Race of Scorpions (19 page)

‘You must not kill him,’ said Erizzo. From flushed with heat, the Bailie’s face was now pale with anger.

‘I will not kill him. Fetch the monks,’ Tzani-bey said.

The monk who came first had been crying. The abbot followed and stood in the doorway, intoning Greek in a high nasal voice until Tzani-bey, losing patience, thrust him out of the way. Then others came. As soon as he judged it safe, Nicholas said, ‘My lord Bailie. You have no hope of me unless you take care for the lady.’

Erizzo said, ‘She will be safe now. I am appalled. The emir has power. I can do nothing for you. I am sorry.’

‘You have done enough,’ Nicholas said. He thrust the girl between the robed figures and stood. The emir jerked his head. A pair of armed men came forward, both carrying sacks. They set them aside and laid hands on Nicholas. Other sacks stood outside the door, leaking blood and rammed full of objects.

Mutilation and theft. Nicholas, his wrists twisted together, wondered what the girl’s chances were, or the monks’, if the tyranny of King James was of this order. James, or Zacco, they called him. Zacco the Bastard. One of the monks sobbed aloud. Tzani-bey, his grasp on Nicholas, turned at the sound. He smiled, and spoke to the monk. ‘Which was yours? You can have it.’ He nodded, and one of the soldiers gripped and upended a sack, and began shaking it empty.

Smoke and silver and black, cream and tortoiseshell, orange and butter, the children of St Nicholas lay, a carpet of silk on the marble. On the top, still the leader, lay the powerful cat, white as ermine, called Otto. ‘Skins for the winter,’ the Mameluke said. ‘Pets are for women, and catamites. Your saint gave you cats to divert you from mounting each other. Everyone knows this is true. There are no vipers so vicious on Cyprus. It is the Christians; it is the serpent of Melusine; it is the Lusignan’s sting you must fear.’

He pulled Nicholas through the door and whipped him idly before him with the flat of his sword. Behind him in the room there was horror on the girl’s face, and calculation in Erizzo’s, and doubt in the look of Loredano. And tears, shamed, uncontrollable tears in the eyes of the monk.

It is the Lusignan’s sting you must fear.

Chapter 10

T
HE ABSENCES
of Zacco their King were not entirely mourned by the folk of his capital. Within the seven crumbling miles of its walls, the Greeks and Franks who lived and worked in Nicosia were reasonably pleased to be allowed to continue making shoes, beating silver, working copper, weaving linen and operating the markets which, as an inland capital, the town employed to disperse its wares. The husbandmen tended the fig and olive and mulberry trees, the oranges, the lemons, the pomegranates that grew in the thousand walled gardens, and in the flat lands round the city; and saw to the vines and the barley and the herds of heavy-rumped sheep. The irrigation wheels turned; the smiths hammered; the cooks and butchers attended to their ovens and work-blocks. Those churchmen who had not fled to the Queen continued their rounds unmolested, and under their new lords, the great households continued to demand food and service and pay for it, even if the old barons were all off to Kyrenia to huddle there with the Queen and her consort.

The new owners were the Sicilians and the Aragonese and the Catalans who had come two years ago, when Zacco conquered Nicosia and three-quarters of Cyprus. Zacco, the Venetians called him, the latter Z requiring less effort than J, and the nickname had stuck. The new lords spent as much time fighting for Zacco as the old spent at hunting, only they came back with bales of cloth and sacks of silk and boxes of iron they’d looted from the houses of Carlotta’s supporters. They flattened the vines round about Famagusta, which did no harm to the grape prices everywhere else. They captured ships and brought men back in chains who were glad to pay for their freedom. Or if not, King Zacco cut off their heads and stuck them on the Bridge of the Pillory. And, of course, they hemmed in the Queen’s men at Kyrenia, killing their forage parties, diverting their food and making sure that neither she nor her consort would ever get back to the capital.

Not that the people of Nicosia had anything much against Queen Carlotta who was, if you thought of it, the legitimate Lusignan heir, and spoke Greek, even if she worshipped in the Latin way. She had to, didn’t she? Only the Latin church could call on Christian rulers to hold off the Turks; only the Latin church could rely on the help of the Knights of the Order in Rhodes. Zacco didn’t have that advantage, even though his loving father made him Archbishop of Nicosia when he was thirteen: four years, that was, before he had his loving father’s chamberlain murdered. Zacco didn’t have that advantage because he called in the Mamelukes instead of the Pope, and filled Cyprus with hordes of crooked-sword Saracens. But while it was all very well to say that Carlotta and the Pope could perhaps hold off the Turks, the fact was that the Turks weren’t here yet, but the Mamelukes were, and someone had to control them. Someone like Zacco.

