Race of Scorpions (52 page)

The Fleming stood on the edge of a tub. He said, ‘You are here because of your aunt and your father. So why don’t we talk of your aunt and your father?’

Diniz had no weapons left, but there was a wringing-hook on the wall at his shoulder. He snatched and swung it at vander Poele’s ankles. Instead of tripping, the other man sprang to one side, slipping his foot in the hook as he did so. He tugged, and Diniz fell sideways into the tub. Liquid closed over his head; he swallowed and sat up spewing. It was full of urine. Then he made to rise and could not, for the wringing-hook was fast in his belt, and the Fleming stood holding it. Vander Poele said, ‘What did you intend? To trip and then kill me?’

Diniz sat in the stink, coughing and choking. He said, ‘To kill you.’

Vander Poele said, ‘Or did you mean the copper to do your work for you? It’s there, above you, still warm. I have only to pull out the plug, and let it flood into the gutter. The liquid would scald, and then drown you.’

‘Do it, then,’ Diniz said. He saw, in the depths of the tub, a glint of metal and remembered what it was, and how it came to be there. A piece of carelessness, the previous day, followed by a childish unresolved brawl between coopers.
You climb down and get it. It’s your fault
. The article they had dropped was an axe.

The Fleming, he heard, was still talking. ‘Why should I kill you? You haven’t harmed me. You couldn’t harm me. I have no reason for wanting you dead. I have bought you: I told you, because I prefer to see you here, in the salubrious air of the dyeshop.’

Someone was laughing – the Venetian, strolling up. He said, ‘My dear, I said fight, not dip the poor child like a sheep. I think you should tie him until he becomes a little less angry.’ There was a hank of blue wool in his hands, still attached at one end to its winch. Zorzi said, ‘You drop it over his shoulders, and I’ll wind him up like a moufflon. Christ God, he stinks.’

Diniz gave one choking sob. The hook dragged his belt and his body began to leave the filthy water. The heavy wool dropped over his shoulders and then gripped round his waist, trapping one arm and leaving one free. Vander Poele thrust the stuff into place and held it firm with one hand, while the other assisted the pull with the wringing-hook. The Fleming talked over his arm to his winch-man. His attention was fully engaged and so was that of Zorzi, who was laughing harder than ever. Diniz began to rise free of the bath.

He had already taken hold of the axe. As he came waist-high to his tormentor, he whirled his arm round with the implement. He let it go just short of its target, which was the vein in vander Poele’s neck. The flash of silver was all the warning the other man had. He began to move, but there was of course no way he could avoid it. Diniz heard the thud, and the other man’s gasp. The Fleming half staggered. The stick fell to the ground, and the wool ran through his fingers. The axe, jarred by the movement, detached itself and fell beside Diniz. He felt the handle under his hip as he dropped back to the vat edge and sprawled, half in and half out of the bath, blinded by the dash of the liquid, and by the crimson spray of Niccolò’s blood. He saw, through the blur, that the other man had fallen quite slowly and was lying, his head turned away, in pools of bright blood and urine garnished with wool twists of Imperial purple. He couldn’t see the extent of the wound. He said, without getting up, ‘Is he dead?’ He started to shiver.

The Venetian Zorzi looked up from where he was kneeling. He was perhaps pale, but his expression was not one of horrified anger. He said, ‘Well. Neither of us expected you to do that. No, he is not dead. But he could be.’

Diniz stared at him. Zorzi said, ‘If you wanted him dead, you have only to leave him. He will bleed his life away in ten minutes, and you would be perfectly safe. It was a fair fight, and the cut of an axe or a sword can look much the same in a corpse.’

Diniz lifted himself until he was sitting. He said, ‘You would do that? Support me?’

Zorzi knelt back, one hand comfortably on his knee. He said, ‘I don’t see why not. I’ve no axe to grind – ha! – over the rights and wrongs of your case, but you seem a good trainee, and vander Poele himself recommended you. This was a fair fight, or an accident.’

‘And you don’t mind if he dies,’ Diniz said.

‘No,’ said Zorzi thoughtfully. ‘Unfortunately, I am not a free agent. I have an elder brother, and orders to follow. I think perhaps I should make some little effort. Of course, I might try very hard, but in the end nature could defeat me?’ He looked down. The scarlet pool widened, and thickened. Far across the yard, a banging noise made itself heard from the other side of the buildings. Bartolomeo Zorzi lifted his head. The banging stopped, to be followed by the jangling of spurs, and men’s voices. Zorzi said, ‘Who? The King’s men, at a guess, come to look for the fugitive favourite. Who has had an accident, practising swordplay, and whom we are doing our best to revive. Hide the axe. Come here. I need a stick and a rag. I apply my fingers here, and you bind as fast as you can. What is wrong with you?’

