The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [272]
The speaker’s face, the beautiful face, was that of David de Salmeton.
When Nicholas did not return, John le Grant hired a number of burly men who had occasionally served him before, and presented himself at the Second Dragoman’s house. The Baron Cortachy, descending immediately, eyed the escort and said, ‘Your companions are welcome, but might prefer to wait in the courtyard. If you have come to enquire after your friend, all I can say is that he came, and left very soon after. Pray search if you wish. He is not here.’
John le Grant, whose nature was admirably practical, took the invitation at its face value and searched. He ended in Anselm Adorne’s parlour. Adorne and four others were there. Le Grant said, ‘Where did he go?’
‘To prison, I trust,’ said a young man.
Adorne’s son. John had never seen him before, but nothing was surer, from the fair looks to the French inflection of his schooling in Paris. Le Grant said, ‘Do I gather that you denounced him to the authorities?’
‘As he denounced us.’ That came from the chaplain, a spare little man with crossed teeth. They were all speaking, as strangers did, in mongrel Latin. This man’s accent was Scots. John stared at him. He said, ‘Cyprus. John de Kinloch of the Order. I heard you were here.’
Anselm Adorne cut in abruptly. ‘Father John is my chaplain and chamberlain. Believe him, if not me. Nicholas de Fleury has injured us; injured me, personally. I offered him justice in Bruges, and he fled. Where he is, we do not know.’
John le Grant gazed at them all, and finally at the priest. He said, ‘So it’s a proud day for God’s Church, and for Scotland. You know what the Mamelukes do to men they take to be spies?’
‘The choice was his,’ said Adorne. His voice was deliberate. ‘In his place, I should have agreed to return quietly to Bruges; especially as his wife might be there.’
‘You told him that?’ John le Grant said. Then he added, consciously moderating, ‘You have proof?’
Adorne looked at him. ‘Evidence of a possible error, that is all. I should have fabricated a better story, I assure you, had I wished to. I shall tell you what I told him. Strangely, he seemed to find it more conclusive than I did.’
John le Grant listened. As Adorne couldn’t do, he understood. To mislead me, Nicholas had said. If he believed that of Gelis, he would have grounds for thinking she was alive. If a man could divine anything, he could divine his bride’s ring. And if Nicholas thought her so wayward, perhaps he did not want a reunion with her in Bruges – the tempting exit from the Levant that the Baron Cortachy so much desired. Yet surely, all these weeks, the attachment between man and girl had been patent. With the loss of Gelis, it had been as if Nicholas himself had mislaid his purpose in life.
Adorne was still talking. Suddenly, it seemed to John that he had heard enough. He got up. He said, ‘I think I want other company. The dung-cake makers would do. Whether Gelis is living or not, Nicholas believes that she is. You told him that, and then set the Mamelukes after him.’ He looked round them all. ‘The Vatachino and you. Do you think you have only Nicholas to contend with? I advise you to watch out during the rest of your travels – and when you go back to Bruges – and to Scotland. Today you have started a war. And I have to tell you that the devices of war are my business.’
He left, without being halted. Once at home, he gave certain detailed instructions to his staff and, leaving circumspectly, made his way to the house of a boatbuilder who was entirely willing, for a consideration, to lease him a room a safe distance from the river at Bulaq. From there, he sent a messenger north bearing a message, written in Flemish, for Tobie. Tobie received it.
At the same time, Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, far from dwelling on the splenetic threats of young Niccolò’s red-headed friend, had become deeply embroiled in the frustrating and troublesome arrangements for his imminent departure from Cairo. It was with