Race of Scorpions (40 page)

Beside the man in the mantle was Nicholas, hatless, cloakless and wearing an untidy doublet. From the frizz of his hair, the rain hopped down the lines of his brow and sluiced the familiar face, which was fawn and bland and marked with occasional scabs. He saw them, and caused his tied hands to rise in a shrug. He looked cheerful. Turning, Tobie saw why he looked cheerful. Advancing towards him was the Grand Commander of Cyprus, Louis de Magnac. And behind him, eyes downcast, was Loppe. Astorre said, ‘Hah!’ and John le Grant trod on his foot. Nicholas said nothing at all, but smiled vacuously.

The newcomer conferred with de Magnac. The stranger was broad rather than tall, and the fur inside his cloak made him thicker. His wrists looked powerful, and his hands were heavily ringed. The conversation lasted rather longer than might have been thought necessary: at the end of it, the two shore soldiers were replaced by two from the ship who, assuming control of the captive, marched him towards the rear castle. Passing, Nicholas turned his head and shrugged again, grinning. It seemed to have become his habitual posture. Above the grin, it could be seen, he was looking about him intently.

The man of the mantle had left the Grand Commander and was coming over. ‘Messer Niccolò’s officers? I am Napoleone Lomellini. I have the duty of escorting your young master to my city of Famagusta. I regret the bonds, but you may speak to him later. It would not do, as you may imagine, for the company of Niccolò to
seize the ship and take it anywhere but the island of Cyprus.’ He smiled and turned. His brows were thick and dark, and so was his hair. ‘You may sail, master.’

The shipmaster hesitated, his eyes on de Magnac. The Grand Commander gave a nod, and the master, turning, began to give orders. Astorre said, ‘See that? Commands from a Genoese? The rest didn’t like that, did they? Well, we’re going. It’s all working out as the lad said.’

John le Grant said, ‘Is it? He didn’t say anything about going to Famagusta.’

‘Does it matter?’ said Tobie.

‘Yes, it matters,’ said le Grant. ‘It matters if they land him in one place and us in another.’

‘He wouldn’t let them do that,’ said Astorre.

‘He mightn’t be able to stop them,’ said John le Grant. ‘I don’t like it when he looks cheerful.’ The ship had begun to cast off, the oars poised, the anchormen working. Nicholas, about to disappear into a cabin, had prevailed on his escort to let him turn and stand, gazing landwards.

‘That’s all right, then,’ said Tobie. ‘He’s stopped looking cheerful.’ He was staring at Nicholas. ‘He’s regretting something. I wonder what it is, apart of course from being about to land on Famagusta. What other disasters have befallen him recently? Failing to kill John of Kinloch? Achieving poor results with the Vasquez family? Getting stoned by the Portuguese? Or not getting to keep Primaflora? Mind you, maybe he did. Maybe she’s aboard. Maybe they’re married.’

‘She isn’t. I asked,’ said Thomas surprisingly. He flushed.

Tobie said, ‘You asked?’

Thomas said, ‘I wondered. The Queen might have forced her to marry him. But they said not. She’s to stay in Rhodes with the others.’

John le Grant said, ‘Thomas. I thought you had had enough of the lady?’

Thomas flushed deeper. Tobie said, ‘He had; and he didn’t fancy her running the company. That it, Thomas? So why is our Nicholas looking like that, unless he’s found she isn’t on board?’

They all looked at what they could see of Nicholas. Certainly, his face was no longer cheerful. He was staring at the long mole behind them. The ship rocked, the oars dug in, and the space between the ship and the jetty started to widen. Tobie said, ‘It’s the tower John was building. Look at it. Crooked as Pisa.’

‘He’s missing the Queen,’ Astorre ventured. He guffawed. ‘Knight of the Order!’

Tobie said, ‘Well, Christ, he’s happy again. Whatever he was missing, he seems to have seen it. What’s he looking at now?’

‘A boat,’ said John le Grant. ‘Coming across from that galley. Hailing us.’

Nicholas had thrown back his head. His face was the face of a child at a carnival. The shipmaster walked to the rail. A man in the advancing sloop called again, and continued to flourish his arms. The shipmaster signed to his trumpeter, and the oars back-pedalled and held. The sloop came nearer. ‘Hell and damnation,’ said John le Grant under his breath. Tobie said nothing.

