The Unicorn Hunt

by Dorothy Dunnett

  John said, ‘I don’t see it. He knew he was meeting Gelis tomorrow.’

  ‘Did he? That was what Ludovico da Bologna said. Do you trust Ludovico da Bologna?’

  ‘No. Nor would Nicholas. But he doesn’t tell absolute lies. He said tomorrow.’

  Tobie said, ‘But today is tomorrow. The new day starts at sunset. It’s tomorrow.’

  John gazed at him. He said, ‘So what else did he say? A place? Where you will not be disturbed.’

  ‘In a monastery?’ Tobie was thinking aloud. ‘She’ll be dressed as a man, it goes without saying; but hardly with a room of her own. Perhaps sharing one with the Patriarch, discreetly divided? Da Bologna could move out and let them meet there.’

  ‘But he didn’t say so,’ said John. Then he said, ‘He looked up. Tobie, da Bologna looked up. And Nicholas has taken a stave.’

  They found Ludovico da Bologna in the Latin chapel, reading to himself by candlelight from a sheaf of cut, unbound vellum. Pinned to the coloured mats on the walls were papers of perhaps lesser authority: amateur poems to St Catherine, left by her visiting pilgrims. The door opened so violently that mats and poems fluttered and flapped.

  The Patriarch said, ‘Shut the door, man. There’s wax everywhere.’ He turned round, keeping his place in the papers.

  ‘Where is she?’ said Tobie.

  ‘Where you think. Unlikely, isn’t it?’ said Ludovico da Bologna. ‘But if she was fool enough to climb, and he to follow, it’s their business, not yours.’

  ‘In the dark?’ John said.

  ‘It’ll be dawn before you could get there. Pilgrims climb in the dark. They sometimes stick. They sometimes lose heart halfway up and come back. They rarely fall off. Whatever was going to happen,’ said the Patriarch of Antioch, ‘will already have happened. Why not stay here, and I’ll put up a nice prayer?’

  Chapter 41

  ONCE UP IN the wind it was bitterly cold, and the chipped stars and faded moonlight chilled the spirit. She had been cold long before she set out.

  She had climbed Gebel Musa twice already, in daylight. She knew the slow way, the path that camels and asses could take. She knew the direct, punishing way, the Sikket Sayidna Musa, the path of Moses which led through the steep ravine at the back of the monastery to the foot of the mountain, and then by graded inclines to the well – the water of Moses – where, in sunlight, the sweet water was desperately welcome. It gave strength for the next ascent, to the narrow plateau upon which had been built a stone chapel.

  In the dark, now, she could hardly see it. But she had a good memory, and a sense of direction and of levels, and so far she had hardly stumbled. She rested a little, to keep her strength, then crossed the other ravine to the first of the gates. The tall stone archway at which, once, pilgrims were stopped to make their confession. There was no one there now.

  After that, she was glad that she was light-footed and strong, for the stiff climb began. From this point there were steps, over three thousand of them, mounting steeply to the night sky between the towering, slabby walls of the mountain, chill on either side in the darkness. There was no resting place, then, until the second arch, which led to the broad grassy slope on which were set the triple chapels of St Marina the Virgin, Elisha, and Elijah. The last place one could stop was a ledge just before the summit, where she remained for a moment, listening.

  There was no sound, before or behind. She was alone. She climbed the last hundred steps to the uneven spread of the pinnacle.

  In daylight, one made this final step burned by the sun, drenched with sweat, aching and breathless from the climb, from fear of the height, from wonder at what one could see of the world laid below. The Mount inhabited by God and frequented by angels, where trumpets rang, and the Lord spoke unto Moses.

  The Mount of the Law, to which men looked for justice.

  It was not flat. There were boulders and recesses and an ancient chapel ritually used by the monks but now locked for security against the insults of rambling parties, as Ludovico da Bologna had warned. He had brought her to Sinai, because it suited him. It suited Anselm Adorne, it suited de Salmeton to know what was happening. They all had an interest in Nicholas de Fleury.

