The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  He lay and looked at them from under his lids. One doorframe emitted dank air, and provided a glimpse of a passage. Beyond the other, receding into darkness, was what appeared to be a chain of other cells, each communicating with the next. All were open.

  The rooms looked like his own, although he could not swear he saw steps. Still, there might be trap-doors in their ceilings with locks and frames weak enough to be forced. When he had first arrived, he had repeatedly tried and failed to break open this one. Now he lay for a long time, breathing irregularly. The truth was, he was unwilling to think. He found he resented this tampering with his options. He had conceded. Gelis ought to be satisfied.

  In any case, there were other entirely practical obstacles to do with his feet. There was also the fact that he did not know which way to travel. Someone had opened the doors. If he waited, they would come for him. With a handcart, perhaps.

  No one came. He woke from a long dream, uttering a name, and found the torch had gone out. He lay a while longer, entertaining some sort of internal dispute, after which he felt impelled to gather his limbs with distaste and drag himself clumsily forward. He made for the door to the cellars which, of course, he could no longer see. Matins of Darkness.

  He drew himself across the threshold and lay, his head on his arms, listening to a distant chirping of rats, who. were presumably communicating with each other in archaic Egyptian, not French. They squeaked over a range of three notes, the middle being a quarter tone up from B. He could not seem to find any numbers. He was a sifr. A zero. An empty space in a long, faint row of figures. He sank into a suspension of consciousness and became less than nothing.

  He dreamed he met Osiris, God of the Afterworld, to whom he explained, against his better judgement, that he was not ambitious of the honour of martyrdom, and was therefore going home. Osiris called him an unthrifty, changeable hoor. They were both speaking Scots.

  Look on the face of Love; that you may be properly a man.

  Do not, at least, run away.

  Chapter 38

  IT WAS THE fifteenth day of August, the day of the Feast of the Assumption, and the Nile, rising, stood at last at the Great Mark that meant harvest, and life.

  Cairo, Metropolis of the Universe, lies between deserts, and the Ceremony of the Abundance of the Nile, the Wafa el-Nil, was the crown of its year, for it marked the moment when the mighty river, travelling for hundreds of days from its unknown source in the Earthly Paradise, delivered the mysterious summer inundation whose rich black mud, spreading into the fields, would nourish corn and cotton and sugarcane, bean and date palm, watermelon and cresses, and feed the children of Egypt that year.

  The mud and the water which – dashing along aqueducts, rushing into cisterns and wells and springing through sluices and channels – turned the baked land into lakes and moated parterres and nielloes of dancing, glittering silver, of fresh sweet water come, like a miracle, in the parched height of summer.

  When, on the fifteenth of August, the Watchers on the island of Roda saw the water had risen to fifteen cubits and sixteen qirats on the Nilometer, the thirty-two feet or qefa of tradition, they rode shouting and clashing their cymbals through the city and up to the Citadel, upon which the Sultan Qayt Bey caused it to be announced that the Ceremony of the Abundance of the Nile would take place that day. Retiring, he donned his ceremonial many-horned turban (known as the Syrian Water-Wheel), and prepared to ride out to his parade ground on his white horse with the golden saddle and stirrups, and his harness with the great pearls, and three rubies the size of fowls’ eggs upon his back saddle-bow. (Allah be praised.)

  The word came to the people. As the Heralds and Criers rode about town, the workshops closed, the stewards of rich merchants hung out precious cloths, and the women put their children into fine tunics and slippers. The cooks burned their fingers packing their ovens and filling the vats full of oil for the pastries; while all those who sold in the markets made sure that their best goods were prepared to set out for the evening, when the children of Cairo (Allah be thanked, it is the Wafa el-Nil) would be hungry.

  Meanwhile the emirs of ten and five thousand, the Heads of Alleys, the Masters of the Sword and the Pen began to gather up at the Citadel, where the young men were already practising their drill, and the senior Mamelukes were racing back from their privileged lodgings, their blackamoors scampering alongside with their weapons. The great emirs paced in more slowly: the Grand Emir Yachbak; the Second Emir of twenty thousand lances; the Emir Akhor, the Comptroller; the Agents of the Exchequer; the official Bearer of the Sultan’s Slippers; the Katib al Sirr, the Clerk of the Secrets. The Emir Madjlis, the Master of Ceremonies was everywhere. The tall fringed caps looked like a flock of red lanterns; the turbans like puffs of smoke, or piled curds, or sugar-cones shawled in black; the shot and watered silks glimmered and the swords flashed to make the eye water, while the kettledrums prattled and barked and the trumpets assaulted the ear. (Allah alone is omnipotent, who has sent us this joy.)

