The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Of the company, Henninc dropped by from the dyeyard every day with some novelty in his satchel: a new colour he thought Godscalc would approve, or an order in especially fine writing. And every hour, so it seemed, he had a visit from Tilde or her sister, with something to eat or to drink, or just themselves, to sit by his bed with some chat and their sewing. Tilde told him about the business; Catherine told him what Paul or Nerio had been saying and repeated their jokes. Her heart was not, he thought, engaged, but she was flattered. She deserved happiness now.

  Diniz, of course, came when he could. A little tired, because the company was now a large one and the Bruges office lay on his shoulders, but he was a kind young man, and assiduous, and his loving thoughtfulness had helped reconcile Tilde to the loss of their infant.

  Twice Godscalc had been startled into tears. Once, when the door opened on the brisk red hair of John le Grant, famed engineer, navigator, master gunner; one of his young men – not so young now – who had been with him in Trebizond. John, back by chance from Alexandria because forced to do so by Nicholas. But here, where otherwise he might not have been, speaking fluent Scots-German and with all the news Godscalc longed to hear from the East. At the end, when Tobie came to remind him he was tired, Godscalc said, ‘I am doubly glad you are here, for although you may wish it, I do not believe Nicholas should go abroad again yet. When he comes, persuade him to stay.’

  ‘He is coming?’ John had said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Tobie.

  The next time, it was Astorre. Syrus de Astariis, mercenary captain of the original small Charetty bodyguard whose services the Bank now deployed all over Europe. Astorre had taught the boy Claes how to fight, and for a while the military arts had nearly claimed Nicholas, as they might have seduced Godscalc, once, from his calling.

  He would be no use in the field now – he, Godscalc, who was two years younger than this sinewy man with the sewn eye, the torn ear, the grizzled beard, who sat wide-kneed on a stool and poured out the tale of his triumphs and complaints: the wiliness of the French King – God turn him into a capon – which had landed them with the mess of Liège and was now encouraging Duke Charles to ally himself with the Duke of the Tyrol.

  ‘See here!’ Astorre said. ‘Old foxy poxy Louis is up to all his tricks because he doesn’t want Charles and England to join forces against him. Your brave boy Duke Charles fancies himself as a king, and would be much obliged, please, if someone would give him all the bits of land between Flanders and Burgundy so that he can piece them into a kingdom. And his grace of the Tyrol needs money – don’t we all? – and is willing to sell off the Black Forest to get it, not having a daughter to trade off like Denmark. And while all this is going on the Swiss Confederates, the best fighters in Europe bar mine, are beginning to feel leaned upon. And if they ever get together, God help us.’

  ‘I hope He will. And then what?’ Godscalc said. His inner eye saw it: the siege towers, the cannon. His inner eye had always plagued him.

  ‘Then we put up our prices,’ Astorre said. ‘Nicholas told us to stay on in Burgundy. I didn’t want to. But he was right. Is he here yet?’

  ‘Any day now,’ Tobie said, coming in.

  Then one evening Tobie came in alone. He shut the door meticulously at his back and stood and said, ‘He is here.’ His stillness, and the closed door, told the rest.

  Godscalc was very tired nowadays. Not in pain, but aware of the labour of lifting himself into full consciousness, and the relief of sinking back into sleep. Latterly every effort to return had been a rehearsal for this hour. For these moments. Do you want to leave me? Yes, but I dare not.

  So he looked up at Tobie, his grim, pink-faced companion and doctor, and replied to the warning, not the words. He said, ‘I know what to expect. That is why I wanted to see him. Did you think it was for myself?’

  And when Tobie had gone, and the door opened again, he said, without even waiting to see who it was: ‘I have to apologise, my child, for the inconvenience. But the appointment was not of my choosing.’

  It was Nicholas de Fleury, bending his head under the lintel and removing his hat. A large man, he was as quiet as an animal. Godscalc smiled, with a twist of the lips, waiting for him to move, to walk from the shadows. When he did, Godscalc searched the face he knew as well as his own.

  Yes.

  He said, ‘Sit. You look as tired as I am.’

  Nicholas said, ‘They didn’t tell me, before.’

