [257]
It meant another map, one he had just acquired. He got it out, moving stiffly, and glanced outside at the lightening sky. Soon the gates would be unlocked. Soon anyone could leave if they wished. He lifted the cord, thinking of several things instead of concentrating on one.
It was odd therefore that the jewel should begin to move for the first time in the positive direction; that the cord should rasp on his finger as it sped, and that it should rise, as it so seldom did, to its full spinning height.
He knew then that he didn’t want to go back to empty rooms in Bruges, or Venice, or Scotland. He didn’t want, and might never want, to confront familiar faces or to take prosaic decisions, as if life had merely suffered an interruption, and could continue, somehow, in another way.
It came to him that he had felt this way before. He thought it curious: a childish flaw he believed he should have outgrown. But at least he didn’t fancy he could work his release by flinging himself mindlessly into battle for any man. It reminded him of Erizzo, who would not, either, have been vouchsafed a tomb; a casket bearing a legend; a coffin marked by some dying white cyclamen and a fillet of grass. His mind, bruised with thinking, slid back and clung yet again to the question the jewel could not answer. Perhaps because that was why, in the end, he did not want to go back to Bruges.
He made his decision. He put out the guttering candle, changed his creased clothes and, returning, summoned Achille while he began to write letters. One of these he sent by hand to Tobie. Before noon, Tobie had arrived and was announced. He was not alone. Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, had come also, with Katelijne his niece.
It was an example, there was no doubt, of Tobie’s authority, not his lack of it. He had not promised, in so many words, not to bring them. Both Adorne and the girl had been primed: he wore a look that was grave as well as friendly; she gazed at Nicholas with simple compassion but not with surprise. He knew how he looked. He had seen it reflected in the eyes of his servants, of Achille. Adorne, plainly dressed without any outward manifestation of his new honours, took his hand and said, ‘We have a reason for coming, otherwise we should not have intruded. Nicholas, we are so sorry. We pray for you, and for her.’
It looked almost genuine. He was a handsome man, fine-featured even when tired, and he sounded sincere. Katelijne also came forward and, seating herself, shoved back the veil she had worn for the streets. She said, ‘I’m sorry. Dr Tobias brought us.’ She paused and added, ‘You always said he had too many patients.’
It meant something. He suspected vaguely what it was. He said to Adorne – to the Baron Cortachy – ‘It was good of you to come. I trust your pilgrimage has fulfilled so far all you expected of it.’ His mind was far from clear. He did not want it clear.
Adorne said, ‘Our journey is of no matter. It is yours that concerns us. Nicholas, we hear you are leaving Alexandria?’
Tobie, without speaking, had carefully removed his straw hat and was mopping the shining bits of his scalp. His eyes, when he looked up, were round, blue and threatening.
Nicholas said, ‘Yes. I’m going to join John le Grant. My agent.’ He had sent for a merchant’s pass for Damietta. From Damietta, if you had money, you could disappear anywhere. You could disappear before that, if you had the right dress and spoke native Arabic and had the friendship of Abderrahman ibn Said, who happened to be going to Cairo.
Adorne said, ‘That was what I understood. It is what I plan to do too, but not for several weeks. Nicholas … I have a great favour to ask you. Would you take my niece and Dr Tobias with you? To Damietta?’
‘Now?’ Nicholas said.
Adorne smiled. For the sake of his niece, perhaps, there was only a hint of anxiety in his face.