He took the Egyptians along with him, too, when he went off on campaign, and the boys in the villages round St Demetrios all fell idle and went to the city. Zacco had most of the Mamelukes out with him now, while a few were with Tzani-bey, off south on some errand. In the event, Tzani-bey came back first, riding through the Dominican gate with a prisoner chained to his girth by the neck. The doorkeeper said he let them all go straight through to the citadel, and that Tzani-bey went and reported to Cropnose. Cropnose, Zacco’s mother, who lived in Queen Carlotta’s apartments and had a way, it was said, with Zacco’s prisoners. And good luck to him, whoever he was.

The woman called Cropnose was seated on a chair of state when Nicholas was brought in. Most of the things of value had been taken from the apartments either by Carlotta, or by the Dominicans when they fled; but in two years the deficiency had more than been made up by the Usurper. His mother’s attendants stood against walls hung with silk and wool carpets, reversed for the summer; the carved service table was laid with tapestry and piled with objects of bronze and ivory, silver and gold as well as fine glazed ware from Syria. Chained to a stand made like a tree was a red and blue bird which nibbled its foot and turned its head quickly now and then.

The King’s mother, whom the Greeks called Comomutene, looked like the parrot: spare and quick, with a brilliant cap on her hair, which was the dead russet of henna. Her eyes, which were black, were outlined with kohl beneath high shaven brows. Below her eyes, she wore a thin cerise kerchief in the manner of Saracen women, its hem heavily jewelled. The kerchief hung straight from the bridge of her nose, and blew in and out with her breathing. A burly, coarse-featured man, leaning against the back of her chair,
studied the rings on his fingers. The Usurper’s mother said, ‘What can my son do with that? He is dead.’ She spoke in whistling Greek, her words timbreless; dead as her hair.

The emir Tzani-bey, who had let the chain slacken, lifted it up so that Nicholas was pulled by the neck from the floor. ‘Dead, Madame Marietta? No, there is good service to be had from him yet. Better than you would have got from him yesterday. He was insolent yesterday. Now he is merely tired; a little thirsty; a little footsore perhaps. It amused the men, to see how fast he could run.’

The woman said, ‘How dare you bring him before me like that? Is he deformed? I cannot see him for blood and for filth. What use can he be to the King? Markios?’

The man behind her said, ‘I would not, myself, make him Grand Bailie, it is true. What did Zacco want him for?’

The emir said, ‘My lord, I was not told. The person came ashore as a prisoner of the Venetians. He had a woman with him, a courtesan employed by the lady Carlotta.’

The man called Markios said, ‘So he is Carlotta’s man, captured for questioning. It must be so, or Zacco would hardly have kept him alive. What has he said?’

‘He speaks insolence, my lord, but withholds information so far. I have not the skills of Monseigneur the King. I can extract nothing from him.’

‘But he is Carlotta’s man?’ said the woman in the chair noisily. ‘He can hardly deny that. Are you not?’ She made an impatient movement. ‘What language does he speak? Pull him. Are you not?’

Hearing and speaking were two different things. Nicholas, staring at her, did not try. The bald, painted brows drew together. Tzani-bey said, ‘He needs the whip again.’

The man behind the chair said, ‘He needs a lesson, certainly, but I should like to hear him speak first. Unshackle his throat, and give him water. The emir has our thanks, and those of the King, for taking upon himself an unwonted commission. We should not detain him.’

The emir stood, his hand on his whip. He said, ‘He is somewhat violent. I will send in two of my men to protect you.’

‘Do that,’ said the man by the chair. He glanced down at the woman, and drawing a ring from his hand handed it to her. She in turn held it out. ‘You have our thanks. Our own men-at-arms will defend us. Go and take your ease. You will hear from Zacco when he arrives.’

‘You will hear from me, now,’ Nicholas said. He lifted himself to his knees, the hardest thing he had ever done; and then to his feet, the second hardest. He said, through his bruised, waterless throat, ‘Tell me. Is this Muslim son of a she-pig your master, or do you have a King?’

The blow returned him to the floor. He lifted himself to his knees, and then to his feet. The woman said, ‘That is most unwise. But for my clemency, the emir would have leave to kill you. Whoever commands you to speak, you will reply. What is it to you, where your orders come from?’