  It had all been prepared. Only the precise date could not be told beforehand, or the extent of the flood. The best might still be to come: a height of eighteen cubits, nineteen perhaps, if the fire-signals from upriver were to be believed. More than twenty, if it came, was not a blessing. But Allah disposed.

  The sun rose. In the city, the guests of the second degree began to assemble: heads of guilds, nobles and sons of Mamelukes, Men of the Turban. Then merchants from the superb Islamic khans: the Persians, Syrians, Turks. Then such folk as the Maghgribis, the Alexandrians, the converted Christians, the Jews and Copts from Old Cairo, those Franks who were being discreetly shown favour. The pilgrims. The lower classes.

  Those who could not afford boats lined the alleys, climbed to roof-tops and packed into upper rooms that shook and trembled over the alleys. The privileged guests made their way to the river where the Sultan’s ceremonial barges covered the water. Under the awnings, their gilding seemed mellow as honey. The guests began to climb in. They included an emir of mechanical interests and a Syrian dealer in alum. Between them, in snow-white headcloth and elegant galabiyya, walked David de Salmeton, with the Portinari merchant Abderrahman ibn Said at his elbow.

  They were seen. Across the carpet of boats, from an ancient felucca with an awning of canvas, Jan Adorne tugged the sleeve of his father’s coarse robe. ‘Look at that! Why not us?’

  His cousin Katelijne said, ‘You know why. He’s an agent of the Vatachino but your father is here to represent Genoa. Genoa.’ Her voice, muffled by veiling, was impatient. Jan had never admired her: she made him feel dilatory; she reinforced, by her presence, his father’s impression that he was lazy. He hadn’t been allowed home in five years. It wasn’t his fault if she was made to wind up like a spring. Like a kite. She had got into trouble over that.

  Lambert chimed in. Lambert said, ‘Don’t be silly, Jan. The Sultan has to keep in with the Venetians.’ He smiled foolishly at Katelijne. Lambert was Jan’s second cousin and an ally, except where girls and beards were concerned. They had a running series of bets over both.

  Jan said, ‘He got rid of Claes soon enough, when Father complained. And their red-headed Scotsman isn’t doing much business. Doesn’t the House of Niccolò count as Venetian? Maybe it doesn’t.’

  John de Kinloch and Meester Reyphin both smiled, but his father said angrily, ‘Be quiet, all of you.’ When the Chief Dragoman called over in greeting, he hardly answered. Preparing for the afternoon’s journey had made the Baron Cortachy thin and bad-tempered, and his beard, now it had attained some dimension, had white threads in the fairness. Certainly, there had been a lot to arrange, and the emirs and the Dragoman had kept changing the rules until at last, with an oath, his father had actually thrown away the bundle of dog-eared notes he had inherited from Great-uncle and Grandfather as if they had become so much rubbish. Of course, things had changed. And Grandfather and his brother had been on a different mission. One less complicated. Nothing could be more complicated th
an this one. Jan Adorne groaned, and saw Lambert grin. Lambert knew what he was groaning about.

  The processional route from the Citadel to the river being three miles in length (no one in his senses in Cairo built next to the river) the sun was quite high by the time the Royal Saddlecloth emerged by the water, followed by the musicians and pages in yellow silk; the Mameluke Guard; the Standard-bearer; the singers; and finally the Mace and Poniard and Parasol of State, under which appeared Qayt Bey’s immense snowy beard glowing saffron. The elephants had recently died, but a good proportion of his hunting cats were represented, followed by the glittering cavalcade of the Mamelukes. The noise was annihilating, and reached its zenith as the Sultan, dismounting, took his place in the floating chamber, pillared in gold, carpeted in jewelled silks which, unfolding its cloth-of-gold sail, proceeded to undertake the brief sail to the designated place of the Ceremony. Twelve hundred boats followed.

