The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [273]
She said, ‘Didn’t you expect me? If you threatened M. de Fleury, Dr Tobias was bound to change sides.’
‘Change sides?’ said her uncle, smiling. ‘You make it sound like a battle. I doubt if Nicholas de Fleury is in any danger, but if Dr Tobias wants to join him, he is welcome. I have no quarrel with him. I look at you, and you are blooming.’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ said his niece Katelijne. ‘So you have no objection if I come with you to Mount Sinai, to St Catherine’s monastery? I felt she spoke to me in Alexandria. I felt the Blessed Saint wanted me there.’
‘My dear!’ said Anselm Adorne. ‘Hardened sinner that you are, your devotion needs no further proof. Indeed, I am sure you misheard. Catherine of Alexandria would be the last to exact a month in the wilderness from any young maiden. Heat; thirst; the dangerous traverse of mountains; the presence of merciless Bedouin? Believe me, such is not in her mind. Of course, you will stay for the Abundance. We leave immediately it is over. You too will leave – I shall find you an escort – to return to the fresh air of Alexandria until I can come back to take you to Bruges.’
His mind on camels, he touched her hair, smiling. His wife Margriet could have warned him. He was familiar with motherly wives and the skittish ways of other men’s mistresses. For the rest of womankind, he drew on his knowledge of poetry. It was not a very safe guide.
It might have interested Nicholas, had he been sufficiently detached, to discover that French was the language in which he responded to the white extremes of physical pain. His tormentors, noting the emerging lapses from Arabic, professed to detect in such wilful incoherence yet another ruse to conceal the prisoner’s true identity as an Ottoman spy. After the third interrogation, the muffled figure of the Chief Dragoman himself descended the steps and condescended to turn over the wily French-speaker with the toe of his slipper. The act released a discernible odour: he had come, indolently dressed, from his wives’ deep and various carpets.
‘Know that God hateth impudence,’ was all he said. The trap-door closed, and presently his minions returned with their orders. ‘For this, more salt. After that, thou wilt speak thine own tongue, or pay a forfeit. A forfeit for every word. A little beating, of the kind thou knowest well: nothing that scars. Dost thou hear?’
Nicholas answered. Whatever he said, it must have been Arabic, for they did no more than empty the salt-bag and leave, plunging him once more into darkness. The salt was forced into his mouth, not applied to his skin. His skin was unbroken. When he had finished retching – a profitless exercise – he lay on the dried filth of the floor and waited for the haze of agony to disperse.
Servants being accustomed to blows, he had in recent years gained an undeserved reputation for stoicism. It did not mean that he was impervious to pain. It meant that he was not affronted by it, and could even agree, sometimes, that it was merited. More important than that, he had learned that bodily pain was less to be feared than the other kind. His lack of tolerance now could be traced to the fact that his present condition combined both.
David de Salmeton and Gelis. Two years ago, they had been in Scotland together; they had sailed to Flanders in the same ship. He hadn’t believed – still did not believe – Simon de St Pol’s suggestion that de Salmeton and she had been closer than that. But, adroit and subtle officer of the Vatachino, de Salmeton had shown himself an exceptional adversary ever since their first meeting in Cyprus. His company had lost face in Africa, and had been intent on mastery ever since – in Scotland, in the Tyrol, in the Levant. They had ousted John here in Cairo. They had not, so far, offered physical violence at first hand,