  She had watched him walk into the monastery. With more patience than any lookout of old, beset by armies, she had crouched by the wall-walk and gazed, hour after hour, when she came back from her climbing. Long before the monastery servants, she saw the approaching dark smudge of the Mamelukes, sparkling with steel. She knew, when he stopped them out of sight, that he did not want St Catherine’s to guess how few they were, in case they refused him. Then she saw him walking up to the door.

  She recognised the men with him, whom she had expected. The journey had changed them. His own face at first was unclear, although she watched him intently. When he arrived under her gaze and stood still, she saw, stripped in the light, at last, what the Patriarch saw. And her mind also spoke that single word of misgiving.

  Wait.

  Wait, before I open this door. This is not the man I expected. This is not the danger I expected. This is something unknown.

  Now, the wind shrieked in the darkness, and around her was space, and the presence, unseen, of age-old rock and precipice. If Mount Sinai touched heaven, heaven was desolation. Desolation and anger were what she had brought. In both, she was expert. Gelis van Borselen, dame de Fleury, wrapped her cloak about her, and sat down, and waited.

  The sound, when it came, was infinitesimal but she knew that what she had heard, far below her, was a small fall of rock. Presently she saw, in the blackness, a minute comma of fire swaying, bobbing: a brand in the distance. A comma; a sentence. He was coming.

  She had a talisman. Nothing tangible: a series of words, a few scenes. Because of them, she had never lost her resolve, and would not lose it now. As the sounds of movement came closer, she stood. One man’s footsteps, irregular because of the irregular rock, and interspersed with the click and thud of a stave. The brighter light of a brand; a burning brand, certainly consumed and therefore several times refreshed, and held by the same person: there was no guide, no servant here. And then, immense in the darkness, moving up the final few steps, streaming with fire and with shadow, her opponent. She heard his breathing.

  At the top he came to rest, as if waiting. He had paused before; she had heard the delays. He was not in a hurry. She thought of stepping forward; forcing him into premature speech, but she knew him too well. Unless it suited him, he wouldn’t respond. And when he did respond, every word would have its place in the game. The resumed game. The different game.

  All this time he was looking at her; one sexless, anonymous figure facing another across the limited space. When at length he moved, he merely walked forward two paces and stopped again. Then he lifted the torch, the sleeve falling back from the vertical line of his forearm. It was like the signal for the launch of a race, or for the start of a series of contests. The light sped across her face and his own, identifying them to each other. The face was the face of the man she had seen below; stony in its concentration. Then he drew back his arm, and hurled first the brand, then his stick into the darkness.

  They dropped, the stick first, the other lumbering wrapped in its flame. Finally they both tilted and fell, jerked about in the wind like spent arrows. Fire-dust lingered in snatches, then went out, leaving absolute darkness, and cold.

  He said, ‘C’est alors la fin? J’espère que oui.’

  I take it this is the end? I hope so.

  She used the same elegant language they both spoke. ‘The end of what, mon époux? Of our match, after only two years? Of life? Hardly.’

  The word was licked from her tongue by the wind. She could hear his uninflected voice through the bluster of sound. ‘Comme il te plaît. I am armed; so are you.’

  The knife lay out of sight under her girdle. She said, ‘I protect myself. What other end do you mean?’

  ‘The end of deception,’ he said. He waited. ‘You have brought your
wrongs here, and me to hear them.’

  ‘And then you will use your dagger?’ she said.

  Until then, they had been standing. Now she saw, as the sky emptied behind him, that he had found a rock, and had lowered himself upon it. It was not far away, but not threatening. He said, ‘You wouldn’t have come if you thought that.’

  ‘I considered it,’ she said. She felt able, now, to move to a ledge and sit down herself. Her limbs trembled. She said, ‘But I have the child.’

  ‘So you say,’ he said. ‘Did Simon ask you to go back to Scotland?’

  She had realised, in the last few moments, that it was possible that she was going to die. She had seen the change, as the Patriarch had, but had not understood it. She clenched her teeth to still them. Then she said evenly, ‘He usually does. As you see, I refuse.’

