The Unicorn Hunt: The Fifth Book of the House of Niccolo by Dorothy Dunnett
He led the way down the nave, noting the February ikon askew, and the exquisite smell of the Sultan’s new incense. The Franks behind him were wealthy. One of them had brought a girl. He was worldly enough to know when it happened; his monks were naïve and noticed little, and he used his own discretion, provided proper conduct was observed. He did not propose to emulate the brotherhood which had protested that its well, unless specially tended, had the misfortune to turn men into women.
The Franciscan, Ludovico da Bologna, had brought a woman as well, and had taken her away. But he had confessed, and explained, and left an offering.
The Abbot, reaching the end of the nave, passed beyond the low marble balustrade into the chancel and turned. His vestments rustled. He supposed they had only seen him before in patched black, or in his floured bakehouse apron. Soaring behind him in the vault of the apse was one of the glories of Christendom: the mosaic of the Transfiguration, old as the church. He saw the light from above it fall on the upturned faces before him. The singing began, and he took up his candle.
Saint Ekaterina would forgive him if he pondered now and then, through the ritual. They prayed. He led them from altar to altar over white marble and blue, while they marvelled at the holy legends set like damask under their feet, and the holy pictures thick with gold all about them. In the Burning Bush chapel, where it was forbidden to enter with shoes, he saw that the Venetian Fleming had made use of his indulgence, and walked on woollen hose. His manner was reverent. The attitude of both parties had been grave and tense, rather than elevated. The girl who called herself Stephen knelt by the marble under which the Roots still reposed, and stared at the Venetian’s feet.
The hose were not, of course, in contravention. Wool was permitted. The man had said, smiling, that he had left his soles on Mount Sinai and did not propose to go back to get them. The Abbot knew that was true. The woman had come down the mountain, but the man had stepped aside to the chapel of St Marina halfway. (St Marina, the holy virgin who had passed her life as a monk. How odd. Had he known?) At any rate, the man had been brought down in the end by the Franciscan Patriarch and his friends.
The Latin Patriarch. It was nearly time to open the Coffin. The Abbot had known Ludovico da Bologna for a long time; as had Lorenzo. The Latin Patriarch was a friend of the great Cardinal Bessarion. The Patriarch had been, in his time, a protégé of Pope Eugenius and his successor Calixtus, who had favoured Ferrante of Naples and who had led the Aragonese to the Council of Florence, that failed attempt to join the Eastern Church to that of the West. (Typically, the Coptic delegate from St Antony’s had arrived late.)
Ludovico da Bologna had lived for a considerable time in Jerusalem. He had spent years on missions in the East, and had taken Ethiopians and Byzantines and Persians to Rome. He had tried to travel to Ethiopia, and had encouraged this man Nikolaus to attempt it as well. While repelled by the Patriarch’s habits, the Abbot could not wholly decry what he was doing.
It was time to open the Coffin. He made a sign for the hymn, ‘Let us praise the divine Ekaterina,’ to be followed in due course by the Kontakion and the Megalynarion. The merchant Nikolaus at least, one supposed, would understand them.
The final resting place of the ever-memorable Ekaterina, once Dorothea, was under an arch to the right of the altar. Standing at man’s height from the ground, the marble coffin was small, the insatiable hunger for holy relics having diminished the sacred frame through the centuries. Nevertheless, as always, the Abbot felt an echo of the terror, the compassion that had seized him when, a young man, he had stood thus, and watched the magnificent cloth lifted aside and the great key inserted and turned by the Sacrist. And men of the world though they might be, the pilgrims standing there now with their tapers on each side of the tomb were also reduced to a deep, waiting silence. The girl-boy, though brave, was painfully white. The key clicked and the Sacrist drew back the lid.
The nobleman, Adorne, Baron Cortachy, began to move forward. The Abbot, leading his monks to the coffin, saw the movement from the side of his eye, and the hand of the Sacrist restraining the gentleman. Only when the brethren had made their reverences would the pilgrims be allowed to approach and salute the Saint, and touch to the relics the precious articles they had brought to be blessed, while dropping their offerings into the casket. For those who had brought no rings, no medals, the convent supplied snippets of silk, soaked in the precious oil of the sanctuary lamps, and touched to the bones. The oil itself, with all its healing properties, could also be carried away. Pilgrims came to Saint Ekaterina through much suffering, and were not sent away empty-handed … for she preached Christ in the stadium, and trampled upon the serpent, and spat upon the knowledge of the philosophers, sang his monks triumphantly, waiting behind him. The Abbot bent over the Coffin.
