The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [296]
‘Games are for children,’ Nicholas said.
‘So she isn’t playing a game,’ said Tobie slowly. He looked at Nicholas, and saw what he should have seen all along. He said, ‘She is punishing you because of her sister … She is withholding your son in reprisal for Henry, the child you got on Katelina van Borselen? She married you to torment you? Is it possible?’
‘It is, for children,’ Nicholas said. ‘Sometimes they grow up. No one need worry. It is my affair; my particular skill if you like. I could learn to enjoy it.’
Tobie stared at him. He said, ‘And when you thought she was dead …’
‘I was sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘I had such good plans. But now I can reactivate them all again. Or, of course, make a definitive strike.’
The journey to Sinai was bad, despite the Mameluke escort which browbeat the keepers of water-wheels and uplifted whatever it pleased of kid or lamb, and set about light-fingered Arabs with maces. So long as they were close to Suez and the Sultan’s influence the advantages were distinct; but the leaderless, warring tribes of the Bedouin were another matter, and once they had passed the Tor junction, the Mamelukes were afraid. Some of the soldiers were renegade Christians from Catalonia and Sicily; some from the Balkans. Tobie and John addressed them with careful politeness in several languages.
Nicholas did not speak at all unless directly compelled. Under these conditions it was possible, at the start, to contemplate a ride of forty miles every day: on one occasion they covered fifty. In that frying wind, sleepless and beaten by sand, with nothing but thick, foul water to drink, it made the first part of the journey as punishing as the mountains no doubt would be, and what lay beyond. How he bore it was his affair.
Halfway through, he began walking a little. By the fourth day he was able to dismount with the rest when, labouring over a plateau, they reached the edge of an escarpment too steep for a burdened animal to climb down. There was a track of sorts, winding down; and he did not have a chamois, this time, on his shoulders. He stood, before attempting the descent, and looked at the great panorama of mountains before him. The Mameluke captain was speaking to Tobie. ‘I remember the first time I stood here. I gave thanks to Allah. I do it again. Do you see them? That is Mount Sinai, and the mount of St Catherine is behind it. Don’t be deceived. They are not near: the clear air just makes you think so. Can your lord manage? Shall we carry him?’
‘He can manage,’ said Tobie. Sometimes – just sometimes – Tobie managed to say the right thing.
The cliff took five hours to descend, in heat which was all but unbearable. At the bottom, sluggish with exhaustion, they prepared to make camp, putting up tents and foraging for fuel for the cooking-fires. Nicholas did his share but hardly ate when the time came, preferring to withdraw to his tent. Tobie followed him after a while.
He had perhaps been lying down, but was now seated in the Moorish way that was habitual to him, facing inwards. The tension that surrounded him was like the air of a storm, muttering danger. Tobie said sharply, ‘Don’t use it again. Stop it. She is there. You know she is there.’
The ring swayed and then stilled: Nicholas gathered it up with its cord and turned. All their faces had been altered in their fatigue. He said, ‘It’s a way of passing the time. She is there. And something to do with the gold. The ring isn’t perfectly sure. I’m not certain the ring is quite trustworthy.’
Tobie came in and knelt, without touching the ring. Confiscating it wouldn’t help matters: he had been told as much one time before. He said, ‘What will you do? Why not end it; divorce her? The child is what matters.’
‘Well, yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘Except that there you have the salient point. Just as the marriage was a pretence, the child seems to have been a figment as well. That is, it may not have been born. Or if born, it may not have survived, and another put