The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [358]
The Canal was packed with boats and laughter and streamers. The Casa, when they reached it, was silent, all its staff freed for the revels save for the porter, sitting inside the double doors in his black and white unicorn livery, consoling himself with watered wine and bread and salami. It quite alarmed him when the padrone appeared, all out of the blue, instead of being at the Palace with the rest of them. The doctor said something as he passed, but Master Gregorio looked straight ahead.
The porter jumped up. He said, ‘Padrone! Your honoured lady insisted! She said she would wait in the salon!’
Halfway up the double staircase, Nicholas stopped. Then he turned, and ran up. Gregorio hesitated, but followed. Tobie was running already. ‘Do you think this is a lovers’ meeting?’ he said over his shoulder. Ahead, Nicholas had opened the door of the salon.
It was a beautiful room, running the full depth of the house and fronting the Canal with a balcony. The girl facing Nicholas was Gelis van Borselen, strands of fair hair coiling below the fine headdress and back veil, her velvet travelling gown stained, as when she had come to the deathbed of Godscalc. She said, ‘What have you done with him?’ She looked only at Nicholas.
He moved forward and stopped. ‘With whom?’
She said, ‘Jordan. Jordan has gone. Where have you put him?’
Gregorio moved. Tobie grasped him hard by the arm. Nicholas said, ‘I suppose I don’t need to ask which you mean. I have not touched the child. I have never seen him.’
Gelis said, ‘He was in Florence. They were to bring him. I expected to find him in Venice. They say the house in Florence was empty. Someone stole the child and his nurse, and the rest ran away. Your doing. It must be your doing.’
Nicholas sat down. He said, ‘Do I look as if I have won something today?’
Then she looked round at the others. Tobie said, ‘We none of us know where your child is. Nicholas divined that you were here.’
He remembered, now, the severity of the brows, the coldness of the blue eyes. He held their gaze until, releasing him, they returned to Nicholas. She said, ‘I am not wearing the ring.’
‘You came an hour ago,’ Nicholas said.
She sat then herself. Holding Gregorio still, Tobie moved quietly past them both to a ledge by the balcony, where he leaned, and Gregorio sank into a seat. Gelis said, ‘Then you could divine where he is?’
‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or I would not have thought I should find him in Famagusta.’
Her face tightened. She said, ‘The child was not to blame.’
‘I understand that,’ he said. ‘If I knew him, I could find him.’
Tobie spoke. ‘You could find him if you had something of his.’
‘Nail clippings?’ Nicholas said. You could see him watch her whiten.
Then she said, ‘I could bring you something.’
Up till then, Tobie thought, Nicholas had refused to allow himself to believe. Even yet, you could see him torn by the need to protect himself. Nicholas, who never gave anything away. He said, ‘A garment. Something that touches … Or something he … knows.’
‘I will bring it,’ she said, and got up.
Tobie said, ‘Let us come with you,’ but she shook her head and began to move to the door.
Nicholas stood. She said, ‘It will be quicker. You could find me anyway.’
She left, and he let her go. Then he said, ‘The maps are in my room. Gregorio, sit with me.’
There was no one to serve them. Tobie waited some moments in silence, watching the great map of Venice spread out on the desk, with every house, every rio carefully marked, and the little jewel swaying over it. Then he went first to his own room, and after that to the kitchens, where he mixed draughts and loaded a tray. He had done it often enough in a long and exhausting campaign. Something to keep a man going and useful, without burning him out before time. When he got back and put the tray down, they were talking.
Gregorio broke off and looked up. ‘She is here. The jewel says so. But Nicholas says she is moving.’
Of course, he was speaking of Margot. Tobie said, ‘Do you think the child is with her?’
‘I don