Famagusta, again. He must pick his way carefully. Above all, he had to contrive that he was not landed in a different place from his army. Nicholas thought of Madeira, and further thought that it would do no special harm to give Imperiale Doria a present. He said, ‘Madonna, my company will fight as I tell them. If they do not see me, or hear from me, or know how I am being treated, there is no incentive for them to be loyal. If you place me in Famagusta, you must put my men in Famagusta as well. If they are to be in Kyrenia, then give me to the Marshal there as hostage.’
Queen Carlotta opened her mouth. Then she shut it and looked at her consort. The sandy jaws moved. The King said, ‘You claim to have loyal followers. It is for them to fight all the harder, so that Zacco is driven to lift both his sieges and abandon his efforts. If your men are not moved to strive and Famagusta falls while you are there, it will be, of course, your misfortune.’
So Luis was hedging. The Queen broke in, speaking faster than usual. ‘And you will tell them, your men. If they defect, they are dead. I will see to it. I have given orders. You know this man James? The Bastard de Lusignan? Zacco?’
‘I have heard of him,’ Nicholas said.
‘And the noseless bawd, his unmarried mother. You will hear,’ said Carlotta, ‘that Zacco has charm. He knows the sinful longings of men; he encourages avarice. There have been men who have been tempted, and joined him. He thought Sor de Naves was one. Sor de Naves of Sicily.’
‘He brought you from your visit to Savoy,’ said Nicholas.
The Queen sat still, her hands loose on her lap, her bright eyes on Nicholas. ‘James de Lusignan thought to seduce him. He persuaded Sor de Naves to leave us; to cross to Syria and bring back troops and munitions. Signor de Naves did indeed bring back troops. He also brought arms, and gunpowder, and bombards. He sailed with them to Cyprus. But he gave the bombards to the Genoese instead of to Zacco, and sailed with the rest to us at Kyrenia.’
Nicholas bowed his head in an edified way. He knew the story. The brother of Sor de Naves had long since deserted the Queen and now served, a rich man, under Zacco. But Sor had kept faith with Carlotta, even though his brother with Zacco might pay for it. Perhaps the brothers were rivals. But no, that was naïve. Many families halved the risk by supporting different sides: Marco and Andrea Corner, for example. As a policy, it was not always successful; but the more skilled the operator, the more likely he was to be cherished. By Zacco, who charmed, or by Carlotta, who did not recognise charm. Nicholas kept his gaze lowered, and tried to look useful.
The Queen said, ‘We made you a member of an Order of Chivalry, and we have not rescinded it. We promised you land, and a title. The land we do not yet have: it has to be fought for. But we keep our word. We offer no blandishments. We rely on our rightful claim, and the princes of Christendom who support us. We know the day will come when you will take your place, as our Knight, in Nicosia. We hold your pledge. You have only to prove yourself.’
‘In Famagusta,’ said Nicholas.
She looked coldly upon him. ‘You are a Knight, and this is your trial.’
‘And my marriage?’ said Nicholas tentatively.
The Queen looked impatient. She said, ‘That, of course, cannot take place. Primaflora is required here on Rhodes to attend us. Ask for her hand, if you wish, when Zacco is dead or vanquished.’
Nicholas said, ‘I see. So your serene excellencies are staying on Rhodes?’
She had come to the end of all she intended to tell him. She said, ‘How else can we reach the free world, and capture its conscience? You will go as soon as the weather allows. You have an oath to keep.’
He had forgotten that. He had forgotten his bruised face for the moment as well. He was thinking that he had recently received a number of very good offers although, of course, they were no more than he expected. You didn’t go into the game without having worked out, at least, what the prizes were.
Before the storm had blown itself out, the company of Niccolò the banker left Rhodes on a round ship commanded by Louis de Magnac, the Grand Commander of Cyprus, with the best seamen of the Order serving under him. Marching down to Mandraki Harbour, the hundred picked soldiers tramped in a dazzle of cuirass and helmet. In front, Astorre and Thomas were shaken by wind-battered plumes, and even John le Grant, walking with scarlet-clad Tobie, glistened in his suit of tooled German armour that Thomas, privately, had tried to buy from him twice. Behind came their clerks, their grooms and their servants, and behind that, the well-packed wagons with their arms and their baggage.
Nicholas was missing still. It was presumed that the head of the Bank of Niccolò had spent the week locked in the Palace of Cyprus. The mercenaries who fought for him tended to believe, on the other hand, that the lucky bastard was in bed with the blonde, and would be found spent on board when they got there. Astorre had done nothing to destroy this conviction, which might even be sound. It surprised him, the regard in which the young fellow was held by his army. It was natural enough, he supposed. The boy had a brain. He was friendly. He made money. He’d come a long way since Bruges, that was certain.
On board, there was still no sign of Nicholas, nor any news of him that they could gather. The ship, they found, was heavily loaded, although the only other passengers in evidence were some three dozen soldiers, armed as they were not. Their own weapons, armour and harness were locked away as soon as they arrived, and the hundred men of their company equally bestowed under lock and key in a different part of the hold. The four officers of the House of Niccolò were given a cabin. Travelling with them, they gathered, were officials bound for the royal garrison at Kyrenia, some merchants, and a Genoese called Tomà Adorno, at whose name Tobie brightened. Attending this assortment of voyagers was a full complement of servants and some women, who might or might not have been wives. These shared the space below deck with a full cargo of arms and gunpowder and food, destined for the Queen’s remaining strongholds on Cyprus. Also aboard, but presently confined with his shipmaster, was Louis de Magnac, who was to command the voyage. With him, they fervently hoped, was his useful black servant called Lopez.