  ‘You would still have gone to Scotland,’ Godscalc said. ‘Don’t be afraid. You won’t hurt me by telling me that you didn’t want to come now.’

  ‘I ought not to have come,’ Nicholas said. He had accepted Godscalc’s great chair and was hunched, his head lowered as if pondering. His eyes saw Godscalc’s hand on the coverlet, and he took it slowly in one of his, as if testing it.

  ‘You can do me no harm,’ Godscalc said. ‘You could lie, but I’d know it. You have been a pastor to me, and so I must be to you. By letting me speak, you will suffer me to perform the last act of my ministry, to the one I love best.’ He closed his hand on the fingers beneath it. ‘No, Nicholas.’

  The withdrawing hand stopped. Nicholas sat, his face averted, but did not move again. Godscalc could see his cheekbone, and the hint of nostril and nose, and the ends of his lashes. He saw when he opened his eyes.

  Godscalc said, ‘What brought us both here? A joyous adventure. Yourself, nameless, bereft, but with enough spirit to animate all this old town and its people. And enough compassion to take a woman and her fatherless family and make them part of your own upward flight.’

  Nicholas did not speak. The light illumined his neck: the arch that Donatello had drawn; the forms of bone and muscle that defined the flank of his face, of his jaw. He had never had beauty. It was craft that had gone to his making, as the sculptor – and others – had seen. And the lines were still clean and uncluttered and young.

  Godscalc said, ‘I remember Marian de Charetty, who also died happy. I remember the courage of the years that came after, and the agony at Trebizond when you strove to do what was right. I have heard of the tragedies of Rhodes and Famagusta, and how you overcame those, and the joy and the triumphs and the merriment you created as well. Not a man of those out there would have followed you otherwise. And in Africa –’

  Nicholas turned his head. He said, ‘No. That is why I did not wish to come.’ His eyes were dry, and grey-black as iron.

  Godscalc met them. He gathered his strength and spoke calmly. ‘ ’Tis often so. The worse the loss, the more unforgiving the anger. Umar did not want to leave you, or his wife, or his children. You think he should have told you, let you try to rescue him, or at least share his fate. Don’t you think he knew that? Don’t you think it belittles him, to resent what he did?’

  ‘I know that,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘With your mind only, I think. It is the first step, at least. But that is not all.’

  ‘It is enough,’ Nicholas said. He stood slowly, his hand gripping the frame of the chair. ‘Father, I don’t want to leave. Talk to me, but not about that.’

  ‘Not about why you are not only angry with God, but angry with the whole human race?’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘No? Angry, then, with your wife. Mortally angry with Jordan and Simon de St Pol, despite your own asseveration; and cruel to those caught in your quarrel. And, uniquely and finally, uncaring of all those around you, your familia: the people who have enabled you to rise, and who love you, and who depend on you, because you have been consumed with a longing for vengeance. Why? Shall I guess?’

  Nicholas said, ‘I changed, that is all. I became tired of living my life as a victim.’

  ‘And that is your answer? Is it possible,’ Godscalc said, ‘that you think I intend to tell anyone else what you and I are saying just now? Or that I can carry it anywhere in the morsel of time that remains? This is why I waited for you.’

  The lamp hissed. A wisp of smoke rose from the
brazier, brought to warm him although it was summer. Nicholas looked, too, as if all mortal warmth had been denied him. He took a step from the chair and then, turning, folded both arms along the high ridge of its back, and propped his bent brow on his thumbs. He said, ‘Your guess is probably right.’

  Godscalc said, ‘Then let me make it. What is the greatest pain I could conceive, that would drive you to idiocy? Only that the child is not yours. But perhaps Simon’s.’

  ‘You have it,’ said Nicholas. He didn’t move.

  Now Godscalc’s eyes were damp. He continued steadily. ‘He took the girl, then, by force?’

  ‘You know it couldn’t be that,’ Nicholas said, and disengaged from the chair with sudden impatience. Godscalc watched him. Of course it couldn’t. The consequences of rape would have been transparently simple. Victim, husband and child would be bonded together for life; and Simon de St Pol would be dead.