In the sloop was the courtesan Primaflora. Her hood fallen back, she let the rain beat on her face as she gazed up at the deck of the cog. Nicholas raised his bound arms in a gesture of unassumed and explicit delight and, seeing him, her face opened in a smile to make every man envious. He stood, prevented from moving, and watched her. There was an interval, during which the sea lifted the sloop and the girl and her woman clung, struggling to board. Boxes were transferred. Then Primaflora was on deck, and greeting the shipmaster, the Grand Commander, Lomellini.

They looked mystified, Tobie thought. He said, ‘They didn’t expect her. Do you suppose …’

‘She’s here against the Queen’s wishes? I was supposing just that thing,’ said John le Grant. ‘And look at Nicholas, man. He’s got her again, and no marriage. I grant you. That laddie can plan.’

‘I should think the planning was hers,’ Tobie said. ‘And either a convincing lie, or a fair greasing of palms, or they would never have agreed to her boarding. She’s coming over.’

They hadn’t seen her since the miserable night when the Court of King Arthur attended the death of Tristão Vasquez. Then, she had been the Queen’s attendant but not, perhaps, enjoying the Queen’s fullest confidence. There had been soldiers with her, Tobie remembered, clearly told to stay with her wherever she went.

There was no one with her now but her woman. She left the Commander, the Genoese and the shipmaster and came across to them all. She said, ‘The Queen was so reluctant to allow me to come, I feared to miss the ship altogether. I have held up your sailing. I am sorry.’ She walked as she spoke, taking them out of earshot of the ship’s officers. She said, ‘They won’t let me talk to Niccolò, or at least, not yet. Will you give him a message?’

‘Of course,’ said John le Grant. Tobie looked at him suspiciously.

She smiled. She said, ‘I trust you not to give me away. I have no leave to come. I have left the Queen, but they mustn’t know until I have landed. Will you tell Niccolò?’

‘Won’t they send you back?’ Tobie said.

‘They would find it hard,’ she said. The Commander had come to her side. She smiled to them and, turning, to Nicholas, and then left the deck.

Tobie said. ‘Do you believe that? What are we talking about? We can’t give a message to Nicholas.’

‘Loppe can,’ said John le Grant. ‘Didn’t you see? Nicholas is to share the Grand Commander’s own cabin. They don’t trust him anywhere else. So all the trip, Loppe can run between us.’

‘And between Nicholas and Primaflora,’ Tobie said. ‘That makes me feel a lot better. No, it doesn’t.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Captain Astorre. Crossing the harbour bar, the ship lurched again, and gave every sign of continuing to do so. ‘Don’t worry. Remember which is the lee rail, and don’t think of Nicholas. You’ll get back your sea legs in no time.’

Very soon after that, the willing black servant Lopez had cause to unlock his master’s cabin in search of a boat cloak. Nicholas, lying on one of the seats, said, ‘Well, well. Tobie been sick yet?’

Loppe looked at him in the way Tobie sometimes looked, which reminded Nicholas of a collector searching for chips, scratches and signs of dubious craftsmanship. The African said, ignoring the question, ‘The lady Primaflora wishes you to know that she is here without leave of the Queen, although she has told the Grand Commander otherwise. She expects to join you on Cyprus.’

‘I counted on it,’ said Nicholas. ‘You can tell her that, if you like.’

‘It was obvious,’ the negro said. ‘I wonder, though, if she will be allowed to stay. Whoever employs you, they will want your undivided attention.’

‘They won’t get it if they don’t do as I ask. Primaflora will stay. Loppe, I must talk to her.’

The rich, musical voice never gave anything away. Loppe said, ‘I shall try to arrange it. She shares a cabin, but the other lady, I hear, does not travel well. You know, of course, the demoiselle is also on board?’

‘Who?’ said Nicholas. He saw by the look in Loppe’s eyes that he had spoken too quickly.

‘Katelina van Borselen,’ said Loppe. ‘At her own request, she goes to Kyrenia. And the boy.’ He paused and said, ‘I see I have given you some very bad news. I am sorry.’ Presently he said, ‘Messer Niccolò? I must go.’

Nicholas said, ‘Yes, of course. The boy?’

‘Diniz Vasquez. He did not sail for home with Ludovico da Bologna. He stayed on Rhodes with his aunt. I imagine,’ said Loppe’s gentle voice, ‘that he wished to protect her in the course of vengeance on which she is set. She blames you for the death of his father.’

‘I’m a fool,’ Nicholas said. ‘And it’s too late. She is here.’

He spoke to himself. But he saw, from Loppe’s eyes, that he understood him.

Loppe said, ‘It can be dealt with. There is only one thing that matters now. There are many lives in your hands. It would be wise to forget these family concerns until you are safely in Cyprus.’