  The Syrian dealer in alum said, ‘Is the heat too much? We shall be there very soon. I fear my words have not entertained you.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said the trader Abderrahman ibn Said. ‘In Timbuktu the flood reaches the cutting in January; it would have arrived in Mopti the previous autumn but, being larger, spreads widely and slowly. We rejoice for the Joliba, as you do for the Nile.’ He spoke, since his companion was silent. Messer David de Salmeton was of course an astute man, but did not have the finesse of Messer Tommaso. At present, he was gazing elsewhere. Ibn Said saw that he was looking at two following boats. One held a group of Christian pilgrims dressed as Copts. The other seemed of no consequence, containing artisans flying the guild flag of the boatbuilders, together with a number of excited young women whose chatter and shrill ululations pierced through their veils. Then he saw a face that he knew, and another.

  Alexandria. The two men were well hooded and robed, but he placed them at once. He said, in a quiet voice, ‘You see them, Messer David? Ser Niccolò’s agent, le Grant; and beside him the doctor, Tobias.’

  ‘I see them,’ said de Salmeton. He spoke slowly.

  A thought struck the Maghgribian, and he turned back to the boat with the Copts. Of course. He knew this party too. They were protégés of the Chief Dragoman in the next vessel. He began, ‘Why, that is –’

  The other, interrupting, finished his thought. ‘Sir Anselm Adorne and his friends, enjoying their fill of Cairene curiosities. Their last opportunity, I believe. They leave for Mount Sinai tonight. Do you envy them?’

  Ibn Said gave a delicate shudder. ‘I say he is a brave man. Moreover, not one I should like for an enemy.’

  ‘You are thinking of what he was made to endure in Alexandria?’ de Salmeton said. ‘Don’t you think M. de Fleury deserved whatever reprimand he has received?’

  ‘It depends,’ said Abderrahman ibn Said, looking once more, with curiosity, at the boat which flew the guild flag. ‘He is not there. They have expelled him from Cairo, perhaps. They have warned his friends to have nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said David de Salmeton. ‘Perhaps his friends also long to go to Mount Sinai, and are content to leave him behind. Perhaps he wearies them.’

  He had never experienced blindness, but he had worked on night campaigns many times and, provided he could concentrate his attention, could measure time as if by the hour-glass. By the end of one such invisible span he had progressed through two cellars. It did not sound much, but it included a disastrous ascent of the steps by which David de Salmeton had left, and a final determined attempt to force the trap-door.

  For a moment it had given way, and he had caught his breath as light appeared. Then, tearing itself from his grasp, the hatch had been flung back by strong hands from above, and against the square of terrifying light had loomed an unknown head and shoulders, and a pair of powerful hands, and a stick. The first blow struck him aside; then the man, jumping down, beat him to the bottom of the steps and, grunting, left him. He himself had, by that time, made a great many offers and tried, weakly, a great many memorable tricks, none of which had any effect. From the floor, he saw the fan of light shrink as the trap was shut and locked once again, and he was in darkness. All he had gained was the knowledge that upstairs, in the real world, it was daylight.

  After a bit, he had reached an agreement with himself to abandon that room, and see what he could discover elsewhere. The answer so far was nothing; not even a ladder. Nevertheless he intended to proceed to the end, for the lack of draught denoted an end. Then he would return, and try the passage. Lastly, he would attempt to dismantle the steps. It would have been quicker to walk, but the only time he had tried that, he had fainted.

  He began, like a child receiving a rusk, to contemplate anger.

  Only the great emirs, the imams and the Mamelukes disembarked with the Sultan on the island of Roda (where, the Rumi pretended, Pharaoh’s daughter had found some child of their faith in the rushes). Two miles long, riding the Nile like a galley close to the shore of Old Cairo, Roda had once housed the Mameluke army. Its southern half still erupted, here and there, with the remains of the towers that had once surrounded its barracks, but most of the brick had been cleared for the summer palace and garden to which, duty over, the Sultan would repair for his feast. His first task, however, was to lead the way to the Nilometer.

