Race of Scorpions (49 page)

Abul Ismail laid down his book. ‘Your young friend will have to be careful. And your fine engineer.’

They had long since congratulated each other on the doctored beef. Tobie said, ‘The wind won’t affect hackbuts. All they want is to make noise and some smoke, while John has a close look at the walls.’

‘So I believe. But my ancestors, when beset, could defend themselves. Within the garrison may be slaves of my race, and the wind is in their favour. Wax cloth and squirrel, my friend, are convenient for silence. They do not promise a shield against naphtha.’

He had used the Arab word
naft
, and for a moment Tobie thought he meant firearms. Then he understood. ‘Greek fire? They may throw Greek fire?’

‘It was how the Crusaders were beaten. It is kindled and thrown in clay pots. Or shot from crossbows. The hillside would burn. Your pioneers would have little chance. Your knights, attempting to rescue, would boil like crabs in their armour. It is an unforgiving weapon.’

Tobie got up, took a step to the door, and turned back. ‘Ointments,’ he said.

‘They are here. The young man and the King have discussed this. The pioneers know of the danger. Your friend has taken what precautions he can. He is a versatile youth, but like the King somewhat heedless when hunting.’

‘He is there,’ Tobie said.

‘He wishes his plan to succeed. It is not in his nature to step aside from what he is creating. Once it is done, he will listen to reason.’

Tobie looked at him in silence, thinking of Trebizond. The Arab nodded once. He said, ‘I see you agree with me. While he is in thrall, he is mad. Perhaps a God-given madness; perhaps something quite other. I do not think you can cure it, but he requires some containment. A leash for the hawk, a halter for the colt, and the horse, and the young. Here they come.’

Tobie sprang to his feet. Then, rewrapping his cloak, he walked heavily to the tent door to watch the squadron arrive. The first person he saw was the King; the next Nicholas. They were shouting. He saw they were shouting with pleasure. Behind them, dismounting, were the pioneers. He saw John, his squirrel-vest open, his felt cap wringing wet in his fist. He was shouting as well. Roused by the noise and the orders, men tumbled out in their tunics and began to buckle on armour: the second squadron preparing to leave. A man limped up, holding his arm and complaining, and two others eased a third off his horse and carried him into the tent. He was cursing.

Nicholas, his helmet under his arm, came in raking his hair and dropped his hand, staring at Tobie. ‘That’s all we’ve got. Two wounded,’ he said. ‘You look disappointed.’

Tobie cleared his throat. He said, ‘I was getting ready to deal with your blisters. No naphtha?’

‘It was a total failure,’ Nicholas said. He dumped his helm and his gloves on an orderly, and unbuckled his sword for good measure. ‘I’m starving. Do you want to go on this foray? There isn’t much point. No one hits anybody.’

‘In that case, I’ll stay,’ Tobie said. ‘So what happened?’

No one answered directly. Presently he found himself in the
firelight in a lolling company of chewing, boisterous men, which included the King, and Astorre, and Thomas, and John le Grant, his red hair sprung like a brush and his blotched nose translucent. John said, ‘Covering fire? They nearly shot me three times. Then the smoke came so far up the hill that I couldn’t give orders for coughing.’

‘They couldn’t see you,’ Zacco said. ‘The garrison couldn’t see you. And what did you do? You dug no tunnels, embedded no gunpowder …’ He mimed a comic disgust, his eyes smiling.

‘As you well knew, my lord King,’ said the engineer. ‘Whoever built those walls knew a thing or two. There’s a place up the side
 … perhaps
there’s a place up the side. But it’s not worth the time without cannon. And when we get cannon, we shan’t need to use them on St Hilarion.’

‘So what happened?’ said Tobie with patience.

‘He planted crackers with fuses,’ said Nicholas. ‘The castle stood to arms all evening after the challenge, heard us arrive in the night, made to resist what they thought was a full-scale attack; saw us ride off defeated. They’ll start sleeping in shifts. An hour after we’ve gone, they’ll hear volleys under the walls from John’s crackers, rouse the fort and shoot into the smoke. Then they’ll stand down again.’

‘And the second squadron will arrive,’ Tobie said. ‘Mind you, they may not be so scared of you next time. They’ll put a third of their men on the walls, and give the others some rest.’

‘That’s what he said,’ said Captain Astorre, referring to Nicholas. He jerked his head, carrying with it a spit jammed with kidneys. ‘But they won’t rest very long now. Night attack from the front
and
the rear.’

