Race of Scorpions (91 page)

Except for the way they were standing, one shouldn’t compare this in one’s mind – or elsewhere – with another embrace, outside Kalopetra. Katelina had possessed none of these arts: only passion, and instinct. In a thousand ways, Primaflora had been trained to bestow pleasure. He had been the instrument on which she played; the tablet on which she placed her bounty. In the cabin of his own purloined ship the
Doria
; at Kolossi; on the ship taking two sweet-natured men, father and son, to their parting on Rhodes. At sea, after Lindos and their marriage. And then Nicosia, and the bed to which he had returned again and again, denying Zacco.

He knew her arts, and knew also, with absolute certainty, when she lost her hold of them. The hands behind him were unsteady, as
were his. It had been more than seven weeks, for seven weeks ago Zacco had made sure that he shouldn’t come to her as a husband. He knew how long, to a day, he had been celibate. She said, ‘Lie down. Let me sit beside you.’ Yet she held him fast, as if unable to free herself.

He said, ‘I thought it was forbidden to touch.’

She showed no alarm or confusion, but lifted to him the same intent, anxious gaze which had investigated his wounds. Her grasp relaxed, just a little. She said, ‘You must understand. You do. You live by the same rules. I have nothing. I have one profession. When a great man demands what I can give, I am afraid to refuse. But I also wish to practise my skills. It is unwise to tell you this. I should say that he threatened me. It’s true that I’m afraid, but he didn’t. I wanted to see if I could capture a king. Niccolò? Niccolò? Do you understand?’

‘So you leave me,’ Nicholas said.

She gave a laugh, and rested her head against him again. She said, ‘I’ve just told you. My profession feeds me, so I follow it. But often, despite it, I starve.’ There were tears on her cheeks. Below, the rounded haven of her body beat with his heart. She said, ‘Could I be near you, and not touch you? Whenever Zacco will leave me, I shall come to you. Do I not deserve something more than an embrace for telling you that?’

Lindos, and sunlight, and perfumed oil spilling over his body. He put her hands down, and his own arms close around her, and kissed her in the long, airless way which had been his contribution to their union, and which, on the rare occasions he used it, gave private notice of a slow sequence of acts also sparingly offered. As he began to draw back from the kiss, a knock fell on the door at his back.

Neither spoke. The rap came again, and was repeated. She put her finger to her lips, and drew him with her palms to the bed. Her face was white. The blood throbbed through his wounds, and his head. He stroked his hands down to her wrists and freed himself. ‘That will be Loppe,’ he said, and walked to the door and flung it open.

Loppe’s face was fixed; showing nothing of surprise or distaste, censure or apprehension. The sober grey-blue of his coat and doublet sat tidily on his great ebony frame, and his close black hair, perfectly groomed, held the tilt of his soft, folded hat. Across his palms, and unparcelled, lay a light object. On top of that was a packet. Nicholas said, ‘Come in.’ He turned. ‘You don’t mind? I asked him to help me home – well, to the villa.’

Primaflora stood by the bed. Sunlight, fountains, sweet scented oil. She looked as if her soul had been stolen, which was as it should be. Loppe said, ‘I’ll wait outside.’

‘First,’ said Nicholas, ‘Give her the veil. No. Put it on her.’

It was unfair to Loppe, but he hesitated only a moment. Then, laying the packet aside, he shook out the fine thing he had carried. A long linen veil, striped with embroidery and crumpled like tissue for, of course, what is soaked in river-water will not dry itself smoothly. He walked to Primaflora and then, glancing at Nicholas, laid the pretty cloth over her hair, and arranged it to fall from her shoulders. As she felt it she winced, but stood silent. For a moment there was a small tableau: the fair, gilded woman; the negro. Then she said, ‘A gift? It is beautiful.’ She had to breathe twice as she said it.

‘It is yours,’ Nicholas said. ‘You remember. You wore it once, at Kolossi. Open the packet now.’ Loppe had moved. He needed only a sign to walk through the door and close it gently. Nicholas watched him go, and then turned.

She had flung up a hand to the veil. Now she turned it into an ordinary gesture, drawing the linen aside and letting it slip to the bed. She said, her voice clearing, ‘Where did you find it? I left it with the Queen.’

‘Carlotta,’ he corrected her. He said kindly, ‘Open the packet. It was to be given to you when I was dead.’