  Since the time of the Pharaohs, a measure had stood, a subterranean column sunk in the southernmost tip of this island. Its base, a millstone, was set at great depth, lower still than the bed of the river. Enclosing both pillar and base was a spacious rectangular building too magnificent to be considered a well, lined with steps and pierced by three tunnels which led to the river, each at a different height. In the centre of this, its weight on the stone, stood the ancient pillar of measure itself.

  The pillar and its encasement were presently six hundred years old. Those who had engraved its deep marks had done so only five hundred years after the Romans, two centuries after Constantinople had ruled. Then, as now, the Nile was the bringer of life.

  Because the measure stood largely underground, the golden cap of its cupola seemed no more than mushroom-high among the almond blossom and palms of the island; its drum, inlaid with precious materials, having the form of an elegant pleasure-house. Having prayed, the Sultan stepped through the bronze doors and took his place on the concourse within. There the deep pool brimming about the pale, octagonal pillar, the water-light rippling over the surfaces of glass and ceramic, the sun glowing through the ring of carved windows presented indeed the aspect of a summer kiosk. The gentle flux, always moving, kissed the ancient pillar and rare scents beguiled the senses: musk and rose, violet and hyacinth. Light from above and below illuminated the heavy cross-beam with its invocations, and chased the other inscriptions in stone that banded the pit: Hast thou not seen how that God has sent down out of Heaven water, and in the morning, the earth becomes green?

  This the Sultan saw. But soon enough, when planting and harvest were over, the waters would recede, and the Watchers, unlocking the door, would step into a foul and echoing chamber, its depleted pit streaming with slime; the upper exquisite arches of its conduits exposed and empty of life. So, when life returned, one rejoiced.

  The Sultan emerged, and the Criers announced that the Abundance of the Nile was confirmed. The people cheered, and the feasting began.

  ‘You can’t be feeling sick,’ said Jan Adorne, relieving his cousin Katelijne none the less of her uneaten melon. ‘The water’s hardly moving. You could walk from here to the shore on the boats.’ A man, proving the point, came clambering over with two handfuls of smoking kofta on skewers.

  ‘Leave her alone. It’s the heat,’ said Anselm Adorne. ‘Look, the Mamelukes are beginning to move. They’ll be setting off soon. Katelijne, do you want to see the next part? We could go home, if you like. Perhaps you should rest a little before we set out.’

  Jan looked at Lambert. ‘We couldn’t,’ he said. ‘How could we, until it’s all over? She’ll be all right.’

&nbs
p; ‘I’ll be all right,’ Katelijne echoed. Because she wasn’t eating, she kept her veil down. She sounded grim rather than sick. Jan was annoyed, personally. After the Sultan came out of the Nilometer he had seen David de Salmeton escorted across to the island, and some of the chief Muslim merchants; even the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria, a party of Copts, and the Greeks from Abu Sarga and the church of St Barbara, the favourite saint of the Duchess Margaret’s mother. They were all sitting in the flowery shade beside the Nilometer, enjoying the Sultan’s choice table.

  They were so close he could see the Vatachino agent gazing at him between every supercilious bite. Or perhaps he was gazing at de Fleury’s men, who sat passively in their boat among the artisans and their wives, holding something they had bought from the pickle-vendors. Once his father had made to call to them, but had apparently changed his mind. Katelijne ignored them.

  On the island, people were stirring at last. The emirs with yellow sashes were those favoured, he had been told, on the sports field. They played horse games with six hundred people. He saw the Greeks get to their feet, and a surge of the pale blue turbans of the Copts. He recognised, at a distance, Brother Lorenzo, who was to guide them to Sinai. He saw, with despair, that the Sultan was going to pray again. The men surrounding the ruler were the imams from the theological college on whom the Sultan’s luck depended. He was always improving their buildings. Jan said, ‘If you don’t want that mutton?’ to Katelijne.

  The Ceremony of the Abundance was one which greatly moved al-Ashraf Qayt Bey, for all the many times he had attended it in his sixty-odd years, although only two of them as Sultan. His predecessor, that model of vanity Khushcadam, had much preferred the second ceremony, the flamboyant Act, which he was now embarking to perform. It was, as usual, difficult to clear space for his barque, even though the Mamelukes did their best. He saw, but tried not to let it disturb him, that alcohol had been circulating once more, and the soldiers just out of his sight were becoming rowdy and careless in the use of their whips.