Race of Scorpions (48 page)

It was hardly remarked, so occupied were his own men in those weeks. The sailing-master Mick Crackbene was tracked down and sent to join them by Loppe, who had returned to the south armed with letters of credit, and shopping lists directed to agents in Venice and Florence, Milan and Palermo and Ancona. Crackbene, a self-contained man, seemed quite pleased to be restored to the company. King James, it seemed, he had encountered already. Since the
Doria
’s compulsory voyage to Episkopi, the ship had spent half the winter afloat, shuttling cargoes and indulging in brigandage. Her instructions reached her from Zacco, and it was Zacco, not the Venetians, who employed her. Crackbene and his men received wages, and the Bank of Niccolò, as was right, was paid lease-money. For a little time, Mick Crackbene remained in the King’s camp, and lent his impartial voice to their councils. Then, following a long silence from Loppe, there arrived a much-delayed packet for Nicholas. It contained a dozen pages close-written in Flemish. It had come from Loppe’s hands, and bore signs of discreet if, one hoped, fruitless tampering. Crackbene received his new orders and left for his ship at long last, rather thoughtfully.

Captain Astorre, his inventory over, set his smith to refurbishing weapons, checked the horse gear, and dispatched Thomas to bring in draught beasts and wagons. He spent a great deal of time with the captains of other companies, some of whom he already knew, and the practices of the camp and its exercises began to improve. He received an invitation from Zacco, which resulted in a number of exchanges in which the Captain aired his opinion of Skanderbeg, Piccinino, Urbino. These were followed by gifts for his table. He examined sacks of lead shot, his cheeks stuffed with almonds and
dates and green walnuts, and pored over plans whose edges were weighted with oranges.

Tobie also spent time with Zacco, whom he found attractively bold as well as receptive. On his first visit, he was given mulled wine, and became eloquent on the topic of dysentery. The name of Tobie’s uncle, physician to kings, was not mentioned. On his second visit, Tobie found that the King had asked to his table an Arab mediciner from the Mamelukes. The conversation proved highly agreeable. Afterwards, back in his tent, Tobie continued drinking until Nicholas came to investigate. Immediately, Tobie made a pronouncement. ‘If you don’t want Zacco, I’ll have him. I know how to take St Hilarion.’ After which the evening ended quite well, for Nicholas, entranced, helped him finish the wine-cask.

Thomas, brought in to carouse with the other lieutenants, heard their tales of their lord, and felt a different awe. ‘This man who cheated at cards,’ Thomas related that night, back in the company tent, ‘Zacco knocked him down, and ground his spurred boot in his face.’

‘Makes an example. Sharp boy,’ said Astorre.

‘And the merchants he let go from Salines. Remember? You know why he released them?’

‘To add to the mouths that would starve in a siege. Even I thought of that,’ said John le Grant. ‘He’s got a bonny body and brain, has the Bastard, but don’t let it fool you. You don’t inherit three hundred years of scorpion blood and end up a buttercup.’

Alone of the group, John le Grant resisted the temptation to enjoy the King’s easy confidence. He answered the Bastard’s legitimate questions, of which there were many; but his private life remained his own, as did his philosophy. Or so perhaps he thought, since work with cannon, with tunnels, with bombards appeared to him as normal as breathing, and he thought nothing of what a man might observe as he chalked out the plan of a project, or sat by a forge, silent, watching a new tool take shape. James de Lusignan was a good observer. Nicholas, never quizzed, had cause to know it.

Only the negro escaped, and on purpose. When Zacco was near, Loppe melted into the shadows. Before he went south, it was Loppe who watched the Lusignan, not the other way round.

Meanwhile the garrison at St Hilarion, of course, knew all that was happening. Separated by twenty miles, the protagonists could hear one another turning in bed. Nicosia knew when the fortress sent out its last foraging parties, got in its supplies, and closed its gates with reluctance. St Hilarion knew when the Bastard Lusignan’s army moved north to cross the eleven or twelve miles from Trakhona to the hamlet of Agridi. From there, the Pass of St Catherine led through the hills to Kyrenia. And on the height
to the left of the Pass stood the enchanted palace and fort of St Hilarion, Byzantine watchtower, Frankish ward and Lusignan bower, built for pleasure and killing.

By the middle hours of the day he set out, Zacco’s tents and camp fires surrounded Agridi; the scouts and sentries were placed, and the Bastard’s banner hung over a settling host. Over their heads sprawled the mountains: the long jagged range that lay between them and the flat coastal selvedge. From the camp they could see the start of the Pass, the way that led to Kyrenia, three miles from its end. Kyrenia could not be taken by any means they now had. What they needed was unchallenged domination of the road through the Pass. Tobie said, ‘How high is it? The castle?’

