The Unicorn Hunt (78 page)

He had been seen in the house of the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria to whom, it was said, he had confided a great sum of money in return for the services of Lorenzo, a Cretan, a monk who was familiar with deserts, and would guide the Baron to his own monastery.

There was no need, really, to read all the rest. John knew the name. Brother Lorenzo from Crete, whose help Adorne had won at such cost, was no ordinary monk. Brother Lorenzo from Crete was manager, treasurer and steward of the church and convent of St Catherine’s, Mount Sinai. Adorne, apprised by Tobie, by Kathi, by the devil, was aiming to reach the Sinai gold before they did.

Nicholas did not even append an opinion. He merely wrote that he had departed, as he hoped John would wish, to visit the Baron Cortachy and discuss matters of mutual interest. It was obvious, in the interests of the business (he added), that John should not follow.

It was obvious. It was obvious that only part of the futile vagaries of the last week had been due to inattention – to sheer incapacity, wrought, perhaps, by despair. The rest had been deliberate. Whatever was dangerous in Cairo, Nicholas had been willing to draw on himself.
Pitching about like a duck with its head off
, was the way he himself had described it. It had been partly that, too.

Outside, the rising sun tinted the domes and the towers. John
blew out the candle. The city, awake, was already busying itself: the water-camels by the thousand filtering their way tinkling through every alley; the echo of braying as the riding-beasts were forced to their stance; the distant calls:
A hatchery of chicks is ready and will be emptied this day!
And the faster hoof-beats of the Criers approaching under their banners.
Rejoice, people of Misr! The river has risen seven marks during the night!

Chapter 37

T
HERE WAS A
Seraph in the courtyard of the Second Dragoman’s house. Its meek, pimpled head drifted past second-floor casements attached to a long neck, a trunk and four legs. At first, the pilgrims had taken it for a toy on a cord.

Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, did not wish to be reminded of Alexandria, home of such toys. In Alexandria, extirpated from, the civilised comfort of the Genoese fondaco, they had been refused a safe conduct to travel out of the city, and kept under guard until prepared to disemburse the gigantic sum the Emir now saw fit to charge them. Meanwhile fresh officials continually pestered them, demanding dues, imposts, fees for some imaginary service, all of which they were forced to pay. Leaving finally, they had covered the sandy miles to the river by night, supposedly for fear of Bedouin bandits, arriving exhausted and half dead of thirst at noon.

The journey to Cairo could hardly be spoken of – the switch of boats; the commandeering of their wine by drunken Mamelukes; the wading up to the shoulders in water over lacerating ground when the crew suggested the vessel could not otherwise progress between current and shallows – none of them would forget that, or what (or who) caused it.

When, therefore, Anselm Adorne learned that he had a visitor and saw, by opening his lattice, who it was, he refrained from waking Jan, who slept late like all students, or young Lambert who was as bad; or – even worse – the other two. Instead, completing his attire, he descended alone and quietly to the parlour he and his party had been given.

Nicholas de Fleury stood up, releasing the cloth from his face. His beard, though strong, was of only three weeks’ growth, and had been darkened. Pale against tinted skin, his eyes were large and
curious as those of the Seraph. He wore a white buttoned robe of thick cotton.

Anselm Adorne said, ‘Ah. Nicomack ibn Abdallah, I believe. What may I offer? Have you eaten?’ The servant waited.

‘I wish nothing, my lord,’ said the other man. He spoke Italian with an Arabic accent. Adorne signed to the servant, who left. Then he sat, folding his own blue galabiyya over the skirts of his doublet. De Fleury, he saw, wore native clothing apparently to the skin. Adorne said, ‘I suppose you have come to apologise?’

Nicholas said, ‘You expected me?’ He was still standing. It was very early. Behind the lattice, they were watering and sweeping the yard. The Seraph lowered its neck.

Adorne brought his eyes back. ‘I saw you from above. You would have been foolish not to come to Cairo, since I had so naively dispatched you to Matariya. I hope you are not going to apologise, for I have no intention this time of forgiving you. Four of my party have never harmed you and the fifth was a sick girl.’

‘Tobie removed her,’ said the other man.

‘You are right to give him the credit,’ Adorne said. ‘Now I have something to tell you. When you were a boy and transgressed, you were punished. I am not your magistrate now, but I do have some power. In particular, I have the power to have you arraigned for attempting to kill me in Scotland. I am proposing to use it.’