‘What is it to you?’ Nicholas said. His throat burned. ‘Do you obey this man, or your son? Who had me brought here, this man, or your son? To whom do I say, I do not serve Carlotta; I will not serve her brother. To this man, or your son? Which is the servant?’

Once, Nicholas had rarely felt anger. In the leisurely journey that had now ended here, he thought he had found again, and would keep, his habit of easy toleration. He had been wrong. The Venetians had lied to him: they would regret it. So too would the man to whom the Venetians pandered. The emir, Nicholas intended to send to his death. It didn’t cross his mind, at any time, that he would fail to do this.

The Egyptian was smiling. The man behind the chair said, ‘Does one answer scum? No. Here, all men are your masters, including this lord and my nephew the King. To them you must look for food and shelter and life itself without expectation or complaint, or the death you will die will make what you complain of seem sweet. Are you answered?’

‘Yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘You are afraid of the Mamelukes. You are the dupe of the Venetians. So what species of ruler is Zacco? A bully, like Tzani-bey, but a doltish bully?’

The woman called Cropnose looked beyond him to the emir. ‘Before you leave, whip him,’ she said. ‘You are due satisfaction. Or if you prefer, my servants will see to it.’

‘It would be more seemly,’ said Tzani-bey al-Ablak. ‘Serfs should discipline serfs. I have Madame’s leave to depart?’

He dropped the chain as he left. The weight, slight as it was, was enough to bring Nicholas to his knees once more, his eyes shut, his head bent. Beatings he had had; punishment he had suffered, but never this. Never what had happened to him on the road from Cape Gata to Nicosia.

He knew, now, that he had used, temporarily, the last of his strength. He remained passive, attempting to gather it. Sounds flowed through his head like the sea. A great door closed: the emir leaving. Another opened, in a different quarter, with a click much more subdued. The soldiers of Cropnose, come to deal with him. A man’s voice, speaking in his own sweet French, said, ‘I cannot forgive myself. I cannot forgive myself. Water, wine, quickly. And the key to these shackles.’ Nicholas opened his eyes.

Kneeling beside him was a man who could have been Anselm or Felix, John or Lorenzo, or any other of the merry, carefree, comely companions who had shared his boyhood in Bruges. This was a
young man of their kind, with the bronzed skin and trim build of an athlete, dressed in a plain leather brigandine over a pourpoint and hose like his own. The man’s hair, streaked with the sun, fell over his brow in long, yellow-brown waves which he pushed back, now and then, with a gesture of troubled impatience. His eyes were hazel. He said, ‘Stay still.’ He bent forward, a key in his hands, and unlocked and opened the neck-band. Someone came quickly and lifted the irons away. Then he said, ‘Rinse your mouth and then drink. Slowly. There will be more for you later.’

It was water. Nicholas let it pass his split lips and fill the dust-filled cavity of his mouth, and spat. The third time, his bruised throat moved, and he was able to swallow. A small amount was enough. The young man sat back, and someone came for the cup. The young man turned his head and said, ‘Mother? How could this happen?’

The woman Cropnose sat with her hands lightly folded. Her manner, if slightly softened, remained quite undisturbed. She said, ‘Have we been misled? I was told this was a soldier of Carlotta’s, sent to you by the Venetians for questioning. So the emir Tzani-bey believed. If that is not so, then who is he?’

The young man said, ‘No! No! What a tragedy! Tzani-bey surely knew. He must have known. Did Messer Niccolò not try to tell him? He is not Carlotta’s man. He is a merchant, a captain, a banker. It is to persuade him to help us that the Venetians brought him. Brought him against his will, which was injury enough, but unavoidable. And now –’

Nicholas listened, his lids half fallen. The Venetians had not lied. Some Cypriot baron had blundered. Tzani-bey, lacking orders, had made a mistake. No: had not made a mistake: had taken the chance to enjoy himself. Nicholas, thinking of it, was certain of that. The woman in the chair interrupted his thoughts and the flow of the young man’s distress. ‘The harm is not irreparable.’ Her roaring voice was no different from before; her gaze merely speculative. ‘Messer Niccolò is young. He is strong. He is intelligent enough, I am sure, to understand that a mistake has been made. Let him be bathed, and his wounds anointed and bound. Let the monks give him a sleeping-cup, and after rest, some good food. You will talk, you and he, by the evening.’ A moment ago, she had invited the emir to whip him. Her brother, now silent, had threatened far worse.