He and Nicholas were waiting for food; seated not far from the ovens with the afternoon sun warming Tobie’s bald head. There was a smell of fresh bread and camels and ordure. ‘Two and a half thousand feet above sea level. You can’t see it from here. You’re not worried?’ said Nicholas. ‘And you the great doctor’s nephew?’

There was also a smell of calendula. Remembering, Tobie put up his hand and removed the field marigold he had tucked over his ear. When he twirled it, his cuirass gleamed orange. He said, ‘According to the good lord, you plan to leave for Kouklia if you manage to take St Hilarion.’

‘That’s right,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’m going to be seventy-five miles away. News will take decades to travel between us.’

‘He said he hired us to fight, but if you’re longing to trade, he won’t stop you. I’m not complaining,’ said Tobie.

‘But you’re not coming with me,’ said Nicholas. The tone was one of confirmation. He added, ‘I suppose Thomas wants to stay, too. I don’t know how I’ll manage.’

Tobie’s face became heated. He said, ‘Will the sugarcane bite you? I’m needed by soldiers.’

‘I suppose you are,’ Nicholas said. ‘And if not, who am I to compete with the Arabs? Anyway, you’ve got it both ways, haven’t you? If we fail, I stay on. If we succeed, you can stay and rewrite the pharmacopoeia with whatsisname. Abul Ismail. I’d go and eat with Astorre, except that I can’t manage more than eight courses. Am I being unreasonable?’

‘Yes,’ said Tobie, relieved.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nicholas said. ‘The truth is, I need to get away soon.’

‘Why?’ said Tobie. He then flushed.

‘My God,’ said Nicholas, with dawning amazement. He took the marigold from Tobie’s fingers. ‘Do I have to tell you? I do. I have to call on our mutual friend Katelina. And if you want to know why, it’s remedial. When I get all excited like this, I need a furious woman. Who were you intending this for?’

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ said Tobie thoughtfully. He took the marigold back. ‘Where are Katelina and the boy? I thought the ransom money had come?’

‘So did I,’ Nicholas said. ‘She ought to be on her way back to her husband. She isn’t. Someone is stopping her.’

‘Maybe she insists on remaining,’ said Tobie, squinting carefully at his flower. ‘But they ought to send the boy home, wherever he is.’

‘I thought everyone knew,’ Nicholas said. ‘He’s an apprentice in the dyeyard. And working hard, too. He doesn’t get out till I say so.’

‘You’re joking,’ said Tobie.

‘I expect so,’ Nicholas said. ‘There was another rumour today. The Sultan is preparing for war against Venice.’

Tobie said, ‘I heard that last week. If it’s true, you’ll get all the supplies that you’ve sent for. But I suppose you were counting on that.’

‘I trust,’ Nicholas said, ‘that I’ll get everything that I sent for. I think I shall. I feel lucky. I feel you may even change your mind in the long run, and join me in Kouklia. We have, of course, to capture St Hilarion first, in which event you will be sent a pint of nut oil and a cake. If we don’t take it, you’ve nothing to worry about. Zacco won’t let me go; and Astorre and I will have wrung your neck anyway. I feel better.’

‘Good,’ said Tobie in resigned tones. They hid a low satisfaction. One of the things he liked best about Nicholas were his cowardly moments.

That afternoon, the trumpets blew for assembly, the camp proclamation was read, and after a segregated and somewhat uncomfortable blessing the army of James of Lusignan moved to the mouth of the Pass of St Catherine and turned into the steep and stony gut of the hills that were commanded by the fort of St Hilarion. They entered it like a river of quicksilver. The air was barred with their lances, and the spired and visored helms of the cavalry made a tumbling pattern, fore and aft. They beat drums as they went, and the banners flew in shivering streams, while shreds of orchid and iris, scabious, anchusa, cyclamen sprang from their feet, so that the company smelled like a whorehouse. Then the landscape of abrupt hills adjusted itself and ahead on their right stood the crag they were making for, with St Hilarion crowning its summit.