‘What?’ said Tobie. Zacco was laughing.

‘Goats,’ said Captain Astorre. ‘A small detail with a wagon of goats. They’ll drive the beasts up the back cliff, let off a handgun or two, and watch the rest of the garrison rush to the back walls. If they haven’t got the skitters already, they’ll have them by then. The camels were grand.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Tobie. ‘They carried the goats up the hill.’

‘My good doctor,’ said Zacco. ‘You are not taking this seriously. The camels were trained. They have no objection to noise. Your ingenious friend Nicholas placed his hackbutters on the camels, one behind every hump, and they raced past and shot at the castle.’

‘Did you hit anything?’ Tobie said.

‘Not yet,’ said Nicholas. ‘That’s for tomorrow. Tomorrow, they open the gates for us. I’m going to bed.’

‘When tomorrow?’ said Tobie. ‘You don’t mean tomorrow, in daylight?’ But it was a rhetorical question, because he knew that was what Nicholas meant, and also King James, who had caught
this crazy apprentice’s infection which was not, to be truthful, so crazy. By mid-morning tomorrow, the garrison of St Hilarion would be kitten-weak and exhausted and ready for capture.

Tobias Beventini of Grado rose therefore next morning and attached himself to the army when it moved out of camp, although he had had no more sleep than they had; and rode his good horse which had got used to camels and hackbut fire and the whistle of arrows arching over the battlements. The journey to the castle seemed short, and there was less talk than before. They assembled, foot and horse, at the base of the hill of St Hilarion. The trumpets blew, and Tobie felt a pang in his stomach.

This time, under cover of smoke, the troops under King James did not keep their distance but mounted the hill, firing steadily. Their fire was returned; but the bolts and arrows that appeared through the smoke were sparse and ill-aimed, and fell to the grass, or against shields, or sprang into the hide screens the foot-men were carrying. Through the haze, you could see the relief run through Zacco’s army. This was the work of sick men. If they were too ill to bend bows, they would hardly prevail in hand-to-hand fighting. Tobie watched Zacco’s hand, upraised as he looked for the ladders arriving.

Advancing steadily, his hearing dulled by the clash and thud of metal and firearms, by the pounding of hooves and the continuous din of threatening voices, Tobie was not at first aware of a change inside the castle. Behind the walls, a burst of screaming made itself heard, and then travelling, broke out elsewhere. A subdued roar began to emerge, like that of an avalanche. Tobie reined and looked up.

The hackbut smoke was beginning to clear. It showed that the wall-walks above were half-empty, and the upper stretch of the tiltground full of men running backwards and forwards. Beyond and higher was smoke. Beyond that, at the top of the castle, was a coronet of clear, transparent flame. As he watched, the flames spread, with men running downhill before them, their clothing alight.

Nicholas was nowhere to be seen. Zacco said, ‘Advance to the wall. Mount, and open the gates.’

Before he ended, the scaling-ladders were there, and men were up them and over. No one opposed them. When the gates were dragged open, the first to fall out were members of Carlotta’s garrison – voiceless, naked, their faces raw meat flecked with carbon. One was a living torch of a woman with a child in her arms. They dropped as Tobie touched them and lay, a heap of sticks and black paper. He got up and ran into the castle, his orderlies following. The King said, ‘Stand to take prisoners. Doctors, set up your hospital. Captain, put out those fires. Do we want to inhabit a ruin?’

There was a stable with straw where the burned and dying were brought, and Tobie and Abul set up their trestles. In time some wounded arrived, but none of consequence. What resistance Zacco had found on the heights had clearly been small. As the doctors worked, the noise outside dwindled to sobbing, with the occasional command, the thud of lumber, and the sharp voices of men working in crisis. The cisterns were brought into use. There came the sound of water trickling, and the random hiss of flames being doused in the thatched roofs and storehouses; the vats of grain and powder and oil. The hiss of a goffering iron, turned in gnarled hands in the laundry of his mother’s home in Pavia. Above the stench of singed hair and hide and charred wood rose the scent of roast flesh. The hiss of a basket of scorpions. After a long time, Tobie walked to the door of the stable and stood, looking dully about him.

