The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [261]
Without thinking, he rose to his feet. ‘No, thank you.’
She tilted her head to one side. ‘I don’t blame you. It wouldn’t be very good. Have you been drawn before?’
He thought of Colard Mansion and relaxed, smiling. ‘A few times. When they think they can get away without paying.’ Here and there, when he came to think of it, a sketch or two must still exist: a chart, a map of Claes vander Poele.
A map. The simple sketches of Colard would never hurt him. Then he remembered a workshop in Florence and felt the blow of full understanding, rather than instinct. The after-blow was much worse.
He sat down and said, politely, ‘I’m sorry. Of course I don’t mind. I’m sure it would be splendid.’ But she had put the paper away and, in doing so, had discovered the dice.
It happened sometimes like that: he was not going to forget for very long. But the swimming relaxed him, and he slept for a few hours every night, even though he might lie awake for the rest. He assumed Tobie knew it, but he didn’t intrude. In arranging all this, Tobie had done all the prescribing he meant to do.
The girl was fond of Tobie, which was good. Her conversation with himself, wholly haphazard, did not avoid the delicate subjects, but didn’t probe them. Mostly, it returned to their joint experience of Scotland. She seemed to take it for granted that, with Bruges and Venice too painful, he might consider settling there. ‘After all,’ as she pointed out finally, ‘presumably my uncle didn’t manage to obliterate everything you were doing, although he is very clever. There must be a house or two left?’
‘I doubt it,’ he said. They were devising a surprise, without the knowledge of Tobie, for the drunken knights in the next pavilion. As the Nile filled it brought more boat-loads of pilgrims, some of them noisy.
‘Such as Beltrees? Near Kilmirren,’ she persisted. ‘You know you’ll have to do something about the boy Henry. He thinks he’s a reprieved murderer. And you like Bel. She would help. You’d find a lot of differences healed.’
‘They’d be sorry for me?’ he conjectured.
‘Oh, yes. It wouldn’t last long, so you’d have to make the most of it. Mind you,’ she said, ‘you must be wondering what to do about your own boy. Look at the mess Simon made, bringing up a child single-handed. You would probably ruin yours too. You’ve forgotten to fit that into that.’
He had. He took it back and repaired the omission rather silently. The child. If there was a child. It was, indeed, the question he had not resolved. It would be seventeen, eighteen months old, if it existed. He had realised some time ago that Margot would feel free, when she heard of Gelis’s death, to tell him the truth. He thought she would write to Alexandria, or Gregorio for her.
Meanwhile, of a certainty, Margot would find the child and take it into her keeping. Sustained by all Gelis had owned, it would want for nothing until he could reach it. And if it did not exist, she would surely write and tell him that, too.
The question was whether he could bear to go back in advance of that letter. To go back to find nothing, possibly, but fresh cause for bitterness. And if he didn’t go back … If he stayed and made some effort to nurture his business it would be October, November before he would hear. Then, if he wanted, he could return on the last of the spice ships. He wouldn’t hold the Ciaretti so long. If the child was alive, it would have passed another three parentless months. But many boys did.
He reached that point – the usual point – and realised the girl had continued to work quietly in silence. He stopped then, and looked at her. ‘More generous than a rooster, more loving than a camel. I haven’t thanked you.’
‘What?’ She knew just enough Arabic. She looked round, at first distracted, then rather pleased.
He dropped back into French. ‘You and your Dr Tobias. I probably shan’t do what you think I should do, but it won’t be for want of help and companionship. And after all this, Kathi, what about you?’
She conveyed a shrug by inclining her head. She was smiling. ‘Home, and marriage.