Once, this place, named after a hermit, had been sacred to God, and a monastery had stood on these stones. Now, the cloisters had gone. Instead, suspended in mist, rose the halls which Tobie perceived momentarily, chilled, to be lair of the Lusignans: a palace of half-serpent Melusine with vaults and pillars of gold, a belvedere mantled in green, a hint of gardens, of loggias; the
effulgent dome of a church. The impression was fleeting. As the cavalcade trotted nearer, he saw that the buildings were not of leaf gold, but of Byzantine thin brickwork and freestone, with tiled or thatched roofs and tall windows. Set high on the hill, the castle rose to the top by degrees: the wide lower ward for grazing, for tourneys, for pageants; the middle for hall and barracks and kitchens.

The uppermost, high among the cool airs from the north, held the royal suite of the Queen, and was empty. There, Tobie knew, the traceried windows looked to the sea and would have a view, however small, of Kyrenia Castle. Being placed on the edge of a chasm, the northern range of St Hilarion required no defences. Around the rest of the castle a wall had been built, and fortified with nine towers. A quarter-mile long, it straddled the southern slope of the hill and stalked up the height to the summit. This rampart towered before them, firm and well-kept, and bearing along all its length the vicious sparkle of steel. They were to be given a welcome.

James of Lusignan held up his hand. Just out of bowshot, his troops halted. A bugle sounded a call. The King’s herald rode out, his plumes nodding, his golden tabard sewn with the crosses and lions of Lusignan, and, halting far below the main entrance, blew his trumpet and shouted. After some delay, the castle gates opened and an armed horseman emerged and rode slowly down. They spoke, the measured sound of their voices echoing in the still air. Then they parted and returned. James received his herald, and turned to his captains and army. He raised his voice. ‘The garrison has refused honourable surrender. Brave men, you are to be given your wish. You will make this castle yours, and all that is in it.’

‘And that won’t be much,’ Nicholas said in an undertone, reappearing suddenly.

Inside his armour, Tobie was sweating. He said, ‘You’ve placed your men?’

‘I haven’t placed anybody,’ Nicholas said. ‘God Almighty, there’s a spy on every knoll up there, watching us. You’ve forgotten the programme.’

‘I haven’t. Now we turn and go back to camp, leaving them to stand to arms half the night. Then we come back tonight in relays, and tomorrow. Then when they’re worn out, we take them. Perhaps. Maybe we’ll be worn out before they are. Who’s that?’ Behind Nicholas, a huddled man in half-armour hung in the grasp of a guard.

‘One of the men I found watching us. The King wanted to question him. Now he’s sent him to you.’

‘To me?’ Tobie said. An idea puffed into his chest.

‘Yes. He has a terrible pain in the belly. So have half the Queen’s troops, so he says.’

‘It worked!’ Tobie said. He flung back his head and shrieked in awful falsetto. ‘It worked! It worked!’

Nicholas was grinning, and so was everyone round him. ‘Well, they weren’t going to let a wagon of new beef pass them by, were they? What did you put in the carcasses?’

‘Ask Abul Ismail,’ said Tobie. ‘Buckthorn, heliotrope, bryony berries. Mayweed and clover, sand lilies and cyclamen tubers. Lovely blooms. Poetic inspiration.
Ilm-l’krusha
, the learning of the bowels, is the Arab name for poetic inspiration. I tell you. If the garrison touches the meat, they’ll abort and shit till their eyes stream.’

‘A rotten, unethical trick,’ Nicholas said. ‘They’ll never let Abul into my Order, and Pavia will take your degree back. What d’you think of the weather?’

Tobie stared at him. ‘What are you worried about? It’s not going to rain. They say a sea wind gets up after dark, but you’re not having my blanket. Have you seen what John le Grant’s got to wear? Ten layers of thick cloth, three layers of wax cloth, and a lining of rabbit fur. He’ll be so hot he’ll be luminous.’

‘Well. We all have our burdens,’ said Nicholas, and turned sideways to talk to Astorre.

The first detachment left after midnight and, retracing their steps of the day, moved silently back to St Hilarion. Tobie, to his anger, was not with it; but he saw Nicholas ride out clad in full armour as were all of the captains. The King was with him. So were John le Grant and the pioneers, all garbed in leather or cloth, shadowy devils on shadowy mounts. He thought he saw camels. The sound of their feet died away and the camp settled again, perhaps to sleep. An hour passed, and another. The wind, rising, rattled the tents. Tobie, swearing, got up and, wrapped in his mantle, went off to check through the hospital tent. Two of his dressers were there, asleep on a pallet, and a man of the King’s, whose physician had gone with his master. Awake with a book by a candle was Abul Ismail, the Egyptian. He looked up and smiled, his bearded face folded in vertical lines. Tobie said, ‘The wind woke me.’