To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [301]
Mistress Clémence said, ‘Were you at the Carnival in Venice, Dr Tobias? It must have been rather different two years ago.’
He thought of mist and water; of exquisite buildings and floating awnings of silk over the piazze; of the masked figures, mysterious and elegant, drifting from this or that performance of theatre or poetry, observing the artists of mime and of balance, following the delicate music of consorts over bridges and through garlanded alleys. He thought of the light-wreathed Canal, and the gilded flotilla of boats hung with tassels with the masked figures within, and the tables laden with wine and with delicacies. He thought of the agonised search for a child, and all that had followed.
‘I prefer this,’ Tobie said. ‘So, probably, does Jodi’s father. It will remind him of Bruges.’
‘He was an exuberant young man, I believe,’ said Mistress Clémence. A circle had formed round a tumbler, rearranging his limbs to the scrape of a fiddle. Smells of warm food drifted across from the booths. In a corner, a group of eight people were dancing to a pipe and screaming as they fell down. A man passed, hauling two sliding children. There were no princes here; none but the populace and burghers of Edinburgh. She added, ‘It is an art, to enjoy life at different levels.’
There was a note in her voice that he put down to censure. He said, ‘I doubt if he could return to that kind of simplicity, even for the sake of the child. Or not unless his active life were to be curtailed.’
‘He requires some supervision,’ she said. ‘A return to the simple life, as you call it, may be a periodic remedy that should not be ruled out. Unfortunately, he does not seem to care for Dr Andreas, an excellent physician. I find the young demoiselle, Katelijne Sersanders, extremely sensible.’
‘I know. She ought to have been a nurse,’ said Tobie irritably. A moment later he said, ‘There they are. Which is Jodi?’
The Berecrofts party seemed to include half the Canongate; he recognised the bright cheeks of Archie surrounded by a mob of small children and one or two older, including Archie’s own. Robin, in the manner of boys, had subtly thickened in the six months of Tobie’s acquaintance. His waving hair clung to his neck and his voice, neither broken nor shrill, had chosen a level which Whistle Willie said was light baritone. He was a good-looking boy, and there were three pretty girls tugging at him. Tobie felt elderly.
Mistress Clémence said, ‘Jodi is the child in the brown hooded jacket with the red scarf. Between the two youths.’ She had pulled her hood over her face.
Tobie said, ‘The boy won’t recognise you?’
‘We shall stay at the east end of the loch. He will remain under the Castle, and will be taken home in an hour; you will not have to suffer for very long. Have you treated many children, Dr Tobias?’
He didn’t want to talk about spots in the throat. He said, ‘My work has been largely in army camps.’
‘I understand. But that often entails childbirth and women’s infections, does it not? And if undiagnosed, an infection can spread when the soldiers come home. I suppose a good doctor examines everyone in his camp before they disband?’
‘Either that, or catch them on shipboard,’ Tobie said, refraining from citing examples. ‘You can’t send them home with a diagram.’
She said, ‘You must have been glad to change eventually to a civilised court. I was sorry to hear of the death of your uncle.’
Betha or Phemie had been gossiping. He said, ‘We didn’t get on.’
She said, ‘People of similar temperament often do not. A spell in the field might have broadened his knowledge, and a spell of teaching might have enabled you to pursue your experiments to their proper end. I take it, since you have published nothing, that you have not completed them?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Tobie.
Her face, or what he could see of it, remained undisturbed. She said, ‘It is as well to be reminded, now and then, of why one