‘Nothing,’ said Diniz through chattering teeth.

‘Why deny you are weeping? It is right to show anguish. Through no fault of yours, the King nearly lost his good comrade.’

Men appeared at the end of the shed. Diniz said, his hands smothered with blood, ‘He will tell them. When he wakes, he will tell them what happened.’

‘Will he?’ Zorzi said. ‘Remember, he could have killed you and didn’t. He could have freed you, and didn’t. He wanted you in his power. And he has his wish now, hasn’t he, to a degree he hardly expected? You are at vander Poele’s mercy. And at mine, of course, also.’

Chapter 26

‘S
o
YOU FELL
on your axe?’ Tobie said.

From this, Nicholas deduced that he was now expected to live; since it was the first direct, normal remark anyone had made to him during several hours of extreme pain and confusion. He had little recollection of being carried, by soldiers apparently, back to his own room in the villa. The doctor’s face had immediately materialised, and the variety of sensations which ensued had been punctuated by Tobie’s voice emitting phrases of bitter anger, impatience, anxiety, and at times a form of bracing reassurance which Nicholas, unable to respond, had felt nevertheless to be deeply disturbing.

He was aware that he was now fully awake after what felt like a profound sleep and that he was in his own bed, from which rose a distinct odour of latrines. The upper left side of his body was encased in wrappings, beginning at his neck and continuing down over his shoulder and chest. The seat of the screaming alarm lay somewhere at the point of his shoulder and neck. Indeed, he remembered explaining to someone that he had been struck and felled by a boulder, and asking them to go and get tackle to lift it. That had been, no doubt, one of his less sensible conversations with Tobie. His head thudded and he had no wish to move, or conviction indeed that he could. It felt, now he came to think of it, as if he had lost a lot, quite a dangerous volume of blood. Now he came to think of it, he remembered how.

Tobie’s face, which had acquired a frown, was beginning to clear again. Nicholas said, ‘Well, I didn’t fall on my sword.’ He added, ‘Is the smell coming from you or from me?’ He further added, ‘I thought you stayed at St Hilarion?’

Tobie scowled, while looking paradoxically cheered. Ignoring this last, he said at once, ‘Are you serious? We had to wrap you in rags, or the bed would be as disgusting as you were. Even after we washed what we could reach of you, and scrubbed the floor, and
burned your clothes, you could tell, by God, that you came from a dyeyard. Mind you, for smell, the stupid brat was the winner. Flowers died as he passed them.’ Tobie paused. ‘The Portuguese. The spoiled baby who did his best to kill you.’

Nicholas wished the conversation would halt. Against strong advice from his internal organs he said, ‘Who told you that?’

‘Bartolomeo,’ said Tobie. ‘The Palace, of course, has been treated to quite a different story. But Bartolomeo made sure, naturally, that we heard the truth. I didn’t like him when he came on board off Constantinople, and I don’t like him now. I don’t know why his damned peg-legged brother took the trouble all that time ago to ransom him. And I don’t know, either, why you’ve brought him into the yard.’ He stopped, and into his face came the critical look Nicholas recognised of old. Tobie said, ‘You’re not much of an audience. Sore shoulder? Sore head? A drink, maybe?’

‘Not that kind of drink,’ Nicholas said. ‘But something wet would be nice. There’s a new inlet pipe in my head.’

‘Let’s try the usual way.’ Supporting him, Tobie said, ‘It was your lucky day, whatever you feel like. You moved just a little too far, and the axe was at the end of its range. I’d like to try it again with the brat at the other end, this time.’

‘Diniz?’ Nicholas said. The cup withdrew. ‘He wasn’t hurt?’

‘They didn’t call me to him,’ said Tobie. ‘Which is as well, because I wouldn’t have gone. He’s here, in a cell with a stool, a bucket and a small supply of congealed food. I don’t think he’s been offered a bath yet, but maybe his nose has got used to it. What did you expect, an ovation when you walked into that yard?’

‘I was going to talk to him,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I had to take Zorzi there first. I was going to talk to him along with …’ He stopped. With the pillow behind, he could now see a small amount of the room, including the window. There was someone sitting beside it. He saw who it was.