  Godscalc lay. You would say that in this brilliant, extraordinary man Gelis van Borselen had all anyone could want on this earth; that the unruly attraction between them was about to deepen into the companionship of which they both stood in need. She had shown her mettle in Africa. Godscalc himself had experienced the constancy of her care. Yet he had been disturbed even then, sensing turmoil, anguish even, under the sardonic calm.

  He had been unable to reach her, although she had wept, once, at his knee. He had stopped asking questions, fearing to drive her away: she had no parents, no siblings, no confidants. Only when she spoke to him of marriage had he begged her to search her own heart. He had been concerned for her, as well as for Nicholas.

  She had listened. She had even placed her doubts, as he had hoped, before Nicholas. Then in Scotland she had planned this cruel thing, from what desperation he could not imagine. And Simon de St Pol, from his shallow resources of pique and of vanity, had lent himself to her plan. Godscalc said, ‘Did Simon know what he was doing?’

  Nicholas said, ‘He knew she was going to marry me. I think, for him, that was amusement enough. I don’t believe he envisaged a child.’

  ‘So he doesn’t know about Henry. This is not his retaliation for Henry. It is hers.’

  ‘I take it so,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘But to reject you now? After Africa?’

  ‘I was always afraid,’ he said. ‘So was she.’

  That, of course, Godscalc had known; only he had never been sure of the reason. Now he said, ‘Afraid of what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Of ourselves. She had other fears. She never talked of them.’

  ‘But you didn’t expect this?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought I was safe.’

  I thought I was safe. The shadows moved. Sometimes the brazier seemed to steal all the air from the room. Sometimes Godscalc’s lids were so heavy that he had to rest them, and wait, as now, to lift them open again. When next he spoke, he chose his words with great care. ‘Sometimes a child will stoop to the unthinkable to test the depth of one’s love.’

  ‘To test it to destruction?’ said Nicholas. He seemed to be whispering. Then he must have turned, for he said roughly, ‘Ah, no. You know now what happened: it is done; it can’t be helped; it is wearying you. Godscalc, let me call Tobie.’ He was kneeling on the bed-step, and Godscalc felt both his hands around his.

  He withdrew one and touched the boy’s hair, and thought to draw him close, as when once before they waited together on the threshold of death; and thought that Nicholas wanted it, too. He said, ‘It can be helped, my dear son. You must know there is only one question that matters. I don’t ask what your wife feels for you. Perhaps you don’t know. But despite everything, behind everything, below everything, do you love Gelis still?’

  A distant door slammed. He felt the sound under his arm like a blow. Nicholas lifted his head and let Godscalc see his face, as if he no longer wanted to protect himself. Then he said, ‘Someone is coming.’

  Godscalc did not speak; not then, nor when the weight left his bed as Nicholas slowly knelt back, and stood, and then stepped down from the bed. Footsteps approached: the sickroom door opened quietly. Tobie stood there, his cherubic face scowling. Tobie said, ‘Father, I had to.’

  ‘I asked him to bring me,’ said Gelis van Borselen.

  Tending the dying, Tobias Beventini had faced many times the hard necessity of discriminating between one friend or another, of using what wisdom he had to detect when his patient was in need of peace or even when, suffering, needed his loved ones more than relief.

  He did not quite know what he was doing, bringing Gelis to the room where Nicholas de Fleury and his priest were alone. Nevertheless he believed, from what he had heard, that Godscalc had a right to speak for the last time to the formidable companion of his journey from Africa; and that she had a right to his blessing.

  Entering the room, he knew at once that Godscalc was spent. He also felt, more than saw, that something private was taking place, or had taken place; and that Godscalc felt it unfinished. He did not, therefore, as he might have done, either turn them all from the room, or ask Nicholas to take his last leave. He saw, in fact, that after the first shock, the eyes of Nicholas and the priest had returned to each other, and held still.

  Tobie said, ‘You are an obstinate old man, and you should have sent for me. Nicholas, sit down over there. Gelis, there. And be quiet, both of you, until I have finished.’

  ‘A bully,’ Godscalc remarked. He had found a special smile in the hollow face, among the thinned grey and white whiskers, for Gelis. Then he turned the smile, grown calm, grown calming, upon the man Nicholas.

