The Unicorn Hunt (92 page)

They got off with expulsion; or a departure as soon as an escort could be collected. It was hardly pleasant, even with the Abbot exercising his authority to calm the more timid monks and Brother Lorenzo adding helpful allusions to the Rod of Moses. A man who could discover water could not be wholly the Devil’s.

The ordering of mounts and guides and provisions began. Nicholas, returned to interim confinement in their chamber, looked spent and bemused rather than fiendish. The charred maps had been taken, but the pendulum had been returned by the Abbot, with a private exhortation, to Tobie. He kept it hidden until he and Nicholas were alone. Then he produced it.

Nicholas looked at it.

Tobie said, ‘I am so very sorry. It’s empty. Take your time.’ With any other man, he would have touched him.

Nicholas said, ‘You know what was in it.’

Tobie put the box in his hands. ‘Yes.’ On a long campaign, there were always children. Mothers died. He had suckled a babe from his finger; seated a child in the crook of his arm and pressed out the fringe of its toes so that he could use the small shears from his box. The clippings fell, half-moons and slivers, fine as muslin.

A whimsical kind of memento, until you remembered what divining made use of. This child had been at least a year old. Tobie said, ‘You knew as soon as you saw it? How did you know?’

‘Before I saw it,’ Nicholas said. He had opened the box. As Tobie had said, it was empty. It was the first thing the Abbot had done; shake its contents into the fire.

Nicholas said, ‘I was given a wisp of hair, supposed to be his. I felt nothing: it wasn’t. I could feel this through granite and marble.’

‘Gelis brought you the hair?’ said Tobie. He spoke gently.

Nicholas said, ‘When I didn’t accept it as proof, she offered to show me the child, at a price.’

‘The gold?’ said Tobie. ‘She wanted the gold?’

‘She wanted to watch me compelled to find it. That was all. She wouldn’t know, you see, that someone had left this.’

It was like being in camp, moving among wounded, speaking carefully. Tobie said, ‘Someone? The Patriarch? But, Nicholas … what makes you sure Gelis didn’t help him? She could have had the box made. She must have provided what was in it. She could have made certain that someone would empty it before you could touch it. One of them must have told the monks what you were doing. They didn’t find you divining by accident.’

‘But,’ said Nicholas, ‘you see, it doesn’t matter. The power stays, even though it is empty. I know where to start.’ His voice strengthened for the first time. ‘I don’t know where the gold is. I don’t need to know. I can find the child.’

Tobie said, ‘If you do, you will need me. Not for the child. For yourself. Do you understand?’ It was the least he could do. He should be forbidding this.

He saw Nicholas realise it. Nicholas said, ‘I know. It will stop.’

‘It may take longer than you think,’ said Tobie dryly. ‘You said you knew where to start?’

‘I know where he is,’ Nicholas said. ‘Here, in the Middle Sea, on an island. I have to sail from Gaza.’

Gaza would take six to eight days to reach. It was on the Middle Sea. Alexandria and Gaza lay at opposite ends of the Sinai coastline. Tobie said, ‘It takes you further from home. You don’t know which island?’

He remembered as he spoke that the maps Nicholas had used for his divining were burned. There would be others at Gaza. They had an agent at Gaza. He began to say, ‘Could it be Crete?’ and then stopped, looking at the other man’s bent head. The box lay in his hands. Tobie rose quietly and left, without troubling him with anything more.

That day the problem resolved itself because of the illness of Kathi.

It had worried Tobie, her collapse. Her uncle, himself overtired, had been at first inclined to belittle it. He had been distraught, on his return, to find the calm of the monastery further destroyed, and the culprit – the practitioner of the unnatural art – to be Nicholas. Then came the discovery that his niece Katelijne had known of it.

In the end, Tobie turned Adorne from her room. ‘He uses the gift to detect minerals. It isn’t unknown. If you possessed such an ability, wouldn’t you use it to find gold?’

And – ‘No! On my soul, a thousand times no!’ Adorne had said and, rejecting Tobie in turn, had brought Brother Lorenzo to view his young nephew Stephen (at a distance), and to confirm his belief that the Holy Land, with all its miracles, would surely effect a complete cure.

