Race of Scorpions (57 page)

The building was vast, with a flat roof supported on arches, beneath which oxen plodded. They were forcing a stone to revolve on a millbase the length of two men. It was poundingly noisy, and malodorous. Nicholas clapped a man on the shoulder, and the fellow stopped working and grinned as Nicholas, raising his voice, began to explain.

Katelina left the party. She went and stood on the edge of the juice-pit, and watched the greenish-black liquid rushing and swirling below. There was more juice in cisterns outside, and clean water, and places where men and women were washing vessels and jars. They talked as they worked, turning their heads and watching the visitors. Nicholas called something as he came out and most of them laughed. If you looked at all the faces in the mills and the yard, they seemed engrossed, and not dissatisfied. Spoken to, they quite often smiled, and the women gave a small curtsey. To Nicholas.

There were sheds full of new moulds and jars, far more than at Episkopi. ‘I’ve set up our own pottery,’ Nicholas said. ‘They’re not bad either at tableware. You’ll see some of it at supper. And now, of course, the boiling-vats and the refining houses. Nothing changes much there. We reckon, with all our various kettles, to boil two tons of juice daily, but we’d like to speed all that up. Fuel, as you know, is the problem. And here we use mostly the tall moulds, as you do.’

The familiarity of the refinery process soothed the Episkopi men: Marco’s colour, quite heightened, settled a little. He said, ‘And how are your hens laying?’

‘Hens?’ said Jacopo Zorzi. ‘I thought the Martini lost all their birds to the raiders.’

‘Messer Niccolò obtained more. He had his sources,’ said Marco Corner. He caught the look on his wife’s face. ‘If you came oftener
into the yard, you would know that eggs clarify the cane juice. I wish to ask, Messer Niccolò, before you go further. You have laid wooden rails from the yard?’

The wooden rails, it appeared, enabled one horse to draw three wagons bearing thirty hundredweight of cut cane apiece. ‘Or, of course, chests of sugar,’ Nicholas said. ‘A packhorse could take only two hundredweight. And the rails can run all the way to the jetty.’

Katelina stood dumb: it seemed kinder. Marco Corner had flushed again. He said, ‘Ah. I see. Well devised. Well devised. And the working areas, so well fitted for continuous movement. With labour so short, it was worth planning.’

‘Labour can always be imported,’ said Nicholas. ‘I allow my sugar-masters, incidentally, unlimited cheese, wheat and wine plus a sum of one hundred and fifty gold ducats paid after the season, and a percentage dependent on improved production. If you want to steal them, you will have to offer them something quite uneconomic. I think the ladies are tiring. But perhaps you would like to see more?’

‘No,’ said Marco Corner. ‘You have been too good, taking this trouble. I have to congratulate you. And the King. We believed we had brought him a warband.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. ‘Organising a sugar business and organising a war – as I supposed you’ve already noticed, there isn’t much difference between them.’

They had reached the gates, where their horses were waiting. Marco Corner said, ‘And when will Zacco be King of all Cyprus?’

‘Before next summer’s harvest,’ said Nicholas.

‘And,’ said Marco Corner, ‘do you rely on King Zacco to let you keep the proceeds of an estate returning so fast to profitability? The Lusignan are notorious spendthrifts. They once pledged the whole village of Kouklia with the sugar they’d leased out as lien.’

‘Just like the Knights,’ Nicholas said. ‘Whom can one trust? Except, I suppose, that even though Zacco is King of Cyprus, the threat of the Turk still lies over us. He may feel he still needs to sweeten his warband. I’m thirsty. Let’s go.’

Because she was close, she saw Corner halt, and cause Nicholas also to fall back. The Venetian spoke. ‘Why do you show me all this?’

For once, Nicholas returned the look soberly. ‘Because I think we should work together,’ he said. ‘I would rather have you with me than against me.’

‘But not to the extent of having me steal your sugar-masters?’ the Venetian said. His expression had eased.

Nicholas laughed. ‘Anything but that. But I have a ship, and good provisions. We can help one another. I bear you no grudges.’

‘I hear you bear one,’ Corner said.

‘But not for a Venetian,’ Nicholas said.

There were Moorish dancers to entertain them at supper, and a juggler, and acrobats who walked on their hands. The meal was taken at dusk under awnings, with torches burning all round the courtyard, and lamps set on the two oblong tables with their silver cups and white napery and big, childish bowls glazed and blurred with blue and brown patterns. Fiorenza, who missed nothing, had long ago given Katelina a small fan with which to protect herself. But someone, she saw, had lit pastilles, and the scent, not unpleasant, seemed to keep the air free of mosquitoes. It was mildly warm.