If I survive a second time, I must revise it
. He had written it in December, on the night of the Feast of St Nicholas. There was nothing he wanted to add. He watched her as she read it, leaving unopened the personal thing he had also left her. He found a seat and descended carefully into it, still watching. At the end she said slowly, ‘Small men are suspicious like this, and see treachery everywhere. You made love to me, and to Zacco, and all the time this is what you were thinking?’

‘Recently,’ Nicholas said, ‘I haven’t made love to anyone. But Zacco gives freely – and takes – although his mother usually determines the victim. What had happened was obvious, anyway, from the time Zacco came from Kyrenia. I remember the gowns you wear; I have cause to. There were too many others.’

‘You have refused nothing he has given you,’ Primaflora said. She walked away from him and back, and threw the letter down on the bed, before coming to stand, looking down on him. She said, ‘As for the rest, it is nonsense.’

He said, ‘When it was written, I didn’t know Katelina was ill in Cyprus. Did you contrive that she went to immolate herself in Famagusta? She heard, from Carlotta she thought, that Diniz was trapped there and starving. But Carlotta has had very little, hasn’t she, to do with all this?’

‘You didn’t tell me the city was starving,’ said Primaflora. ‘You said it could hold out until spring.’

‘And you told Zacco,’ Nicholas said. ‘You were meant to. Otherwise
he would have sent no food, and hoped for a quick surrender. You and the King’s conscience, because of you, were what brought those relief wagons that night.’

He fell silent under her stare. She said, ‘You used me?’

And Nicholas said, ‘Give and take: I play games for a living. Zacco doesn’t; you will have found that out already, perhaps. He can be ruthless, and so can his sister. Katelina and her family threatened me and the Cypriot sugar trade, at a time when Carlotta wanted both. Would she have gone to such lengths without you as her agent? The attack on the Portuguese that killed one of them, and brought Katelina there and very close to her death – didn’t it matter that Diniz was sixteen, and adored you?’

She said, ‘I was with you at the time! How could I have arranged it?’

‘You hired killers,’ said Nicholas. ‘Do you want me to tell you what agents you used? I might not have found out if I hadn’t followed Katelina to Rhodes to warn her about you, and made friends of Persefoni and her kinsmen. Katelina might be living today if I’d stayed with her until she left Rhodes, but I thought all I had to do was remove you.’

She backed slowly and sat on her coffer. She said, ‘You love schemes, don’t you? I wasn’t an agent of Carlotta’s. She asked me to spy on you, after the death of Ansaldo. When he died, I hated you and I hated her for expecting me to forget him. I didn’t know Zacco’s Venetian friends were going to trap both of us, or that you would refuse Zacco until you had overtaken your army. Carlotta was powerful. How could I have told her on Rhodes that I would never spy for her, or admitted that I had given myself to you, and not just my body? Do you think I do for any man what you have experienced? Do you, Niccolò? And when she sent you to Kyrenia, I followed. She forbade me, Niccolò, but I followed. You seemed glad.’

She was weeping, her face held immobile. Nicholas said, ‘I didn’t know, then, that Katelina was on board. I thought I had separated you. But of course, it was all right in the end. Zacco sent you back to Rhodes.’ He felt his face crack in what was supposed to be a smile. He said, ‘At that time, he wanted no rivals.’

It dried her tears, that reminder. She said, with a spurt of anger, ‘And after? What designs could I or the Queen have had after Zacco employed you? She was more likely to encourage Katelina to kill you.’

‘I expect she did,’ Nicholas said. ‘But she had to reckon with Cropnose, who had other plans. And, like Cropnose, you wanted me safe, for a short term, which gave you several good reasons for disposing of Katelina. Carlotta, you saw, was now never going to recover her throne. To get back to Cyprus, you needed me. Until,
at least, James of Lusignan had noticed you. The King was always your goal, failing Carlotta. You knew he was young. You thought he was vulnerable. And if he wasn’t at least you had a patron for life in your husband.’

With an uncharacteristic gesture, she put her hand to her body. She gathered herself. ‘And that, too, was inside your mind while we lay together? That I could kill you, if it happened to suit me?’

‘You wouldn’t shirk murder,’ said Nicholas. ‘One other person at least recognized that: you’ve just seen him. Perhaps I might have been safe. With Zacco, you have influence, but he shares the pleasures of his bed among many, and the starving, as we know, are not his first concern. It would please you very much to be served by us both.’

