The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [290]
Soon after, being of good breeding, he left the pavilion, his companions following, and without exacting a ritual withdrawal by his guests. They stood none the less, including the merchant Niccolò, to whom the Qadi spoke a few words, receiving and giving the Muslim kiss on the shoulder before turning away. Glancing back from the door, the Grand Emir saw that the sledge had been brought, which would take the man to where he would sleep until he left Cairo. For a few hours at least, his safety depended on being thought to be dead.
The sledge, hung with awnings and deep in tasselled silk cushions, was heavily scented. Dropped there, experiencing every after-effect of shock, pain and exhaustion, Nicholas alternately shivered and showed a disastrous inclination to laugh. Tobie said, ‘For God’s sake, give him some air. I’ll stay. You go back to the house. De Salmeton’s got to think we don’t know where he is, and don’t much care. He’ll assume we’re both after the gold.’
‘He’ll assume you’re after it,’ Nicholas said. ‘You look like an alchemist.’ He breathed quickly a few times and came out with another whole sentence. ‘We did it.’
‘We did it,’ said John. ‘You’d have been floating about that precious cistern wrapped up in asps if Tobie hadn’t battered his way round all the pastry-shops and the riwaqs turning out students. Or come to that, Katelijne did it. It was her suggestion.’
Tobie said, ‘Aren’t you going? You can talk about all that tomorrow.’
‘Katelijne?’ said Nicholas.
‘Suggested the University. Well, kind of. You know her. She wouldn’t let down her uncle. But Tobie had told her about Timbuktu, and she must have seen the connection. So did you, of course, you bastard, but you weren’t proposing to use it. Well I hope,’ said John, who was apparently drunk on carob juice, ‘that you’ve learned your stupid lesson.’
Nicholas lay breathing. Tobie got rid of John, who could be heard accosting high officials on the subject of boats. The noise over the river was ear-splitting. Tobie returning, said, ‘This is the place. It’s just a pleasure-pavilion for the number three wife. Or something similar.’
Nicholas laughed, and regretted it, and was got indoors and amazingly, upstairs, where it was cooler. He said, from the mattress, ‘Does Katelijne know?’
‘Know what?’ said Tobie, exploring shelves. ‘Water. Sherbet. I asked for some – yes. Here it is. Know we found you? No, she’ll have left Cairo by now. They all left immediately after the Abundance. Should I send and tell her?’ He turned.
Nicholas said, ‘Adorne may be head of the Vatachino.’
‘Oh,’ said Tobie. Then he said, ‘You were tortured. He wouldn’t do that.’
‘No. That was a mistake,’ Nicholas said. There was another silence.
Tobie said, ‘I don’t think she’d tell him.’
‘It depends,’ Nicholas said. ‘In any case, I’m not sure it matters. When they drain the cistern, they’ll know.’
‘I wish you’d killed him,’ Tobie said.
‘Adorne?’
‘Christ, no. At least – no. I meant David de Salmeton,’ said Tobie. ‘Look, it’s cooler outside. I’ll pull you out to the balcony. Anyway, everyone ought to see it once. Egypt en fête. Cairo celebrating its bloody Abundance.’
After a while, when Tobie had got tired of fussing and had gone off to find something to eat, Nicholas hauled himself up from his couch and, piling cushions, made himself a nest from which, between the folded-back screens of the mashrabiyya, he could survey Cairo over the water.
He rested his chin on his arms. He hadn’t yet slept, but the shrieking nerves of his feet had calmed down; and the pain and sickness were beginning to cede to a promising languor. His mind, deadened by the effort of the latter few hours, had begun to stir idly again.
Behind him, the desert sky had turned red: it was within a half-hour of sundown. Across the narrow skein of river that separated Roda from the city