‘Of course,’ said Nicholas. Loppe hesitated, and then took his leave, locking the door of the cabin behind him. Nicholas remained in the rocking chamber, gazing at the place where he had been, and seeing nothing. Katelina, Diniz, Primaflora. Obscuring his concise and elegant plans, the promise of misery.

Chapter 21

T
HE PROSPECT
of being locked up in the cabin of Louis de Magnac for four or even five days and nights was one which Nicholas might have found depressing, had there not been worse things to dwell on.

Wealthy, grey-haired, distinguished, the Grand Commander of Cyprus had held the fief of Kolossi for twelve years, and his was the hand that had built the present great keep of the Knights there. It was de Magnac’s special domain that Nicholas had polluted by his attack on John de Kinloch, and by his abstraction – far more serious – of the diverted Kolossi sugar. Decked with the Order of the Sword, Nicholas had been allowed to house his men in Louis de Magnac’s own palace in Rhodes. Even his condemnation and banishment by the Grand Master had been transmuted by Queen Carlotta, whom Louis de Magnac revered, and whose very loyal servant he was. The Queen needed the services of this man Niccolò’s army, and the Grand Commander therefore was prepared to deliver him, as undertaken. He was not likely, however, to allow the fellow to enjoy the voyage.

So Nicholas read the mind of his unwilling host, and from the silent contempt with which he was treated, he gathered that he had read it correctly. They shared no meals together, and by day de Magnac was mostly on deck. At night, they slept on their own mattresses along with the Grand Commander’s personal servants. Whenever Nicholas was left alone, the door was kept locked. For the first day of the voyage and half of the next, he saw no one else.

He had asked Loppe to work a miracle and persuade Louis de Magnac to let him see Primaflora. He should not therefore have been as amazed as he was when informed curtly on the second afternoon that the Queen’s lady attendant wished to question him, and that the Grand Commander had given permission. She arrived flanked by two soldiers who took their stance, with difficulty, on the heaving floor of the cabin. The Grand Commander, as was usual, was absent.

The seas had remained very high. During her few steps on deck, his mistress’s hair had tugged itself from its caul and her cheeks were whipped into colour behind the light creams. Her eyes sparkled. He smiled back, taking her hands as she tried to keep her balance. Helping her to a seat, he took one beside her and addressed her in Greek, ‘It’s like old times. Whom have you beguiled this time?’

The soldiers were frowning. She withdrew her hands and replied gravely in the same language. ‘The Grand Commander thinks I am a servant of the Queen, and obey the Queen’s wishes. I am to remind you of your duties to Carlotta, and make sure you have no seditious thoughts.’

‘Seditious is not the word I should apply to them,’ he said. It sounded jocular, which was not the way he felt. He said, ‘I thought we had lost each other. But what have you done? Are you sure you want to come with me?’

‘I am here,’ she said, and the small pleats had formed, again, at the corners of her ripe, dimpled mouth. ‘Do you question what the gods send?’

‘Not when they go mad and send me a goddess,’ Nicholas said. ‘But the cost? And it must be difficult. They’ve put you to share with Katelina?’

‘It isn’t difficult. She’s unwell, and I can help her. Sometimes she comes near to accepting that the Queen has changed her mind and sent me to watch you. Sometimes she thinks you have lured me without the Queen’s knowledge. I’m sorry, though, that she’s here. She means to cause you harm. She is here only for that. She and the boy.’

Nicholas said, ‘I could forgive her anything but keeping the boy from his home. He’s too young for all this.’

Her pale, clear eyes considered him. ‘He is fully grown, and knows his mind. It was his decision to stay. Since his aunt won’t abandon the feud, he has made himself her protector. He did not, perhaps, expect her to follow you to Cyprus but he’ll stay so long as he thinks she’s in danger from you.’ She paused. She said, ‘You are very tolerant, are you not, of all these people who have set out to injure you? You once said, I remember, that there was only one person you hated. Is that why you are letting the Queen send you to Cyprus?’

‘Because of Tzani-bey al-Ablak?’ said Nicholas. ‘If you are asking whether I’ve forgotten what he did to you as well as to me, I can assure you I haven’t. You would like me to do something about it?’

She smiled. ‘Some day, I should like you to tell me your plan. I don’t need to ask if you have one.’

‘Oh, I have one,’ Nicholas said. ‘Only the details change from
time to time, according to circumstance. I can promise you, however, that he’ll have time to be sorry. Primaflora, there is something else. They are sending me to Famagusta. That isn’t for you. Until I can join you, we shall be separated for a while.’