All was as it should be. The beautiful diadem ringed the fragile skull, lacking the jawbone. The left hand lay, white as milk, its long fingers adorned with fine rings. The curved ribs and the disarticulated leg bones lay under silk, rendered the colour of honey from the fragrant oils they once exuded. Around, in cups and caskets and boxes, were the precious gifts left for the Saint. No man, even the humblest, ever left less than a ducat.
The Abbot kissed the holy fingers, and stepped aside as his monks followed suit. Then, as was fitting, he summoned the chief of each party of pilgrims, the man Adorne and the merchant Nikolaus, to stand one to each side of the Coffin and, setting their candles aside, to stoop and pay their respects.
They stood looking instead at each other. The dazzling riches below lit their faces, causing the Abbot to admire the tableau: the brilliant carved tomb; the two fine men, one older, one young, their features made spiritual by the light, and by the fatigue of their long and difficult journey. Then the younger one, his face luminous, spoke two words in Latin. ‘You may have it.’
‘So I thank you. Where have you hidden the rest?’
It was unseemly. The Abbot spoke sharply in Greek. ‘Do you worship? Or do you return to your quarters?’
‘We worship,’ said the younger one quickly; and, bending, kissed the Saint and moved on. The other, hesitating, did the same; and then paused to empty his satchel and present its contents, deftly, one by one to the relics. It was done with reverence; indeed, his expression throughout was one of concentration mingled with something like anguish. His son’s gaze, fixed on him, was anxious; and the stripling looked ready to faint.
The Abbot did not speak, and remained at his post as they made their reverences in due course and moved on. He stood with the Council of Fathers while each of the remaining guests stepped up and bent, and did his duty. His eyes, from the first moment, had remained on the article the Fleming had noticed and to which, he was certain, his remarks appertained. An ostrich egg. An ostrich egg cleaned and mounted, in the manner of those which hung from the ceiling. An ostrich egg filled with gold grains.
That, at least, was what appeared to be the object of contention. There was another egg, from the same donor, as the Abbot happened to know. But that held nothing at all but a small inlaid box with some flakes of soap in it.
Comely virgin-martyr, intoned the brethren, watching avidly. By thy godly wisdom didst thou vanquish the enemy.
The last pilgrim stooped and fumbled, the last ducat or two shivered its way down with the rest.
Decked in grace and virtue, O Ekaterina, thou camest with joy to thine Immortal Bridegroom; O maid of God.
‘My lord Abbot?’ said the Sacrist.
‘They have gone? Lock the Coffin,’ said the Abbot. ‘But give me the key.’
‘He raised his voice,’ Jan Adorne said. ‘My father. In the Abbot’s quarters. I’m supposed to be training for the Church.’
‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ Kathi said. The Abbot’s small set of rooms was nowhere near the guest-quarters. ‘The Abbot will make allowances. M. de Fleury looked very calm, and Friar Lorenzo is with them.’ Meester Reyphin was wrapping up all his blessed rings and Lambert was bi
Jan said, ‘But what did he see in the Coffin? What were they talking about?’
They were supposed to be in the Refectory for a celebration after the ceremony, and carving their names. The ceremony that was supposed to make her feel better. She felt sick, and wondered if they were still expected to climb the mountain. The two mountains. Jan said, ‘Don’t you know what is happening?’
Addressed, Dr Tobias turned round. She saw that he and M. le Grant had reached some decision. The doctor said, ‘It’s to do with gold, Jan. There was some of our Company’s African gold in the Coffin. The three mule-loads of gold that were stolen. We came here, and so did your father, to look for it.’
Kathi closed her eyes. Now the poem would never get done. Jan said slowly, ‘My father is here on holy pilgrimage.’