Tobie followed his gaze. ‘Katelina van Borselen. You asked her to come here to meet you, and she’s been here ever since. She won’t leave till she knows what will happen to Diniz.’

‘Nothing. Tell her.’

‘I have told her. She doesn’t believe me. I don’t, perhaps, sound convincing,’ Tobie said. He was wearing his cap, as he always did when exercising his profession. The curl of his lips matched the neat little scroll of his nostrils; all of which, in their ways, provided a regular index to Tobie’s intimate feelings. Once, in Trebizond, Tobie had attended another illness of his, with consequences Nicholas preferred not to remember. Then, Katelina had not been present: only spoken of.

Nicholas said, ‘Bring her over.’ She came, not very quickly, and stood by his bed.

Sick or well, you couldn’t look at this face without seeing, under the strain, the handsome, high-bred young woman of three years before. You couldn’t look at the slender gown, the long sleeves, the severe coif, without remembering the generous body, twice offered and many times visited. Her gaze was large and brown and impelling. She said, ‘The cause in this quarrel was mine. Diniz was an innocent, acting on impulse. Punish me, but not him.’

Since St Hilarion, he had grown very tired of some sorts of exchanges. He said, ‘How would you like to be punished?’

Her eyes widened. So, he saw with perverse satisfaction, did those of Tobie. Then she said, her voice steady, ‘Do with me as you would do with him.’

‘All right,’ said Nicholas. ‘He goes home, and you start in the dyeyard on Monday.’ He closed his eyes without meaning to, and found it an improvement.

She said, ‘You are playing with me.’

Tobie said, in an exasperated way, ‘He’s not playing with anybody. He’s tired of talking, and he’s just told you the truth. Diniz is under no threat but that. He has to work with the dyes for a season. And even that was already decided.’

Katelina’s voice said, ‘Is that true?’

Nicholas opened his eyes. He said, ‘You know how ashamed I was of my upbringing. Now the Vasquez are getting a taste of it.’

Her relief was so great that it displaced, he saw, even her scorn. She said, her voice strengthening, ‘But he is in a cell.’

‘That was Tobie’s doing,’ he said. ‘A surcharge for unsolicited work conducted under unpleasant conditions. I shall give orders to have Diniz released. He will be, as before, a prisoner of war with restricted freedom of movement. Unless, of course, he tries the same thing again.’

‘I shall stop him,’ she said.

Nicholas looked up at her. ‘He might stop himself, if he thought about it. You could tell him –’ He hesitated.

‘Yes?’ said Katelina. ‘I don’t mind being your mouthpiece. I shall not, perhaps, be very persuasive.’

There was a silence. Tobie said, ‘Go on.’

Nicholas lay, feeling foolish. Because he also felt rather ill, he eventually spoke. ‘Tell him that his father was not killed by my agency. Tell him that, when I found my company in Rhodes, I had already promised King James that we should serve him, or nobody. If I’d told the Queen that, my men would never have left Rhodes alive. And there is one last thing. I had no idea that you and Diniz would be on board that ship for Cyprus. This was never intended.’

She said, ‘So why are you keeping us?’ He couldn’t tell whether she believed any of it or not.

He said, ‘I am keeping Diniz, since he is here, for his own good.
I am not keeping you. That is the fault, I gather, of my – of Jordan de Ribérac.’

It was not a slip he would ever have normally made, and she struck immediately, with such speed that he saw her stance had not changed by a fraction. ‘Of your grandfather, you nearly said. You still pretend to believe he’s your grandfather?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. His eyes were worn out with the ache in his head.

‘But you do. That is what I can’t forgive,’ she said with sudden vehemence. ‘You knew what you were doing. It wasn’t by chance. You truly thought and think Simon is your father, and devised the foulest revenge, using me.’ Her voice rose. ‘Using me. Using me.’

‘That’s enough!’ Tobie said briskly. To reduce emotion was, after all, part of his job; and he was good at it. Nicholas heard him through a light haze, which made it remarkably difficult to assemble his own thoughts. He suspected that, after all, Tobie had doctored that drink. Up to the very last moment, his wits failed to warn him what was going to happen.

The girl said, ‘Using me!’ in a scream, and Tobie took charge. He said, ‘That’s enough. Stop! Forget what he did. However dreadful it was, no one is suffering. Simon doesn’t know Henry isn’t his son. The boy will be reared as a nobleman. Nicholas is making no claims on the child or on you. Why pursue such a feud? Look what it’s doing to Diniz!’