The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [316]
Reduced by space, even voices upraised in anger remained slight, although it was evident that the sound came from above, where the monks’ galleried cells clung to the north wall. John was not in their room. Tobie got the girl settled quickly, and ran.
It was over by then: the cell empty, and only John standing outside, in a fury which he turned on Tobie at once.
‘So where were you? You knew he was doing this?’
The bloodied fingers, the deepening eyes: yes, he had known that Nicholas was divining. Tobie said, ‘They found him at it? Or someone told them?’
‘Both,’ said John. ‘For my money.’ His fist was split.
‘Kathi knew,’ Tobie said. ‘But she wouldn’t tell. Perhaps Gelis guessed, and told Adorne. What happened?’
‘The worst,’ said John. ‘Three silly monks, convinced they’d seen the devil conjuring spirits. If Brother Lorenzo had been here, it would never have happened. Anyway, they burst into exorcising prayers and wails, and when Nicholas got up, tried to snatch his pendulum and set fire to his maps. I don’t think he was in his proper senses: he’d been concentrating too long. At any rate, he fought back, and the fire caught their robes, and I got there in time to save them and sit on him.’
‘Heavily,’ suggested Tobie, who at times had some admiration for John.
‘My fist caught his jaw,’ admitted the engineer. ‘They’ve locked him up somewhere and gone off to report to the Abbot. Was it exciting on the two mountains?’
‘Five broken pilgrims,’ said Tobie. ‘And the girl in collapse, if you call that exciting.’
The anger left John. He said, ‘It was far too heavy a day. You were mad to allow her.’
‘It wasn’t physical,’ Tobie said. ‘Much the same kind of nervous overspill that sometimes afflicts Nicholas, I suspect. She knows more than most about what’s going on, but not quite enough to make sense of it. What was he divining?’
John looked surprised. ‘The rest of the gold, surely, damn him. Then he’d have reversed all our plans. He could never really bear to let Adorne find it.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Tobie. ‘Well, he’s lost his chance. They’ll fling us out now. Or put a stake through his heart. Or set fire to him.’ He waited for John’s heaviest grunt. They both knew it was serious.
They got off with expulsion; or a departure as soon as an escort could be collected. It was hardly pleasant, even with the Abbot exercising his authority to calm the more timid monks and Brother Lorenzo adding helpful allusions to the Rod of Moses. A man who could discover water could not be wholly the Devil’s.
The ordering of mounts and guides and provisions began. Nicholas, returned to interim confinement in their chamber, looked spent and bemused rather than fiendish. The charred maps had been taken, but the pendulum had been returned by the Abbot, with a private exhortation, to Tobie. He kept it hidden until he and Nicholas were alone. Then he produced it.
Nicholas looked at it.
Tobie said, ‘I am so very sorry. It’s empty. Take your time.’ With any other man, he would have touched him.
Nicholas said, ‘You know what was in it.’
Tobie put the box in his hands. ‘Yes.’ On a long campaign, there were always children. Mothers died. He had suckled a babe from his finger; seated a child in the crook of his arm and pressed out the fringe of its toes so that he could use the small shears from his box. The clippings fell, half-moons and slivers, fine as muslin.
A whimsical kind of memento, until you remembered what divining made use of. This child had been at least a year old. Tobie said, ‘You knew as soon as you saw it? How did you know?’
‘Before I saw it,’ Nicholas said. He had opened the box. As Tobie had said, it was empty. It was the first thing the Abbot had done; shake its contents into the fire.
Nicholas said, ‘I was given a wisp of hair, supposed to be his. I felt nothing: it wasn’t. I could feel this through granite and marble.’
‘Gelis brought you the hair?’ said Tobie. He spoke gently.
Nicholas said, ‘When I