  ‘You should have gone,’ he said; and sounded amused. Then he said, ‘It’s cold. Let’s get it over with. Why the drowning in Cairo? Revenge for Lucia, of course. But why not the long game? Because you can’t pretend there’s a child any longer?’

  ‘Drowning?’ she said. Faintly, she could distinguish his features. The mask was not one she knew. He was holding something in his hand.

  He said, still amused, ‘You know nothing of it. It was arranged by Tzani-bey’s sister. But you recognise this?’

  She was too wise to move. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Your wedding ring. From David de Salmeton.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ she said. ‘I wanted you to know I was alive. I didn’t know you were going to give in. That is really what you mean? You can’t keep up? You want to end it?’

  ‘I am going to end it,’ he said. ‘But first, I want to know why you did it. I want to hear you admit there is no child. That is all.’

  She could see his face. She could see the rocks growing distinct all about him. She could see the gold in his hand. He suddenly stood.

  So did she. She said, ‘Then listen. My object is to remind you of pain, as often as possible, and for as long as possible. Barring accidents, therefore, I am not likely to shorten my programme. If Alessandra Strozzi writes to you, you will know that I have said so already. You may believe it.’

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I know you hate me. I thought you would want me to learn why.’

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that I shall tell you at another time, in another place. At the end of my choosing.’

  ‘And the child?’

  She smiled. Always, the child. She said, ‘You doubt the existence of Jordan de Fleury, eighteen months old and walking? I brought you a lock of his hair. Give me the ring, and you may have it.’ She took the little pack from her sleeve and held it, unopened.

  The sky was opal; the gable crosses of the little church outlined against it. She could see Nicholas some small distance away, standing with rock-like stillness as if in prayer, or awaiting a mystical experience, except that his hands were not joined, but placed hard over his arms.

  ‘Univiva, unicuba et virginia,’ he said. ‘My unsullied bride: no.’

  The sky brightened. He did not move. He had guessed.

  ‘Then let the wind take it,’ she remarked; and slipping her fingers into the little pack, eased it open and held it aloft. The gesture was not unlike his own. The slip emptied, in a whiff of gold fluff.

  His darkened eyes followed the sparkle, while his hand idly fingered the ring. He said, ‘And that is all the proof you have to offer, here on the mountain of law?’ The roof of the chapel behind him was rosy. Behind and below, like the seething, chopped tides of the sea, combers of violet and red were emerging.

  She said, from a sudden fear which manifested itself as crude anger, ‘Should I have brought you his head?’

  ‘Whose head would you have brought, I wonder?’ Nicholas said; and bounced the ring in his palm. He closed his fist over it. ‘False to false. It would have been the right coinage.’

  She said nothing. He was looking at her. He said, ‘If you know I can divine, you know that I couldn’t fail to recognise a deception.’

  ‘It was the boy’s hair,’ she said. ‘You have never seen him.’

  ‘It was not from any child born of you,’ Nicholas said. His voice, suspended in the great spaces about them, was quite calm. ‘So it means the child doesn’t exist. We have uncovered one truth, at least.’

  The wind blew, and stirred her cut hair. She had to decide, now, quickly, whether she believed in his powers; and then how to play this hand he had dealt her. She said, ‘He does exist. I didn’t want you to trace him. I hoped you couldn’t divine.’

  ‘And yet you burned what I sent him?’ he said. He added, ‘It argues, certainly, that he existed last year. Or a substitute you didn’t want found.’ He paused. ‘Or again, if there was no child, there was no need for a toy.’

  The song, faltering in the flames. How had he known? But of course, he had Simon followed. She said again, ‘He does exist.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. He turned aside a little. She couldn’t tell whether it was in agreement, or caused by some other thought. He said, ‘You need him to appear to exist, to control me. Otherwise I should hardly be here, for example. But as you see, I am beginning to demand more proof than that. And if you really do have a son, you will require to produce him at some time in any case, to bear my name and inherit my fortune. So why not now?’

  ‘To save him from you. You tried to kill Simon,’ she said.

  The sun swam above the horizon. He stood, outlined in burning red, and looked down on her.