  Busying himself with the cup, the flask, the drops, the sponges, Tobie saw them both, Gelis and her husband, as if through the back of his head. Or if he did not, he saw them reflected in the priest’s worn, smiling face.

  They had been told to be quiet, and they were. Gelis was still cloaked and hooded as she had come through the countryside, once they found her. Diniz had sent men searching far and wide. The cloak was wet, and her face, when she drew back the hood, was sharpened with the speed of the journey, but ravishing still, with its light eyes and fair hair. Nicholas half rose to help her, but she shook her head and cast the cloak back herself. The hem of her gown was stiff with mud.

  They both sat in shadow; he couldn’t hear either breathing. The eyes of Gelis moved between the bed and the person of her husband, black on black. Nicholas, after his first gesture, had not looked at her. Tobie, moving his clean hands in and out of the light, knew that Godscalc’s eyes were on his face, to test what he thought. What he thought was that he had never seen Nicholas de Fleury under such strain, and that Gelis herself had observed it.

  He took his time oyer his business; giving Godscalc some of the space that he needed, and robbing him of the space ahead, which Godscalc did not want, and he had no right to preserve for him. Then he turned and dried his hands, and said, ‘Gelis?’

  She rose. The face on the pillow, once hearty, once dogged, once boisterous, said, ‘Gelis, my dear. And Nicholas. Nicholas, stay.’

  Gelis looked at her husband. A quick look, hard to decipher.

  Nicholas said, ‘I would – yes. And Tobie? Tobie would like …’ His voice trailed into silence. Whatever he meant, it seemed that Godscalc understood it. Godscalc said, ‘I see. Then, of course, Tobie must stay.’

  Gelis was still looking at Nicholas. Then she turned and dropped to her knees by the bed and, after a moment, laid her cheek on the coverlet.

  Godscalc lifted a hand. He was looking not at the girl, but at Nicholas. Then he smiled and laid his fingers on the girl’s hair. He said, ‘Shall I be the bridge?’

  Tobie got up. ‘Don’t go,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘No. Don’t go,’ Godscalc said. ‘If there cannot be a bridge, or not yet, then surely we two, priest and physician, have still something to offer these children. Gelis?’

  She looked up. Her brow, white-skinned and polished, was seamed with short lines. She knelt back, her hand still in the crip
pled hand on the coverlet.

  Godscalc said, ‘There is not, I think, very much time. I am glad we four are here because, apart from all we owe one another, we share a secret. When I have gone, you three alone in this world will know of certainty that Nicholas has a son, and who the boy is. You know the dangers. You three, by your combined wisdom, will guide this child to manhood, from whatever distance; will think for him; and will do what is best for him, and not for you. I die trusting you to do that. Tobie?’

  ‘Yes, Father. Of course,’ Tobie said.

  ‘Nicholas? Whatever it means?’

  Nicholas walked to the side of the bed and knelt opposite Gelis, his wife. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said. He was looking at Gelis.

  ‘And Gelis?’

  ‘He is the son of my sister,’ she said.

  Godscalc waited. Tobie looked from him to Nicholas. Nicholas did not move. Gelis said, ‘My child is his cousin. In all I do, I shall make no distinction between them.’

  Tobie smiled and then lost the smile, looking at Godscalc. Godscalc said, ‘You did not bring me your child? I should have liked to bless him. Where is he?’

  She lifted her chin. ‘I shall send for him,’ she said. Across the bed, the grey gaze of Nicholas stayed unaltered.

  ‘Send Nicholas. He will bring him,’ said Godscalc.

  Tobie stirred. Godscalc’s deep eyes moved towards him, and he smiled. He said, ‘I am reminded of my mortality. Let me change what I ask.

  ‘Compared with Henry, your child, Gelis, will be fortunate. He has a young and beautiful mother who has learned from her sister’s mistakes, and forgiven them. In Nicholas he has a toy-maker, a gentle protector, a man born to give children the happiness he was denied. A man who, too, has learned from the past, and is able to begin afresh, with his wife. Umar’s family did not all live, but yours will. And so –’ His voice faded.