‘One for power, and one for love,’ she said. ‘You do understand. He is like one of his leopards. He waits for nothing, learns nothing. You learned too much. How to rule your heart with your head.’

‘I was trained by a baccalaureate,’ he said. ‘And, of course, you used the same skills, the same subtlety to take away life, Primaflora. I was at Kalopetra. I heard of the ambush. I saw Katelina wearing that veil and I saw what happened. Who told you that insects drove her mad?’

‘I don’t remember,’ she said; and turned and picked up his package, smoothing it.

‘So someone told you,’ he said. ‘And you know what I am speaking about. What a death you sent her to. A valley of serpents, and a shawl impregnated to drive her crazy with horror.’

‘It was the Queen’s,’ she said. ‘I left it with the Queen.’ The packet had fallen open in her twisting fingers. It was, of course, the blue and silver emblem of his Order, with its legend.
To remain loyal
. If he had died, that is what she would have received.

She said, ‘Which of them gave this to you? The Queen or her worst enemy, Zacco?’

It had come from both sides, and he had accepted it. He said, ‘It was a counter. A counter in the same game.’

She studied the badge, moving her thumbs over its surface. Tonight, she had dressed her hair formally. He noticed the pearls in her bent, pleated head, and the golden wisps shadowed her cheeks. She said, ‘With your mind so made up, I shan’t plead.’

He said nothing. On the nape of her neck was a mole. She had another. If you inhaled carefully, you could name each of the scents she used, and tell from where it was breathing. She sat like a child, with her knees together. She said, ‘You will tell Zacco this?’ She looked up.

Nicholas rose. She flinched as if she thought he would strike her, and he halted. Then he said, ‘No. The King’s pride would prevent him from believing me, and he would hate us both. In any case,
there has been talking enough. They are all dead or gone, whom you hurt most.’

‘But you will find a way to punish me,’ said Primaflora. She stood.

‘Oh, yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have done so already.’

‘How?’ she said.

‘By depriving you of what you want most,’ he said. ‘A king’s house, a king’s bed, a secure future, a patron, a husband. After Zacco, you can hope for no help from Carlotta. And if you ever wanted me as I still want you, that, too, is lost to you. One word in the right place can do more harm than an axe, as you have shown. You will know when it has been spoken.’

He didn’t know whether she realised what he was going to do. She didn’t speak. There was nothing more he wanted to say, even if speech had not just become difficult. He walked to the door, leaving her where she stood. Loppe was outside. He heard her voice as he left. It said, ‘You have forgotten Jordan de Ribérac.’

Because he was full of grim anger, and a very private variety of anguish, Nicholas talked to Loppe in brief outbursts on the way back to the villa and was still talking when Tobie met him in rage on the threshold. He had no memory afterwards of going to bed.

The next morning, he woke to find Astorre at his bedside. The captain, fully dressed and freshly returned, no doubt, from a practice bout in the courtyard, said, ‘I thought I’d have a word before the rest finished at table. You’re not married any more?’

With extreme clarity, Nicholas remembered that he was not married any more. He said, ‘Dispositions are being made, I hear, to end the arrangement. Why?’ He moved cautiously and found his limbs, although stiff, seemed to answer him. He contemplated what appeared to be a permanent condition of nausea.

Astorre said, ‘Thomas told us it wouldn’t work. I can’t say I’m sorry. But what about the fat Frenchman?’

The fat Frenchman. Nicholas said, ‘Oh. The vicomte de Ribérac. He’s here to cause trouble. I don’t think he’ll manage it. Anyway, he’s going to be paid for and sent home. Waves of hate coming from Portugal, but I suppose we can deal with that. Astorre friend, I did promise a conference. Can this wait?’

Astorre twitched back the bedclothes, inspected the bandages and flung them over his charge’s body again. ‘I said you should’ve dodged that one,’ he said. ‘But you weren’t bad. No. If I wait, they’ll make up your mind for you. You’ve seen two nasty sieges, and you’re recoiling against the whole thing.’

He was awake now. Nicholas battened down the entire seething entity of what was actually happening and put himself in Astorre’s
place. He said, ‘You’re wondering about the future of the army. It seems possible that I’ll be offered the citadel of Sigouri and its estates, which would give work for a garrison, unless Cairo has other ideas. If the Turks begin to prevail over Venice, Cyprus may well be in danger, and Zacco will need all the help he can get. On the other hand, we’ve done what we’ve contracted to do. Would you go for a war somewhere else?’