The other man’s face didn’t change. It had shown no alteration from the beginning. He said, ‘You have the right.’

Adorne felt himself frown. He said, ‘Do you understand what I am saying? When we both return to Bruges, I shall lay formal complaint against you both there and in Scotland. I do not need to tell you what will follow, unless something occurs which forces me to change my mind.’ Exasperation suddenly seized him. He said, ‘What delusions are you labouring under, Nicholas? You have proved yourself capable, able to generate wealth, able to take part in the world’s affairs. Is that not enough? I have enjoyed our duel, so far as it went, but need you press it further?’

The anger was against himself, as much as anyone. Obedient, patiently standing, the image he saw insistently before him was that of Claes vander Poele, the submissive, sweet-natured youth he had known.

Nicholas de Fleury said, ‘So far as it went?’

Adorne sighed. He said, ‘Sit. Of course you are gifted. Of course you have used those quick wits to master every opportunity that appears. But every man has his limits. You must recognise yours. You came to Scotland. You befriended the King’s sister Mary.
You persuaded her to flee with her husband to me, so that her land would fall vacant, and I should lose face. But what happens?’

‘Tell me,’ said the other. It sounded flat.

‘Do I need to? My credence with the King was always bound to be greater than yours. In your absence, the land fell to me. With a change in the English wars, the Lancastrians challenged York, and the Duke of Burgundy thought it politic to favour both sides, and was not displeased that I should shelter Thomas Boyd. And the King of Scotland, anxious for his sister, rewarded me for protecting her. While I,’ Adorne said, ‘thought it wise – and was given leave – to absent myself from my house for as long as Boyd and the Princess were staying there. A situation which, in the long run, has not turned out to your advantage. But I am not to blame.’

‘I see that. It is my fault that you are following me,’ the other said.

‘It is your lack of foresight,’ Adorne said without rancour. ‘Coupled with some ill luck. The death of your priest brought you from Scotland too soon. You were not to know, leaving Alexandria, that an Indian spice ship had reached Damietta and twenty thousand camels entered the city the day after you left it. We received harsh treatment, and for that you will pay. But there were some compensations,’ Adorne said, ‘before we were arrested.’

‘Then are we not even?’ said the other. If it sounded less than peaceable, the difference could hardly be named.

‘No, we are not,’ Adorne said. ‘You must learn. Or you will never know your proper place in society. So think of what I have said. Reconsider your plans. You have a good business in Bruges and in Venice; your associations in the Levant are recent and slight, as are your attempts to found a business in Scotland. I suggest you go back to Bruges. I even have something to tell you. It concerns Gelis, your wife.’

He had spoken briskly, because he was angry: he was dealing with a man, as he saw it, only four years older than his own son. When de Fleury said nothing, he looked at him and saw a face grown as blank as a shield.

Adorne said, still more crossly, ‘I am not taking some sort of revenge upon you. There is no positive news, but a fact of some relevance. While we were in Rome, a Scots orator expressed a wish to come with me to the Holy Land. He was delayed by business, so my ship sailed from Genoa without him. I have since learned that, disappointed, he then attempted the journey from Venice.’

He stopped. Nicholas de Fleury said, ‘Please go on.’

Adorne said, ‘It now seems that he travelled on the same galley
as de Francqueville and the rest, and died with them. If so, this unfortunate man may have been the fourth member of the party, not Gelis. But there is no absolute proof. And there remains the mystery of her wedding ring. If she were not on board, how did it come there?’

Marian de Charetty, on her wedding day, had looked into those prodigious grey eyes. Adorne himself had faced them often enough, stick in hand, full of exasperation that he still hoped was good-humoured. Nicholas de Fleury lowered his gaze. He said, half to himself, ‘To mislead me.’

Exasperation overcame Adorne once again. He said, frowning, ‘By getting another to carry it?’ It made no sense. The girl was hardly to know that her friends were going to die.

Nicholas said, ‘No, of course. I spoke without thinking.’ His face conveyed, briefly, a polite mixture of bafflement and apology. Behind that could be glimpsed something of much greater intensity, matched in degree to his present extreme pallor.