‘We know,’ said Dr Tobias. He gave her a worried glance. ‘We know his prime object. The other matter is minor. In fact, the gold may not be here at all. There is a lot of it to hide. The person who took it may have passed through, and simply left some as an offering. Nicholas – M. de Fleury said your father could have it. That is, he won’t claim it himself.’
‘What has it to do with my father?’ said Jan.
Kathi said, ‘We’ll know, won’t we, when they come out? Come on. You’ve got two stanzas yet, and the painting. I’ll come and help you.’
Within the Abbot’s quarters, the dispute had reached a very similar point, and the echoes of Anselm Adorne’s voice rang round the low walls, striking the interleaved ikons like mallets. His eyes looked fevered.
The Abbot said, ‘God is here. You have no need to cry to Him. I will hear the truth, and He will advise.’
Brother Lorenzo translated, using Latin for decorum, rather than the Italian dialect of their journey from Cairo. Brother Lorenzo said, ‘My lord Abbot understands that the gold in the Coffin, unique in character, was previously stolen. It happens. A thief repents. M. de Fleury has no wish to remove it. Are you saying it has some value for you?’
‘I am saying,’ said Anselm Adorne, ‘that within these walls, were I to search, I should find all the rest of the gold. Or were I to ask M. de Fleury, he could take me straight to where it has been placed to await him. Unless, that is, it has already found its way to the Sultan? With the apples and plums, and the phials of sweet oil and the raisins?’
Brother Lorenzo drew in his breath. He saw, by a small change of attitude, that the Greek-speaking Frank had emerged into a state of semi-awareness. Interpreting for the Abbot, he was accordingly forced to be accurate. He knew he did not need to convey a warning.
The Abbot said, with distaste, ‘What rubbish is this?’
‘Mamelukes brought him here,’ said Adorne. ‘By some miracle, before he left Cairo, M. de Fleury contrived to reverse every misfortune and obtain the dizziest privileges of the Sultanate. I ask myself what guerdon he promised.’ He paused. He said, ‘This place was built as a fortress. It is a valuable fortress still, to whoever maintains it. And it already possesses a mosque.’
The Abbot was silent. When he spoke, it was in a slow, measured voice, soft but deep; and it continued in its solemn cadences for a long time. When he ceased, Lorenzo saw de Fleury’s eyes fixed upon him.
He returned the look. Then he turned to the Frankish Baron, and began to translate.
‘You must know that you have caused great offence. The lord Abbot would ask you to leave immediately, save that he would deny no one that grace that comes from scaling the Mount of the Lord, and he recognises that there is error lodged in your heart and your tongue which the Lord can seek out better than he.
‘My lord wishes, however, to say this. As Bishop of Sinai, he informs you that there is no gold within these walls or these gardens, or anywhere within his rule, and if you wish to parade your disbelief by crawling, kneeling or visiting caverns, you are welcome to do so. My lord will not even withdraw from you the indulgences, the privileges, even the chivalric honour which the Blessed Saint Ekaterina has bestowed on you this day, for fear you accuse him of some trick, or some prejudice against the whole race of Franks. Tell him what you wish to do, and then leave his house.’
Adorne jumped to his feet and stood over de Fleury. He said, ‘I cannot tolerate you, or what you represent, any longer. You bring your sordid ambition to a holy place and infect what you touch. You have no faith, no beliefs. You are rich; you want more. You came for the gold, and nothing else. What have you done, from the moment you came, but search for it, like a jackal seeking a corpse?’
He had dropped into Tuscan. The Abbot’s face, frowning, moved from one man’s face to the other but Brother Lorenzo understood.
The younger Frank did not try to interrupt. At the end he said, in the same language, ‘You can’t believe the monastery capable of such wrongdoing. The Abbot is speaking the truth. The gold is not here. But even if it were, what has it to do with you? You are on pilgrimage here, and so is your son, for your souls’ sake.’
His voice, which had been hard, withdrew its intensity towards the end as if he had restrained himself, or had been subdued by the balm of some opiate. Brother Lorenzo, seeking his superior’s eye, spoke in Greek. ‘My lord Abbot. The Baron is ill. Leave him to me.’
‘And the other?’ the Abbot said. He glanced at de Fleury, recalling himself.
