The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [320]
She said something, very low. Then, as if too tired to move, she released her grip and, rising slowly, turned back and walked into the monastery.
Tobie stared after her. John said, ‘Well, you’re the doctor. You don’t expect wives to soil their hands on sick husbands, do you? What did she say? It wasn’t thank you for bringing him back, by any chance?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tobie had said. But he did.
Wearily, sardonically, inexplicably, she had said, Walk over with me.
John had not climbed the mountain again. Tobie had. So had Adorne, with some pains, and for no reason but to offer homage to God at the portals of Heaven. About his faith, at least, Anselm Adorne was not cynical. Unlike Nicholas, who, whatever penalty he had paid, had used the place as a circus. Exasperated, Tobie had caught himself saying as much. He said, ‘You don’t have much reverence, do you?’
That had been after the descent from St Marina, when Nicholas had begun to revive and Gelis, impervious, had left. ‘How do you know what happened?’ Nicholas had said. ‘Intercessory prayers; a solemn renewal of the nuptial pledge. The oil of pardon, the oil of prayer. For every woman who makes herself a man shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. We believe, we confess, we give glory.’
‘Don’t,’ said Tobie.
‘Eve,’ continued Nicholas, ‘should display a body like unto his, but of marvellous diversity. I do endorse that. By sexual intercourse the world had its beginning, and by continence, it will receive its end. There is something to be said for that, too.’
Tobie said, ‘I’m not asking what happened. I told you.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Nicholas said. ‘Everybody comes down with something. Seven years of indulgences and seven quarantines, several times over. I get a bonus for St Marina.’
It came from fever and weakness, but it was time it was stopped. Tobie said, ‘You make it sound paltry. If there is anything paltry on that mountain-top, Nicholas, by God you and she took it with you.’
‘I expect we did,’ Nicholas had said. ‘And we brought it down again with us in sackfuls. And a couple of old tablets we found. Honour thy father and mother. They were cracked.’
‘They are not cracked for Jan Adorne,’ had said Tobie in sudden anger. ‘He has not always enjoyed this journey, or his father’s tongue, but he has taken care for him. He slept in a leaking skiff one whole night on the Nile, to give his father some rest. Does he write like a man full of spleen? Tant que je vivrai –’
‘Tant que je vive,’ Nicholas had contradicted. He had moved restlessly, the bitterness gone.
It had puzzled Tobie. ‘Have you read it? Jan’s tribute in his book to his father? “Ipse ego dum vivam et post dura fata sepultus, Serviet officio spiritus ipse tuo.” Tant que je vivrai, I’d have said, was the better –’
He broke off the argument, for Nicholas had simply continued to speak. Although the first words were the same, it was not a translation of Jan Adorne’s work and it was not, of a certainty, the sentiments of a son to a father:
‘Tant que je vive, mon cueur ne changera … Mon chois est fait, aultre ne se fera …’
Nicholas stopped.
‘Where did that come from?’ said Tobie. ‘That isn’t Jan’s.’
‘No. I don’t know,’ had said Nicholas. ‘It came into my head. Setting aside our fathers and uncles, could we get on with my feet?’
It had been the end of that exchange. Whatever had transpired on the mountain, Tobie was told no more of it then. Nor did he ever find out, in that place hallowed of God, whether Adorne’s reading was true and Nicholas had neither sought spiritual healing nor been able to find it. But whether or not they had left their mark on the mountain, it seemed to Tobie that none of them was likely to leave unmarked himself.
Chapter 44
KATELIJNE SERSANDERS never afterwards recalled much of her journey to Gaza, which occupied more than a week of her