At the bedside, Brother Lorenzo murmured politenesses. Outside, he turned. ‘Forgive me, but this I must say. You have no doctor. The Holy Land is Mameluke country, and travel there can be harsh and distressing, as you have already found. Would you not prefer to choose some quiet place where Stephen might wait out the rest of your journey? A return perhaps to my own island of Crete? To St Catherine’s community there?’

It was a sensible offer and Adorne, prevaricating, longed to accept it. The monk set out to persuade him. ‘I could take him and see him well cared for. He would find some interest in our ikon workshops, our trade.’

It was impossible. ‘I am afraid not,’ said Adorne, with regret.

The monk bit his lip and seemed to gather himself. ‘Also, the ladies of my family would make him welcome.’

The tone of voice was enough. With mixed relief and despair, Adorne answered at length. ‘I see you have guessed. I am ashamed.’

Later, stiffly conveying the news to the doctor, Adorne found Tobie unamazed.

‘Monks are wiser than you would think. I thought the Abbot suspected the sex of our Stephen.’ He studied Adorne. ‘D’you
think less of the Father for letting it pass? Katelijne was the only one with a real reason for being here.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Adorne. ‘You felt nothing, gained nothing from the mountain? I know, of course, your friend did not. As for the Abbot, I think he would have let her stay longer. It was this despicable matter of necromancy which forced him to cleanse his conscience in other respects.’

‘And, perhaps, the little argument you yourself had over the Sultan,’ Tobie said sharply. ‘I suspect we all came for mixed reasons, but some of them weren’t bad. Are you sending Kathi to Crete?’

‘If Brother Lorenzo can arrange it,’ Adorne said. ‘We hope to leave her in good hands in Gaza, and the brethren themselves will take her from there to the island. I think he is right: she needs quiet. I know you were worried about her and I was wrong to be angry. I am sorry.’

‘And you want to know where I am going,’ said Tobie.

Adorne said, ‘I am not interested in the gold.’

‘Neither are we,’ said Tobie gravely. ‘It appears that we, too, are going to Gaza, the three of us. We could set out on our own, or along with you all, depending on how you feel about the contaminating presence of Nicholas. The friar might have views.’

Adorne was silent. Then he said, ‘And after that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tobie said. ‘By ship somewhere. We haven’t decided.’

Perhaps the man was concerned for his niece; perhaps not. He wondered if Adorne ever thought of the strain imposed on a very young girl, set to travel with men, and pretending to be one of their kind. It could be done: you saw that, too, on campaign. Buckets, cloths, unremitting struggle and vigilance on top of the genderless joys of rough travel: plucking Pharaoh’s lice, big as almonds, from her clothes; vermin out of her hair. Gelis, too. He despised Gelis, but never doubted her courage.

Then he looked at Adorne, and thought that yes, he knew what he had asked of Katelijne, or she had begged him to allow. Below the civilised charm was the magistrate, the champion jouster of many hard fights. The man of conscience, but also the man of long sight and great ambition, despite all his protestations to Nicholas. Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, was an antagonist whose steel was still only half felt.

Adorne said, ‘I cannot be pleased, after what I know of Nicholas, and the impressionability of my niece. But I have to say that, if you will be there, I should be grateful if you would help us escort Kathi as far as Gaza.’

Gold, thought Tobie, had a lot to answer for.

He found himself thinking again of camp life, and his time as an army physician. Between battles, you could discuss what you were doing – even with someone like Captain Astorre who might not understand, but who knew the cases, and recognised the importance of handling them properly.

The present situation felt much the same, but Tobie was alone. That is, he had John’s impersonal, professional help, but John wasn’t entangled in the miseries of his patron’s idyllic third marriage, or the problem of the ephemeral child. And without revealing the truth about Henry, it was hard to explain.

He carried to John, as a substitute, a business proposition. A caravan was gathering which could convey Adorne’s party and themselves as far as Gaza. From there, they could as well take ship west to Alexandria as suffer the tedious journey by land. They would be in time for the spice market, and the galleys sailing for home.

They were sitting, for privacy, in the empty Refectory. John said, ‘You’re getting better. It sounded quite plausible. As I see it, he’s been divining again for the gold, and he thinks it’s in Gaza?’

Driven to it, Tobie invented. ‘He didn’t intend to do anything. But he got a response somehow from Gaza, and once he gets there, there might be another sign. If the gold is there to pick up, he’ll do it.’

