To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [112]
Adorne said, ‘You must have been as moved as I was. I have never heard anything finer. The only version I know is from England. We had it sung at the Dry Tree. I know you are musical. When you come back to Bruges, you must let me enrol you there.’ He paused. The knot of singers was still closely entwined. He said, ‘Margriet came to see you.’
The Dry Tree, however vaguely religious, was really a club for aristocrats and their friends. Tommaso Portinari was a member. They had helped with the music for the Duke of Burgundy’s marriage. Nicholas said, ‘Thank you. Yes. I am sorry she is unwell. Tell her that I think the lady Mary will decide of her own will to stay.’
‘I see,’ said Adorne. He stirred. ‘Here is Master Roger coming to hear our opinion. Perhaps you don’t know but, preparing this work, he and his singers have had almost no sleep for a week. It was for you. He wished you to perceive a work of perfection.’
‘I feared as much,’ Nicholas said.
Adorne looked at him. ‘It is not perhaps the impertinence it appears. It is a pity to wear out one’s life solely in resistance to others, and never to pause to create something worthwhile of one’s own. Especially someone as gifted as yourself. Roger has offered you music. Give him what he asks in return.’
He sounded earnest. Then he smiled and turned aside to stop and embrace Will Roger as he arrived. Nicholas heard their voices without listening to them. The door had opened behind him, letting in the mid-afternoon light. The singers had put out the lamp and, leaving the lectern, were beginning to drift forward. Adorne made a final remark and, gripping Roger briefly by the shoulder, smiled again at Nicholas and quietly withdrew.
Will Roger turned to Nicholas and gazed at him. He said, ‘Your eyes are dry.’ His own were sunken and very bright.
Nicholas said, ‘It was passable. Why should I tell you it was magnificent? You know you can do anything, now you’ve done that.’
Roger showed no sign of having heard him. He said again, ‘Your eyes are dry.’
It made Nicholas angry, having no answer. He gave the only answer he had. ‘I didn’t ask for it. You told me it wouldn’t touch me.’
Roger continued to stare at him. His face, from being tired, had become heavy. ‘You couldn’t,’ he said. ‘Could you?’
Some of his prebendaries, speeding towards them, heard the change of tone and slowed down. Exhausted, ecstatic, the others were transported still.
Nicholas said nothing. Will Roger suddenly said, ‘You bastard! You blocked it. Did you? You blocked it with something.’
He had blocked it. He might as well admit it. ‘I had a lot to think about. It wasn’t my idea,’ Nicholas said. Now the others were slowly gathering round. On their faces the elation of the performance was starting to ebb, leaving starkness behind.
Roger said, ‘You didn’t hear anything? Not even the end?’
Gaude virgo mater pura …
Nicholas said, ‘The sound came through. I didn’t listen. I’m sorry.’
Whistle Willie said, ‘If the sound came through, your mind heard it. Sing it.’ All the singers were close. There was a rustle. Roger said in an angry aside, ‘You don’t know,’ and turned back to Nicholas. ‘Sing it. Any part.’
It was ludicrous. He was poised to make some joking remark; to convey soothing excuses; to leave.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t deny, for his own peace of mind, what he had just been given. He let Whistle Willie’s fierce gaze remain locked in his own, and unwillingly opened the evil, infallible bank of his memory.
It was a tenor part that came to the surface, from the later verses, when the weight of the music had first begun to break through. That he could recall it, with all its fluid turns and rapid ornaments, signified nothing; his musical memory was like that. He could hear the other four parts in his mind as he began to reproduce, sotto voce, the one he had chosen. It required concentration. He sang as if he and Willie Roger were face to face and alone, since that was how he felt. It was some moments before he realised that the other parts were not in his