Adorne rose. He said more kindly, ‘It is not certain. But word will come. I suggest you go back to Damietta and take ship for Venice. If they have no news, go to Bruges. Surely your wife is what matters.’ A voice called outside, and he frowned. The voice came nearer. The door crashed open.

‘Father?’ said Jan, his student son. Then his gaze passed to de Fleury who, drawing a breath, had looked up.

‘You!’
said Jan Adorne. ‘You, you false-hearted animal!’

And another voice, even more inopportune, followed behind. His secretary, priest and chamberlain, John Gosyn of Kinloch, entering, exclaimed: ‘Claes vander Poele, as I live! You have apprehended him. I shall call the Dragoman. We shall see what the penalty is for a Western merchant using an assumed name and Muslim costume in Cairo!’

‘No,’ Adorne said. De Fleury got up, his eyes intent on the priest. He would know, of course from the doctor that John Gosyn was the John de Kinloch he had crossed in the past. Adorne continued adroitly. ‘No, Father John. This young man’s punishment already awaits him in Bruges. We are Christians. It is not for us to throw him to the heathen. For my sake, the Chief Dragoman will put him on a boat for Damietta, where there is a house of the Knights of the Order. They will send him to Genoa. My relatives will take care of the rest.’

Once, a schoolboy in Bruges, Jan Adorne had applauded the impudent marriage of an apprentice. Now he said, ‘Father, he would only escape. He is a barbarian. Let barbarians deal with him.’

‘He is a Christian,’ said John de Kinloch reflectively. ‘And might well try to escape. But what could he reap from such a foolishness, other than painful martyrdom or lifelong obscurity?’

‘You hear,’ said Anselm Adorne to his prisoner. ‘Shall I call on the rest of my party for their opinion? I would consign you to Genoa, my son would let the Mamelukes have you, and Father John, if I understand him correctly, feels indifferent, since any escape will bring its own punishment. And indeed, you would be naked of gold or resources, for John le Grant and his house would be watched.’

For a moment he thought that his pace had been a little too leisurely, and that Reyphin and Lambert would appear. Past experience of Nicholas de Fleury would suggest a ready recovery, followed by action. But that was not always the case. Anselm Adorne ended, and Jan immediately began to say something, but de Fleury paid as little attention as if Adorne and he had been alone in the room.

De Fleury said, ‘True to the hand, the tongue, the loins. The choice is mine, you are saying.
Ainsi soit-il
.’

He moved on the words, while indeed he was speaking. Jan, throwing himself in his way, found himself left stumbling behind as the lattice was wrenched open and de Fleury ranged the balcony and then encompassed the steps to the courtyard. By the time they reached the gates, the crowded alley beyond showed no trace of him.

Returning, Jan was pale with anger. ‘He laughed!’

‘He was looking up at the Seraph. It was too tall to be ridden,’ said Adorne pacifically. ‘Alas, when I have informed the Dragoman, I fear he will not laugh long.’

John of Kinloch made the sign of the cross. ‘We should pray for him.’

Adorne saw his son had calmed. Picking his way round the room, the lad stopped and turned. ‘What will happen to him? Claes?’

Adorne sat. He said, ‘He is not an agent, like John le Grant, following the expected forms of behaviour. He is a rich and powerful young man who has chosen to mingle disguised in the marketplace and whose company, it would seem, already lies under the Sultan’s displeasure. He has done what is forbidden, and may lie in prison for life. He may be tortured to find what more he has done. If they think him a spy, he will be put to death afterwards.’

‘How?’ said his son. Then without waiting he said, ‘But he has killed people. He tried to kill you.’

‘So he deserves to be punished,’ Adorne said.

Had they looked, they would have found Nicholas close at hand, although not in the street. The mosque was small, and its madrasa no more than a tree in the yard under which the teacher sat, his boys intoning around him. Inside the mosque, his sandals laid sole to sole neatly before him, Nicholas occupied a corner, impalpable as a shadow. For the moment, he was as safe there as anywhere. And he could not have gone further. No man should be asked to die twice.

Ma fat mat:
what is sped is dead, said the Arab. But what had sped was not dead. He believed the insubstantial thing he had heard, for there were so many reasons for believing it. And most of all because someone had made sure the message should reach him. Someone who – perhaps? – had been most alarmed to discover that the game had unwittingly stopped.