The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [307]
One of the brethren plucked one for her to eat. ‘You may never again taste it fresh, they have such a brief season. The Arab does not like to say, Never. He says, Tomorrow, when the apricots are here.’ He smiled, watching her pleasure. His Arabic was as fluent as Brother Lorenzo’s. Without Friar Lorenzo to deal with the Bedouin, they would never have reached here from Cairo.
She walked on, attended by flies. There were bees. She found a keeper lifting combs, his netted beard a-glitter with wings. There were donkeys and one or two cows. She fed the chickens.
She watched a man repairing a wall.
She addressed a caged songbird in Greek.
She explored the northern wall-walk from one shaky end to the other.
When the rings finished chiming for Nones, she extended her interest to empty mud cabins.
And found him.
He was writing. She had gone to the Library first, being sure of success for some reason, but had only found a place of crowded disorder and dust, which made her long to rearrange it.
Now she saw that he had been there, for there was a manuscript laid on the matting beside him; and he had a board on his knees with some paper on it. The ink and penbox before him were his own.
She said, ‘Jan’s going to need some of that. Paper for his terrible book.’ She smiled and disposed herself crosslegged on the dirt, the way M. de Fleury was sitting. He always looked right, as the Arabs did, although his feet weren’t bare as hers were. Hers were filthy.
He considered her. She reciprocated. She assumed he knew how he looked, and didn’t need to be told. The beard, dark at the tip and yellow next to his skin, drew his face into unaccustomed lines continued by the loose open fall of his upper robe. Underneath were scars and contusions and lice bites. She said, consumed with discovery, ‘It’s the robes and beards. We all look Byzantine. Look at you. Jesus Pantocrator.’
He looked down in a speculative way, then lifted and joined his third finger and thumb. There was a graze on his forefinger. He said, ‘I’ll admit it, provided you’ll have a look at Bacchos and Sergios on horseback. Sergios especially. What book is he writing?’ It came close, in a cursory manner, to the banter of the black knight in Scotland.
She said carefully, ‘Jan? Uncle Anselm offered this trip on condition Jan writes an account of it all for King James. King James of Scotland. In Latin.’
‘That helps,’ said M. de Fleury. ‘Will it be actionable? Among those who can read it?’
‘You aren’t in it,’ she said. She drew a light breath. ‘It’s just a travel book, but it’s a strain, and Jan isn’t himself. And my uncle’s been very ill. And M. le Grant blames him for whatever happened in Cairo. I don’t think he should.’
‘You don’t?’ he said.
She shook her head, then stopped abruptly. The loss of her hair was still strange. She said, ‘He may take steps against you in Bruges. He didn’t harm you in Cairo. Although, I’m sorry, I see someone did.’ She didn’t ask what had happened. It would only risk reviving the grievance.
He said, ‘If he did, you did much to repair it. No one has a quarrel with you.’
She said, ‘But my uncle, and Jan, and the others?’
He still had his pen in his fingers and an air that wasn’t even impatience. He said, ‘My friends are very set in their prejudices but, you know, the confrontation won’t last very long. The man who first discovers the gold will leave promptly.’
She felt herself flush.
He said, ‘You wouldn’t be here if you had found it. You may tell your uncle that I haven’t found it either. Was there anything else?’
She said, ‘You wouldn’t be here but for my kite, and the parrot.’
His eyes were grey, his manner dry as ashes. ‘Of course. But the gold is mine, as it happens.’ After a moment he said, ‘You are tired. Ask Dr Tobias to give you something.’
She said, ‘Ask him to give you something. And my uncle. How can you come here, and think about gold?’
‘There is a good precedent,