Free To Lie with Lions by Dorothy Dunnett

jolted or jammed, less to cry than to giggle. Then he called for a drum and two sticks and, when they were tossed up, launched into a staccato outburst of sound, to which with effortless clarity he added the words of a tavern song everyone knew.
    The choir tittered and sang; the workers below roared along with them, and swayed. A man on the Ascension pulley swung himselfrhythmically up and down bawling, and two devils mounted the wheel, which rocked and began to move faster. Nicholas set down his drum, singing still. ‘And that’s enough,’ he said placidly to the cherubim on his knee. ‘When we arrive close to the ground, you will jump. And you, monsieur, and you.’
    The wheel turned. His hands round its waist, Nicholas released his angel, a butterfly, into the waiting hands below. A second jumped, and a third. Last of all he stepped down himself, a devil under each arm, his drum hung round his neck and the sticks in his belt. Le Prieur and Ardent Désir were waiting for him, brandishing scripts, uttering blandishments.
    ‘Abraham! Noah! Monsieur, the blessed St Vincent himself!’
    The angels were tugging his arms. He laughed. ‘You flatter me. Anjou can provide all the talent you need. And in any case, alas, I must go.’
    M. Pierre had not spoken.
    ‘You are a guest of monseigneur,’ said Le Prieur. ‘He will invite you, as I do, to stay.’
    ‘I have obligations,’ said Nicholas. ‘And at present, monseigneur awaits. Please forgive me.’ He had to raise his voice against the shouting and singing.
    ‘Come with me,’ said M. Pierre.
    Nicholas was sorry to leave. He liked people, and music and laughter. He would like to have investigated the circles of fire, and braced the wheel really well. He was hungry, not for royal food but for bread and cheese and radishes and cheerful company. Thinking of it, he followed M. Pierre carefully along a passage and through a doorway into a room which became perfectly quiet when the door closed. Nicholas returned from his thoughts with some suddenness.
    He had moved out of the warehouse to another house which clearly adjoined it. He stood in a chamber whose furnishings – trestles, brazier, instruments – were familiar to him from other rooms, including that of his own company doctor and another, in Cyprus. Except that Tobie had never employed a table covered in black, with a copper bowl of liquid set in its centre, the rim engraved with strange letters.
    The only seats in the room stood before it. Nicholas looked at the man who had brought him and spoke, slurring a little. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’
    ‘You are not surprised,’ said the Jew baptised M. Pierre. ‘The Queen, I suppose, asked if you predicted the future. And you said you did not.’
    ‘It is the truth,’ Nicholas said.
    ‘Perhaps. Sometimes we perceive one truth, and a bystander seesanother. But if I ask you directly, now we are alone, whether using a rod or a pendulum, you can trace a human being, you would not deny it?’
    ‘No,’ said Nicholas at length. All the laughter had gone, but not all of the wine. A wave of anxiety turned him cold.
    ‘No. This is not some idle test. I do not ask you to prove it. I wanted to meet you. Our mutual friend Dr Andreas of Vesalia sometimes visits the Loire. I wished to offer you a present.’
    ‘Fa me indovino, et iou te davo dinare?’ Nicholas said.
    ‘I ask for no money. The gift is your own, and I propose only to free it. I know what rumours have said of your son and your lady. I know that if you have left them, you must be very sure where they are. Is your pendulum with you?’
    ‘No,’ said Nicholas.
    There was a silence which he made no effort to break. Then the other man said, ‘So be it. I could not harm him, you must know that. As his father, your power is unbreakable. If I had something of his, I could answer your question.’
    Nicholas walked to the stool and subsided. ‘Which is?’
    ‘It need not be spoken,’ said M. Pierre. He sat