  ‘But he is not Simon’s son,’ Nicholas said.

  She looked at him.

  He sighed: perhaps in impatience; perhaps from something else. His voice when he spoke was still colourless. ‘I have some experience of women,’ he said. ‘I know about Simon: how he managed fatherhood in his youth but never again, despite all those years of assiduous profligacy. The birth of Henry restored all his confidence, but no successors have come. It is unbearable to him. He lies.’

  ‘He has admitted it to you?’ she said.

  ‘No.’ He turned, ‘It is not difficult to prove, if one takes trouble. He is sterile.’

  ‘He was my lover,’ she said. With an effort, she, too, kept her voice tranquil.

  ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘But the child you bore is my son, not Simon’s. You hoped at first that I’d harm it. When it was born, perhaps you found some pity for it. You have jewels enough.’

  ‘Jewels?’ she said.

  ‘I –’ he said, and stopped; she didn’t know why. Then he resumed, in the same voice as before. ‘If that is so, then let me reassure you. I know that he is my child.’

  The sun, vast and red, had no heat in it. She didn’t refute it. There was no reason, now. She said musingly, ‘You knew all the time? Or suspected, and then testing, testing, became gradually certain. How typical, Nicholas. No one can tell, then, what you would have done to a true child of Simon’s. Drowned it, perhaps? Set the dogs on it?’

  He said, ‘I could have forgiven you had it been Simon’s.’

  The air they breathed was dyed red. Her throat closed. It made a sound, opening.

  ‘And now …?’ she said. ‘You came, you said, to make an end. But without me, you won’t find the boy. Not for years. By the time you find him, he will be someone else’s, like Henry.’

  ‘I might risk that,’ he said. But he had paused, for a moment, before speaking.

  She spoke quickly, then. ‘What would you give, Nicholas, to share his childhood? Isn’t that what you are bargaining for, now that you know he is yours? And the stakes, surely, are higher. What would you give now to see him?’

  He didn’t move. ‘I am sure you are going to tell me the price.’

  ‘Nothing impossible. The gold that you and Anselm Adorne think is here. You will, of course, have to find it before him; and remove it somehow from the monastery and transmit it to wherever I am.’

  ‘You are leaving?’

  ‘I thought the Patriarch would h
ave told you. He and I are leaving this morning. Unless you take another decision.’

  She watched him. Her life depended on what she had said, and how she had said it. On what he believed. On where they were.

  He said, ‘I gave you half of all I have. I see that even that is not enough.’

  Then he said, ‘I see you have bought time and, you hope, your life.’

  She said, ‘I had a knife, too.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘I should never kill where I love. And only simpletons kill where they hate. So I am to find Ochoa’s gold and give it to you? How should I find you?’

  ‘By the ring,’ she said. ‘But you would have to return it to me.’

  He stood, his head bronzed, his face with the still, Celtic look she could not always remember. After a while he said, ‘Then give me your hand.’

  Now it had come. Good or bad, the outcome was fixed. She stood while he crossed the short distance between them, and took her hand, and fitted the ring on her finger. The metal was cold. Then he said, ‘There was a ritual, the last time I did this.’

  The embrace was all she expected: insult, threat, preliminary to what he had decided to do. His hands took hold of her back and her arm, forcing her close. She had started to pluck out her dagger but at this stage, it could be no more than a token. His grasp prevented a strike: she could do no more than maintain the point against the folds of his clothing. If she had wanted to kill him, she would have had to do it much earlier, in the dark.

  His eyes were open. She held them; conveying all she felt of resistance without attempting to struggle against his continuing, altering touch. His remembered touch. By shape, by texture, by context she recognised one by one small familiarities to do with his hands, with his cheek, with his lips. In place of the intellectual game she was playing, a physical template suddenly locked sighingly into another; as if, lulled by instinct, this nerve or that muscle had begun to soften and sink. They stood, enclosed within an invisible mould, private to them, and sealed tight. The sky flamed and far below them, acre upon acre, the mountains flickered, welling into the light. They were on the Mount of the Lord; and the edge was one step away.