To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [24]
So damn them all. ‘Thunder for God, if you please,’ Nicholas said. Without particular haste the thunder basket was brought and the handle turned. The stones rumbled. The copper sheet rippled and sighed. In the voice of God, Nicholas addressed himself, with sonority, to the doctor.
‘Ha! Meschant homme, qu’as tu fait
Fors ordure et sterilité!’
He paused, to permit a chorus of sardonic approval. The actor Le Prieur moved forward, looking astonished. The angel said, ‘You have stood on my toe!’
‘Don’t interrupt. I thought you were a dummy,’ Nicholas said. He saw, looking closer, that the angel sharing his platform was a boy in a mask. Half of the angels were children.
‘He is a dummy!’ someone roared from the floor. ‘Vacquenet the butcher’s son! Stamp on his other toe, God!’
‘Merde!’ said the angel. ‘Get off!’
There was a vacant platform above him. Nicholas swung himself up, the wheel rocking. A voice addressed him from below. ‘M. de Fleury! Our friends are here to rehearse some of the music. Perhaps …’
‘Perhaps what?’ said Nicholas. Somewhere, a little drum had started to beat. The angels ruffled their feathers and coughed. A flute added itself to the drum.
‘Perhaps,’ said M. Pierre the doctor, stooping gently, ‘we should test the wheel and the music together.’ Then he straightened and looked up at Nicholas as the wheel began to revolve. The angels shrieked, engraving a fillet of sound as they wheeled.
Nicholas said, ‘So what music?’
The piece was in three parts for the Trinity: the minute, when he thumbed over the pages, remarked, Icy parle Dieu à III voix. The wheel creaked, moving slowly; each time it shook, the angels cried. Nicholas said, ‘Well, let’s get going. I’ll count three, then come in.’ He reached up and laying hands on a very young heavenly body, plucked him down and sat him on his knee. He said, ‘Come. Take off your mask, and we shall do it together.’ He wondered whose son this was.
Cheeringly, this angel was friendly. Uncertain at first, its voice gradually strengthened, and another voice joined it. The music was simple. Nicholas sang peacefully along with it, picking it up, following the three strands as they appeared until the entire choir was in voice, interrupting itself at intervals as the wheel jolted or jammed, less to cry than to giggle. Then he called for a drum and two sticks and, when they were tossed up, launched into a staccato outburst of sound, to which with effortless clarity he added the words of a tavern song everyone knew.
The choir tittered and sang; the workers below roared along with them, and swayed. A man on the Ascension pulley swung himself rhythmically up and down bawling, and two devils mounted the wheel, which rocked and began to move faster. Nicholas set down his drum, singing still. ‘And that’s enough,’ he said placidly to the cherubim on his knee. ‘When we arrive close to the ground, you will jump. And you, monsieur, and you.’
The wheel turned. His hands round its waist, Nicholas released his angel, a butterfly, into the waiting hands below. A second jumped, and a third. Last of all he stepped down himself, a devil under each arm, his drum hung round his neck and the sticks in his belt. Le Prieur and Ardent Désir were waiting for him, brandishing scripts, uttering blandishments.
‘Abraham! Noah! Monsieur, the blessed St Vincent himself!’
The angels were tugging his arms. He laughed. ‘You flatter me. Anjou can provide all the talent you need. And in any case, alas, I must go.’
M. Pierre had not spoken.
‘You are a guest of monseigneur,’ said Le Prieur. ‘He will invite you, as I do, to stay.’
‘I have obligations,’ said Nicholas. ‘And at present, monseigneur awaits. Please forgive me.’ He had to raise his voice against the shouting and singing.
‘Come with me,’ said M. Pierre.
Nicholas was sorry to leave. He liked people, and music and laughter. He would like to have investigated the circles of fire, and braced the wheel really well. He was hungry, not for royal food but for bread and cheese and radishes and cheerful company. Thinking