De Fleury suddenly spoke, of his own accord, also in Greek; rising to stand before his rival the Baron. He said, ‘Brother Lorenzo is right; my compatriot is unwell. We should neither of us have set tongue to the words you have heard, and I can only thank you on my knees for your lenience. My lord of Cortachy plans to leave, I am sure, as soon as his pilgrimage is completed. I, too, will disembarrass you of my presence. I have placed before Brother Lorenzo that which I beg you will accept, for the good of the Convent and the Blessed Ekaterina and all whom you serve.’
‘I have seen it,’ said the Abbot. It lay, covered with a cloth, in a niche in the wall. He did not glance at it. The man Adorne, unable to follow the Greek, said something under his breath.
De Fleury turned to him and said in Italian, ‘I was only making your apologies, and mine. We are free to go.’
The Baron Cortachy, erect and pale, began to say the correct words at last, in formal Latin, and Lorenzo translated them. The Abbot bowed stiffly and Adorne knelt and kissed his foot, his drawn face hidden. The younger man turned back and waited. The Baron Cortachy rose, bowing, and left.
The Abbot said, ‘Let him go. I wish you to show me what you have brought.’ Brother Lorenzo crossed over and uncovered and brought back the object in the niche.
It was a great chalice made by a master, the match of the one that Charles of France had given them sixty years earlier; its knop similarly inset with enamels. Its worth could not be gauged, not without expert valuation, which it would have.
The Abbot laid it on the stiff liturgical shelf of his lap, gold on gold, and moved his fingers, wondering, round the prayer-engraved rim. ‘We thank you,’ he said. ‘And we are prepared to hear that you have set your heart on redeeming some of the lesser gifts left to St Catherine. I have had both objects brought.’
Again, Brother Lorenzo walked across and came back, bearing with an air of slight distraction the two ostrich eggs which had lain in the Coffin. Presenting the first, full of gold, he saw the other man shake his head, smiling and, smiling himself, laid it gently aside. Then he presented the other.
‘I would take it,’ said Nicholas de Fleury. ‘But not without your consent. And I should pay for it.’
The Abbot smiled. ‘The price is one ducat,’ he said; and continued to smile, in a benign way, as the box, small as a button, was lifted out of the egg and placed in the other man’s palm.
Nicholas de Fleury said, but as a statement rather than as a question, ‘It is forbidden to tell me the donor
‘It is forbidden,’ said the Abbot in a friendly voice. ‘Nor can I distinguish what it contains. Your perception may be greater than mine.’
Detached from the blown egg and the mouldering sarcophagus, the little box lay confidingly, you would say, on the man’s broad, hardened palm. He touched the clasp and laid back the shell of the lid, revealing the phial to be empty but for a minute heap of transparent slivers. He smiled, without lifting his eyes.
‘The box is of gold,’ said Brother Lorenzo.
He had nowhere to go. Katelijne Sersanders, fierce in her concern, saw her uncle, unfamiliar in his distress, thread his way through the maze of alleys and arches, along the vaulted corridors, up the haphazard staircases of the community of anchorites, termites of Justinian’s monastery. Long before he arrived, she had pushed everyone out of his room and into the next.
She saw him pause on the threshold, seeing it empty, but he was too tired, she thought, to wonder why, and too grieved to wish it otherwise. Stepping softly behind, she saw he had crossed to the crucifix on the wall and knelt before it. Then he covered his eyes.
She drew the curtain over the door and backed away.
‘What?’ said his son. ‘God in heaven, what are you crying for now?’
‘Hunger,’ she said. ‘And if you’re not going to the Refectory, I am. Dr Tobias?’
He had been watching as well. ‘Yes. The Refectory, immediately,’ said Tobie.
When they came back, Anselm Adorne was lying still on his mattress. It was dark, and they would be required to rise not very long after midnight to hear Mass and to prepare for the climb. They would be away until nightfall next day, and had still to arrange for the food they would have to take with them.
Dr Tobias and M. le Grant had shown no enthusiasm for the expedition. M. de Fleury having once again vanished, no one knew of his intentions, but Dr Tobias thought that he, too, would remain. The meal had been uneasy, but in the presence of the monks and the Abbot, nothing untoward had been said.