The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [315]
All the way to Sinai, the notion of a hard-swearing Catalonian sea captain immured in a monastery had confounded Nicholas. Now he laughed. ‘No. Ochoa hasn’t been here. Just the token dust in the egg, to lure us onwards.’
He spoke with confidence. It was true that the gold wasn’t here: he would have believed the Abbot, even if his pendulum hadn’t told him. His pendulum had told him, over and over, about a presence of power in the tomb. And of course, had been right.
John said, ‘Lure us here? Why?’
‘Or lure us beyond here?’ said Tobie. ‘Is that it?’
Sometime, he would have to talk to Tobie about Gelis, who had been the bait which had brought Nicholas to Mount Sinai. Gelis, and his discontent over Adorne. He knew, from John, that before Gelis walked out of the monastery she had been confronted by Tobie and treated to a barrage of questions which she had refused, with apparent indifference, to answer. He also knew that it was Gelis who had sent Ludovico da Bologna to look for him when he had failed to return from the mountain. She didn’t want the game to end before time.
Now he said to the others, ‘A lot of people are trying to push us about for various reasons: business, personal; because of the gold. The gold is what we came for: we haven’t got it; and Tobie’s feeling, last time we spoke, was that we ought to abandon it and go home. Meaning west. What do you think?’
Tobie’s face had altered. He said, ‘Home. As soon as may be. Diniz won’t mind. The Bank can stand it.’
‘Seconded,’ said John le Grant. ‘It’s getting too dangerous. If Adorne thinks he can plod on and find it, then I wish him good luck. We can aye pester him with some litigation, even if we’ve no chance of winning. He might even drop charges against you for half killing him.’
‘There is that,’ said Nicholas. Tobie looked at him. Nicholas said, ‘All right: we agree. Alexandria? The spice ships will be in: the Sultan’s goodwill should go quite some way to compensating for the gold. We’ll need camels and an escort to take us there: a few weeks of business, then back on the first ship to Venice. We could be there by November. Achille will have news of Scotland and the Tyrol.’
‘Scotland?’ said Tobie.
‘I can go there next year,’ Nicholas said.
They extinguished the lamp very soon. John fell asleep. Some time after midnight, mingled with the psalms of the night office, came the subdued sounds of stirring next door, as Adorne’s party prepared to visit their church before leaving. Nicholas, listening, became aware of movement much closer than that. Tobie, too, was quietly dressing.
For the sake of young Kathi, of course. Perhaps even to watch over Adorne, not yet restored to full health. In war, Tobie served like this, riding, walking, his box at his side; treating those he despised and those he hated, impartial with everyone. A good physician daily faced the great mysteries; it was not surprising that Tobie, too, might want to scale Mount Sinai, and stand on the peak of St Catherine.
John slept on and Nicholas lay, all his mind concentrated, like a spear, on one thought. After a while, when it was quiet, he rose and went to where the little box waited.
Chapter 43
KATELIJNE CAME TO the end of her strength on the second mountain, the Mount of St Catherine, which was over eight thousand feet high, and took five hours to ascend and three to come down. Guided by Brother Lorenzo, they had already climbed Mount Sinai before dawn, and prayed with Father John in the chapel. From there they had descended the west side to reach the convent of the Forty Martyrs, which was ruined, but maintained its precious gardens, and where two monks in a hut brought them water and fruit.
There was no path up St Catherine, and although from the top they said they could see the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea southwards to Tor, and the whole peninsula for as far as it would take six days to travel, Katelijne stuck halfway up, and Dr Tobias stayed with her.
When they came back at dusk, most of them were hardly able to walk, and the