The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [334]
‘M. de Fleury. You went off to be a camp doctor. Master Julius stays for a time, Master Gregorio stays for a time. The same with M. le Grant, Master Crackbene.’
Tobie sat up. ‘We must get some sleep. You ought to look at other companies. They switch their people about, to learn skills and use their experience. It isn’t a bad thing to let people go now and then, and get them back with more to offer.’
‘Tommaso Portinari’s been in Bruges since he was twelve,’ said Katelijne Sersanders. ‘The Medici family all live in one district in Florence. Can’t you keep up, or doesn’t he want you, or don’t you want him? I heard the Patriarch.’
Tobie tried to remember what the Patriarch had been saying. Something about failing to get Nicholas under control. One could see the problem: it was nearly dawn now. On the other hand, he didn’t see why he should be blamed. He said, ‘I don’t think, Kathi, he’d take kindly to ephors. It probably works best as it is. We all take a share, and he doesn’t get tired of us, and vice versa.’
She didn’t reply. He said, ‘You don’t agree?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But there isn’t much point in saying so. I’m sure it’s what he thinks he wants, and maybe you think he wants. But this way, who will ever get to know him?’
‘I don’t know if I want to,’ said Tobie. He didn’t know what made him say it, except that he was tired.
‘I know you don’t. None of you do,’ said Katelijne. ‘Because you’re all afraid, in the end, of what you’d find.’
Chapter 46
IT WAS STILL DARK when Nicholas entered the land-gate of Famagusta.
He had stopped twice in the course of the long ride. A woman milking a goat by candlelight had given him some dates and a bowl of the milk, still warm; and he had picked up a handful of dried carob pods, wrinkled and sweet.
At the deep gate the sight of the King’s horse, its head hanging, had roused astonishment and alarm, but then one of the guards had recognised Nicholas despite the beard and the grimed tabby silks, and eagerly claimed him in talk. He parted as soon as he reasonably could, and made his way, pace upon pace, yard upon yard, through the narrow dirt-packed streets of the silent town. In the square, he stopped before the incense-breathing mass of the Cathedral, and looked up to where the night-burning lamps lit the carving within the three great porches, and defined the triangular gables above, created for the island of Venus more than a century before by French hands. By a craftsman versed, like ibn Hayy, in geometry and astronomy; and formulating with passion various astronomical equations. Oh, with passion.
It was between Matins and Prime: had there been any sound, he would not have entered. As it was, he tied the horse to a ring, and made his way slowly inside and knelt. The tiled floor was clean. The roof soared dark over his head; the altar was far away, crowded with paintings and statues.
He had knelt here before, in physical pain which he had forgotten; in agony of another kind which he could never forget. Gelis had no need to remind him, over and over, of what had become of her sister. Katelina van Borselen of the long brown hair, the dark eyebrows, the round, small breasts … who had commanded him to her bed. Gelis says that you’re the most passionate lover in Bruges, according to all the girls she’s been able to ask. Then, unknown to him, had become pregnant with his son, and had married Simon to conceal it. Arigho. New corn, the first fruits of the harvest. And who had ended here, attempting to punish him, and herself, as now Gelis was … As he supposed Gelis was doing.
Except that in the end Katelina had forgiven him and, he thought, herself: the pain blotted out by the act which had caused it. Palpitating moths, and a waterfall, and Aphrodite. A sunlit vale in Rhodes where he had found her in terror, and had brought her joy, peace, release. Even though she was by then Simon’s, and he had been forced to pledge himself to someone else.
He could never tell Gelis that, although sometimes he made himself remember, before the memory was overwhelmed by what happened