The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [369]
He looked at Gelis, and saw that she had unmasked. Her face in the dim light was white. He lifted his hands and, since no one objected, bared his face as well to the air. His hand throbbed. The trump, like a bee in his thoughts, had strayed into a different jingle. Simon arrived: in fur, and cloth of gold, and the glorious conviction of triumph. He threw his mask on the floor, walking to Gelis. ‘Well, my dear. You have brought him to look at our son?’ And bending, kissed her.
In front of Nicholas, he had clearly expected her to respond. When she did not, he put it down to shyness, perhaps, and was rougher the second time, so that she pulled away, gasping. Nicholas did nothing to help her. Only when Simon frowned and, looking up, jerked his head to dismiss the three men from the cabin did Nicholas say, when they were alone, ‘It is not your son, but mine.’
Dionysus turned, his panther-skin ruffled, his arm gripping the girl’s shoulder. He said, ‘She told you that?’ He was smiling.
‘Hardly,’ Nicholas said. ‘She wasn’t trying to please me. But it wasn’t difficult to make sure. You can’t sire children now, can you? Although – poor Dionysus – you’ve been attempting for years. It must have been fun, at least, trying.’
‘I have children,’ Simon said, astonished. He let Gelis go. ‘Bastards, I don’t mind admitting, but if you took the trouble to ask, you’d find I was, forgive me, sufficiently adequate. Or am I supporting them out of philanthropy?’
‘Do you want an answer?’ Nicholas said. ‘I did take trouble. No one has taken more trouble than I have. I found every girl you slept with in Scotland, and bedded them all. Some, I must say, are better than others. None of their children is yours. They’re quite ready to swear it.’ Outside, there was a scuffle. He kept his eyes on his wife, and on Dionysus, who was making no move now to embrace her. She had started to tremble.
Simon said, ‘I suppose it makes sense. You try to murder me. You kill my sister. And now you are attempting to discount even my natural sons. It will be Henry’s turn next.’ He was breathing hard. He said, ‘I have children. Your wife’s child is mine.’
‘Then come and see him,’ said a voice.
Margot.
Nicholas swallowed. Simon frowned and Gelis, beside him, suddenly put out a hand to support herself. Margot, standing holding the curtain, looked worn, and a little stern. Behind her was Tobie.
Tobie said, ‘We’ve got rid of the soldiers. Kathi followed you, Nicholas. We shouldn’t have found you without her. The boat is over there. We can all go there in the bissona. Dionysus may as well see what there is to see.’
Margot came to Nicholas and said, ‘There is no need to wait any more. Come.’ And after a moment, when Simon and Gelis had left, ‘Isn’t this what you wanted?’
He had no original words. ‘I feel,’ he said, ‘as if heaven lay close upon earth, and I between the two, breathing through the eye of a needle.’
‘That is a man on the point of death,’ Margot said. ‘Not of life. I have done this for you. Don’t belittle it.’
‘Belittle it!’ he said. And then, ‘What of Gregorio?’
And she said, ‘I am not afraid now. Not of anything.’
*
The little boat lay low between the moored vessels, its oars at rest, and the candle under the awning threw a single squat shadow, cloaked and hooded, which might have been that of a man or a woman. Then it altered a little, showing that the one figure sheltered another.
The bissona with the unicorn crest came up very slowly, and touched, its lights out. Margot did not step down, but waited until Nicholas stirred, and then let himself down, his head bent, from the one boat to the other. They saw him move to the awning and wait. Then he spoke, and someone answered inside, so that he parted the curtain and sank to his knees. The voice had been that of a woman, and Scots. They saw his shadow, quite still on the canvas.
On the bigger boat, Margot suddenly moved, and Gregorio’s arms closed about her. ‘Don’t leave me,’ he said.
There were tears on his cheeks. She looked up at him and said, ‘I will do