The fires were out. Around him, the lower ward was singed but intact, and part of the sector above. Above that were soot-blackened buildings and a haze of dark smoke, pierced by plumes of dazzling steam. Here and there, against the grey sky, an object glowed crimson: a shank of wood; a roll of felt heaped with red spangles. The dome of the church was half gold and half black. Outside it stood Nicholas, small in the distance. Transfixed, Tobie drew breath and shouted.

Nicholas turned, but made no audible answer. Tobie shouted again, rising to shrillness. Abul, unexpectedly near, said, ‘They are counting the dead. Go up, if you wish him to hear you. Go. There is little more to be done.’

The wind had risen. The sea wind, that had forced the flames down from the north. Tobie climbed to the church. Nicholas stood where he had first seen him, his face expressionless. He smelled of singeing, and was covered with soot and abrasions, but was neither wounded nor burned. Tobie cleared his throat, an official and orderly sound, as at the opening of a tribunal. He said, ‘Your men made an assault up the back cliff?’

It was not, certainly, what Nicholas had expected. He paused, then replied with equal formality. ‘It was the plan. The goats were sent up last night, to disarm them. Today the climbers were men. We sent them up the back wall while Zacco drew their fire from the front.’ In the black and red face, his eyes were large, bright and clean.

Tobie said, ‘The climbers were Mamelukes. What were their orders precisely?’

Nicholas said, ‘To get in at any cost. Some of them fell. Some of them got in and died. We have taken the castle.’

‘I am sure you have,’ Tobie said. ‘You must show me your dead. Then I will take and show you my dying.’ He paused and then said, ‘How could you do this? Even you?’

Nicholas said slowly, ‘I didn’t order the naphtha.’

‘No. But you knew Arabs used it. You must have known the Mamelukes had the ingredients. You took no steps to forbid it. You let Saracen dogs burn women and children to death. How many?’

Nicholas turned his head, again slowly. He said, ‘They are all in there. You can’t help them. Later, talk to me.’

‘Now,’ said Tobie. He walked past Nicholas and entered the church.

Already five hundred years old, the Byzantine church of St Hilarion had long outlived the monks it once served but, under Carlotta’s favouring rule, the worked gold of an iconostastis sparkled still in front of its altar. Above, Christ Pantocrator looked down with the hosts of his angels, and the Prophets guarded the drum of the dome. Saints walked round the walls, done in ochre, madder and gold, and there were angels booted in scarlet, and dressed in the style of the Ushers in Trebizond. In the style of the Imperial Ushers who had abandoned the Empire of Trebizond, with the Emperor.

There were eight pillars, painted with partridges, between which stretched a mosaic floor covered with pallets. On each, lying in death, was a body. There were six children among them, and many women. None of them was burned. Tobie stood, his lips shut. Then he moved from pallet to pallet and bent, stiffly, to examine what lay there. Eventually, he reached the altar. It was very quiet, for Nicholas had remained at the door, and the church contained no one else living. Once, he heard footsteps passing the church, and once, a brief exchange between Nicholas and someone else, who did not remain. After a time, Tobie turned and came back.

Nicholas was leaning, head bent, where he had left him, slowly scrubbing his face with a towel. The fabric was black: becoming aware of it, he let it drop and looked up at Tobie’s footsteps. His face was still grimy. Tobie walked past him and stopped. Nicholas said, ‘My dying; your dead. Don’t blame Abul. It is in the nature of Arabs.’

Buckthorn, heliotrope, cyclamen tubers. Not a griping dose, as he’d thought, but a killing dose, which had killed. After a space, Tobie said, ‘Did Zacco know?’

‘I expect so,’ Nicholas said. ‘And Tzani-bey. They don’t have much patience with games. They thought it safer to poison the garrison, or as many as chance would allow. They are waiting for us. When they see us walk down, they will look for weakness, and use it.’

Tobie spoke without turning his head. ‘We condone this? In front of John, Astorre, our own men?’

‘We are heroes,’ said Nicholas. ‘That is war. You chose to heal
soldiers. I elected to fight one campaign in order to leave war behind. I ask you again to come with me to Kouklia. I have won my franchise. I have taken St Hilarion. Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously.’

‘You don’t want to leave war behind,’ Tobie said. ‘You want both. Adventure of body and mind.’

‘So do you,’ Nicholas said. ‘I don’t want you to fall out with Abul. I want you to ask him a question. Why does sugar kill?’

‘Sugar
?’ said Tobie. He moved out, into the acrid air that was sweet after what was inside. His stomach churned.