John said, ‘We agreed to go back.’

‘We
are
going back,’ Tobie said. ‘Do you want to carve your name?’

John looked up. The four arches, the end wall, every available space was covered with signatures.
Anselmus Adournes
and
Jo. Adournes, 1470
had been engraved for posterity on the second archway nearest the door,
Lambert Vander Walle
had found a space on the third, and
Pieter Reyphin van Vlaendren
had spread himself along the outside frame of the window. Adorne, of course, was now a Knight of St Catherine, and able to add wheels and swords to his collection of badges. John doubted if Nicholas was. He said, ‘Beside all that? Do you fancy it? I’ve left my mark, if anyone cares, on the water-wheel.’

‘I’ve left mine on the mountain,’ said Tobie. ‘Two long skidmarks in the shape of a cross.’

He fell silent. Nicholas de Fleury had said much the same, lightly.
I’ve left my soles on Mount Sinai
.

It was brutally true: he had walked down the mountain in blood. He had climbed it only hours after the racking seven-day race to
steal a march on Adorne, and little more than a week after the cisterns in Cairo. And he had climbed it to meet the person whom – surely – he had once loved, and who had very possibly ordained both the suffering and the attempt on his life.

That night, neither Tobie nor John had tried to follow him up Mount Sinai.
Whatever was going to happen will already have happened
, the Patriarch of Antioch had said; and they had left him in prayer. Waiting, John had fallen asleep and then Tobie himself. It had been the Patriarch of Antioch who had risen from his knees when, just before Terce, Gelis van Borselen had walked down from the mountain and come to show him that she was back, and had neither caused harm, nor taken any.

She would have expected to hear, of course, that Nicholas had already returned. Perhaps she had already been told at the door that this was not the case. By the time that, disregarding all propriety, she flung open the door of their chamber, rousing John and Tobie from sleep, Ludovico da Bologna was already outside the monastery, harrying servants and saddling camels and a mule.

Standing cloaked and wild-faced in the doorway, the rosy buildings, the sunlit mountains blazing behind her, her man’s hair stuck to her brow, her man’s dress dishevelled and stained, Gelis van Borselen showed her race, and none of her femininity. She said, ‘Where is he?’

Tobie sat up, and John stirred. The mattress beside them was empty. Tobie said, ‘He went to meet you. He hasn’t come back. What has happened?’

She said, ‘Do you care?’ and walked out. He scrambled after, half dressed, flinging on clothes. He caught her arm and she turned. She said, ‘We met on the mountain, and he came down before me. He hasn’t arrived. Go back to sleep: Father Ludovico will find him.’

Then, cursing, Tobie had pulled on the rest of his clothes and his boots, and with John had raced outside, where the Patriarch was already moving off. Gelis had made no effort to come. Looking back, Tobie saw she was standing outside the door, deep in shade, and surrounded, as in an ikon, by the archaic roundels and crosses cut in the wall against which her head rested. As he watched, she sank to the ground, her eyes on him.

She was still there when they came back with the litter. They had set off at speed. When the path at last became too precipitous, it was the Patriarch who had flung himself from his mount and, lifting his skirts, sprang aloft with great strides of his powerful legs, matted with hair thick as fir needles on the swell of his calves
and his thighs. It was Ludovico da Bologna, too, who reached the three chapels first and sent the roar down the mountain that brought the servants hurrying up.

Sickened, Tobie and John had stumbled after, and caught the stretcher as it came down with Nicholas lying in it, unconscious. He had left the summit knowing, surely, that he could never walk down, and had found his way aside so that Gelis would pass. His feet were raw flesh, and his body less firm than the manna which hardens at night, and liquefies into dew in the sunshine.

A speck against the monastery door, Gelis rose to her feet as their cavalcade picked its way down from the slopes. The Patriarch gave a halloo to signify rescue, success. She waited until they arrived, and the servants had unshackled the litter and lowered it. Then she walked over. Tobie said, ‘He will be all right.’

For a moment, as the pallet lay on the ground, Gelis van Borselen knelt, one hand on its edge, and studied her husband. The page’s hair, tumbling over her cheekbones, revealed only the straight nose, the sweep of brown lashes, the mouth pulled small, with an effort that could be felt. Her fingers were white, but she did not uncramp them, or touch him.