To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [133]
‘Oh well,’ the girl said, and gravely began to recite.
It was Nicholas at the top of his bent: scurrilous, witty, engaging. She could hear every shade of his voice in the words. Gelis said, ‘You should tell that to your uncle. It would cheer him. What do you think of the Nativity Play? Are you going to watch it?’
Katelijne Sersanders hadn’t seen it; no one had, but as far as she knew, the whole of Edinburgh and Lothian was going to watch it. People were coming from everywhere. Her aunt couldn’t attend, but Katelijne and her brother would describe it all to her later. ‘It would be nice,’ Kathi said, ‘if her child came at Christmas. It might be born hearing some of the singing. A gift of music from Magus Will Roger.’
‘And a gift of poetry from a somewhat inebriated German fatiste, I gather,’ said Gelis. She paused. ‘You are not going to shame and astonish me with the news that Nicholas has translated the text? While playing chess with one hand and beating a drum with the other?’
‘I don’t know whether he writes,’ the girl said. ‘Phemie does, and my uncle. I think a lot of people have helped. But we shan’t know till next week. Won’t it be dull when it’s over? What are you going to do?’
In her head, in her heart, Gelis stifled an inclination to desperate laughter. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘That rather depends upon Nicholas.’
Chapter 18
hITHERTO, WHEN SET in the highest gear with every wheel spinning, Nicholas had been taking his share in a war, or contributing to a scene of international negotiation, or at the very least deploying whip and reins to preserve the multiple concerns of his Bank during some heinous crisis.
Now he was exerting the same extreme concentration of skills for the sake of one brief event: an ephemeral work which, once over, would leave nothing behind it except, of course, bills. It was his belief and intention that, subjected to such an overwhelming concentration of effort, something unique might be born. Something not only unique but superb. Something not only superb but close to a vision he had, but had never put into words: something soaringly wonderful. From this area of his thinking, all cynicism, for once, was debarred.
He knew by now his own gifts. As the weeks went by and the hour of completion approached, he saw every task duly executed; the ocean tamed; the advancing waves drilled into order. In the days before the performance the lists shrank, ticked off one by one, and the shouting began to die down, and the yard of the Abbey of Holyroodhouse, veiled by its awning, emptied of arguing men in cloth tunics, became a silken pavilion, a mysterious cavern where the spoken word lingered like incense, and trumpet peals mixed with the tassels, and a voice sang, inward and solitary, from a tunnel of cloud.
It was too soon to slacken, and too soon to hope, and too soon to wonder. Nicholas worked, smiling, even-tempered, a never-failing source of solutions and calm. During that last week he did not go near his business, but slept in snatches on a truckle bed in the Abbey, and ate what people put in his hand.
The Secrets had come. Many of the experiments were his own, devices to play on the senses. The lighting was put into place, misty, magical in the grey air; and the smoke in its dusky colours; and the palette of incense and spices. Below the covering turf, John’s gleaming wheels turned without sound. Screened off, alone, Nicholas watched the Angel of the Annunciation spread his swan-wings and float, his yellow head bent, while his son’s childish voice swayed at his side, a silvery air-thread in water. Nicholas stood, considering sound and its trajectories, and Will Roger walked about with him, and the players.
The costumes arrived. The actors, word-perfect, were permitted to leave their chambers of study arid be shown to their places. Nicholas had sat by their desks many times. Now he used all his knowledge of them to help carry them through this last stage. The prompts and signals began to receive their rehearsal: he had not allowed the intrusion of placards. He had not permitted