She was seated nowhere near Nicholas, who was properly in the centre, between the princesses. He was wearing an unusual expression which seemed to change with undue rapidity. Catching the sound of his voice, she realised he was relating some sort of tale involving mimicry. A cry broke from Fiorenza. It seemed to be of laughter.

‘He has set to work,’ said Jacopo Zorzi on her right. ‘You were surprised today? You were not so surprised as our Venetian friends were on shipboard. That unlikely young man attracts women.’

‘On shipboard?’ Katelina said. On her other side, a man in physician’s dress turned, and she saw it was the doctor whose saddle she had shared during a desperate evening in Rhodes. The man who had betrayed, in Nicosia, that he knew her secret.

Zorzi’s face, darkened with stubble, smiled at her and continued to talk about Nicholas. ‘Vanni and Paul Erizzo met our host for the first time on shipboard,’ he said. ‘Travelling with a lady they call Primaflora. You know the lady Primaflora?’

‘We do,’ said the doctor, speaking across her. ‘The lady Primaflora, happily, has gone back to Rhodes. You mean you thought she’d have Nicholas begging, and instead it was the other way round?’

Zorzi’s smile grew broader. He said, ‘It’s a crude way of putting it.’

‘I’m a crude man,’ said the doctor. ‘I don’t agree with you. I think she was a spy for Carlotta. Zacco got rid of her.’

Jacopo Zorzi observed a short silence, then said, ‘Yes. Well, of course. Gossip, demoiselle Katelina. In the Levant we all thrive on it. I wish I could be concealed in the chamber, for instance, when you and the ladies Valenza and Fiorenza dissect us. But you are acquainted with the princesses, Master Tobias? You met their sister in Trebizond.’

The doctor had curious, curled nostrils which he now inflated, and pale eyes like an innocent cat. He said, ‘Before that, in Bruges
with her husband and later, on shipboard with her priest. I assure you, we all observed the niceties.’

‘And of course, in Trebizond, there was another King Zacco. How sad,’ said Jacopo Zorzi, ‘to hear the news from Adrianople. Is your Niccolò deeply distressed?’

‘What news?’ said the doctor. Katelina, in the middle, turned her head from one to the other.

Zorzi looked surprised. ‘You haven’t heard? David of Trebizond has been thrown in prison with all his young children. You recall, of course, that he surrendered the Empire in return for safe exile under the Sultan. Now, it seems, the Sultan has accused him of treason on the word of his false friend and former chancellor Amiroutzes.’

‘George Amiroutzes!
’ hissed the doctor. Katelina gazed at him. He pulled off his cap, an unseemly gesture in company, and revealed a bald head congested with pink. He compressed lips equally pink and declaimed, ‘The bastard!’

From the place occupied by Nicholas, an amused voice said, ‘Tobie!’

The doctor made no effort to replace his cap. He said, loudly, ‘That turd Amiroutzes has got the Emperor David flung into prison. And his family.’

‘I hear, six children,’ said Zorzi helpfully. ‘And their cousin, Alexios. His daughter Anna, of course, went as a concubine to the governor of Macedonia. The sons were all put in chains except for the three-year-old, George. Wasn’t it Amiroutzes who engineered the Emperor’s surrender?’

Across the table, Katelina saw the eyes of the negro, Loppe, meet those of the doctor who, in turn, engaged the apparently resistant attention of Nicholas. The doctor said, with the same pointed belligerence, ‘We were all in Trebizond when Amiroutzes was Chancellor. How, Messer Jacopo, did you hear of all this?’

Jacopo Zorzi betrayed, and indeed rather overdid, an air of surprise. He said, ‘Of course, from my cousin Bartolomeo who came straight from Constantinople. Messer Niccolò knows. It was Messer Niccolò here who invited him to manage the dyeworks.’ He turned and beamed at Katelina, who responded with half her attention.

The doctor said, ‘Of course.’ The lamplight on his flushed face turned his eyes bright as crystals. Perhaps he remembered, as she did, the voice of Nicholas rambling in Nicosia.
You’ve always believed I plotted it all. Of course I did. Luxurious exile for David of Trebizond
 … Nicholas had known about this. Nicholas who, carefully enjoying his wine, was saying nothing. He was saved, in any case, from an unusual quarter.

‘How kind you are,’ said Fiorenza of Naxos. ‘We respect your
reticence: we have felt your unspoken sympathy for our great-uncle the Emperor and his family. Messer Jacopo, these sad affairs should not intrude on our host’s hospitality. Messer Niccolò: I hear flutes. Are we to be given some music?’

Nicholas then emptied his cup and turned, saying something, and in a moment the performers arrived and began. They were reasonable enough; they were indeed the players the princesses invited when they wished to entertain: there were not so many artists on the island. But what they played was appropriate, and their manner of presentation was correct, and the behaviour of Nicholas equally so. He was talking, now, in a civilised way to Valenza, and she was leaning at ease, replying coolly with a bantering undertone. Jacopo Zorzi said, ‘He knows proper conduct. He trained at their court and has read the same books.’ The doctor beside her suddenly rose and went out. Zorzi said, ‘About Diniz.’

Katelina turned. The Venetian looked earnest and a little sorrowful. She said quickly, ‘The princesses told me. Your brother employs him. On the other hand, there are special difficulties in asking for his release. I should not trouble you.’

His eyes shone in the lamplight. ‘I was not sure if you had been told. My brother is discreet, but it is important, of course, that the truth of the incident does not reach the ears of King James. The fact, that is, that Messer Niccolò was not injured by accident. Naturally, Messer Niccolò himself is the last person to ask to free your nephew. On the other hand, my brother is sympathetic.’

Katelina said, ‘That is the best news I could have. But no one can help. If Diniz escapes and is caught, everyone will suffer, for Zacco is bound to find out the truth from Messer Niccolò.’

Zorzi said, ‘You have not thought of persuading Messer Niccolò yourself? Forgive me.’

Her outrage turned to acid amusement. She said, ‘He would hardly believe, I’m afraid, an attempted seduction by me. In any case, as you have said, I might find myself the victim, like Primaflora.’

‘Of that young man?’ Zorzi said. ‘Surely not. He is an amalgam of replicas: a composite of dubious models. You are your own person. If you ever do fear for yourself, it is not hard to get off the island. The Alexandria galleys pass and call, at Episkopi, at Akhelia, at Salines. There are always responsible men such as Luigi Martini who would help you. On the other hand, you have been promised freedom at the end of the summer.’

She said, ‘Do you think I should wait?’

And Zorzi said, ‘I think you should do what you say is impossible. I think you should speak to friend Niccolò. You underrate your charm, demoiselle; but it was not a persuasion of that kind I was thinking of. Our generous host did not mean to lose that
delightful lady Primaflora when he did. He might be prepared to do a great deal to get her back.’

‘In the face of the King and his mother?’ said Katelina.

He looked at her thoughtfully. Then he said, ‘Perhaps even then. He is in a position of strength, and is young, and greedy for women.’ He smiled and, relaxing, passed her a dish. ‘In which case, he has made his home in a singularly appropriate place. Look. People are rising. We leave in an hour. Will you allow me to arrange a meeting –’

‘With me?’ said the voice of Nicholas behind him. Zorzi, half risen, stood and turned. Katelina subsided. A moth, substantial as brown rotted fruit, advanced through dying smoke and opened and closed its wings on the table. Nicholas, his doublet caught on one shoulder, was a blur of white, below shadowy features. He said, ‘Young as I am, and greedy for women? If she wants to exchange her services for her murdering nephew, she should come back to Kouklia tomorrow. Today and tonight, I am suited.’ She saw the heaviness of his eyes, turned towards her, and heard the one clumsy word in that speech. He said, ‘Did he persuade you to escape?’

‘No,’ she said. The moth shifted, and she stood up quickly. She said, ‘While Diniz is here, I am here. I won’t beg.’

‘It wouldn’t matter if you did,’ Nicholas said. ‘Do you know who he is?’

‘She knows,’ said the Venetian patiently. He had recovered himself.

‘She knows,’ Nicholas said, ‘that Bartolomeo of the dyeworks is your brother. She doesn’t associate you as yet with your other brother. Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli, who once shared your journey from Scotland, demoiselle, and whose good advice sent me to Trebizond. The Greek with the wooden leg. I broke it at Sluys. You must remember that, Katelina.’

She remembered. She remembered the crazy, joyous apprentice whose name was not yet Nicholas. She remembered a tall, elegant Greek of Florentine descent whose affairs she had always known, vaguely, to be involved with those of the Charetty company; with its great new ventures; with the marriage, even, of Nicholas and Marian, his employer and wife. She said, ‘Do you mean to destroy his brothers as well?’