They had proceeded so far with the inventory when a sequence of thuds from above indicated that the time of departure was now close. It was John le Grant who asked for, and received, permission for the four to take the air on deck until sailing-time, a privilege no one else begged since the rain at the time was horizontal. They stood by the deck-rail and gazed all about them. Rhodes, for four months their prison, was about to relinquish them at last. They should have been joyful. The wind screamed and the sea surged, slate and white to the misty horizon. There was a sequence of celestial mutters, and a white vertical crack appeared between heavens and sea, followed by a thorough-going crash. Astorre’s eyelashes shook in the downpour like groundsel. Astorre said, ‘So where is the madman?’
It was the urgent question in all their minds. If Nicholas was already on board, no one would admit to it. If he was not on board, then something was seriously wrong, and no one except Astorre wanted to think of it. In silence, therefore, they watched the wharf, the pier, and all the distant traffic out of the city. In rigid silence they observed, through the rain, a detachment of soldiers progressing smartly out of the gates and marching the length of the jetty. They arrived at the foot of the gangplank and two of them came aboard, with a man in a heavy cloak following.
Beside the man in the mantle was Nicholas, hatless, cloakless and wearing an untidy doublet. From the frizz of his hair, the rain hopped down the lines of his brow and sluiced the familiar face, which was fawn and bland and marked with occasional scabs. He saw them, and caused his tied hands to rise in a shrug. He looked cheerful. Turning, Tobie saw why he looked cheerful. Advancing towards him was the Grand Commander of Cyprus, Louis de Magnac. And behind him, eyes downcast, was Loppe. Astorre said, ‘Hah!’ and John le Grant trod on his foot. Nicholas said nothing at all, but smiled vacuously.
The newcomer conferred with de Magnac. The stranger was broad
rather than tall, and the fur inside his cloak made him thicker. His wrists looked powerful, and his hands were heavily ringed. The conversation lasted rather longer than might have been thought necessary: at the end of it, the two shore soldiers were replaced by two from the ship who, assuming control of the captive, marched him towards the rear castle. Passing, Nicholas turned his head and shrugged again, grinning. It seemed to have become his habitual posture. Above the grin, it could be seen, he was looking about him intently.
The man of the mantle had left the Grand Commander and was coming over. ‘Messer Niccolò’s officers? I am Napoleone Lomellini. I have the duty of escorting your young master to my city of Famagusta. I regret the bonds, but you may speak to him later. It would not do, as you may imagine, for the company of Niccolò to seize the ship and take it anywhere but the island of Cyprus.’ He smiled and turned. His brows were thick and dark, and so was his hair. ‘You may sail, master.’
The shipmaster hesitated, his eyes on de Magnac. The Grand Commander gave a nod, and the master, turning, began to give orders. Astorre said, ‘See that? Commands from a Genoese? The rest didn’t like that, did they? Well, we’re going. It’s all working out as the lad said.’
John le Grant said, ‘Is it? He didn’t say anything about going to Famagusta.’
‘Does it matter?’ said Tobie.
‘Yes, it matters,’ said le Grant. ‘It matters if they land him in one place and us in another.’
‘He wouldn’t let them do that,’ said Astorre.
‘He mightn’t be able to stop them,’ said John le Grant. ‘I don’t like it when he looks cheerful.’ The ship had begun to cast off, the oars poised, the anchormen working. Nicholas, about to disappear into a cabin, had prevailed on his escort to let him turn and stand, gazing landwards.
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Tobie. ‘He’s stopped looking cheerful.’ He was staring at Nicholas. ‘He’s regretting something. I wonder what it is, apart of course from being about to land on Famagusta. What other disasters have befallen him recently? Failing to kill John of Kinloch? Achieving poor results with the Vasquez family? Getting stoned by the Portuguese? Or not getting to keep Primaflora? Mind you, maybe he did. Maybe she’s aboard. Maybe they’re married.’
‘She isn’t. I asked,’ said Thomas surprisingly. He flushed.
Tobie said, ‘You asked?’
Thomas said, ‘I wondered. The Queen might have forced her to marry him. But they said not. She’s to stay in Rhodes with the others.’
John le Grant said, ‘Thomas. I thought you had had enough of the lady?’
Thomas flushed deeper. Tobie said, ‘He had; and he didn’t fancy her running the company. That it, Thomas? So why is our Nicholas looking like that, unless he’s found she isn’t on board?’
They all looked at what they could see of Nicholas. Certainly, his face was no longer cheerful. He was staring at the long mole behind them. The ship rocked, the oars dug in, and the space between the ship and the jetty started to widen. Tobie said, ‘It’s the tower John was building. Look at it. Crooked as Pisa.’
‘He’s missing the Queen,’ Astorre ventured. He guffawed. ‘Knight of the Order!’
Tobie said, ‘Well, Christ, he’s happy again. Whatever he was missing, he seems to have seen it. What’s he looking at now?’
‘A boat,’ said John le Grant. ‘Coming across from that galley. Hailing us.’
Nicholas had thrown back his head. His face was the face of a child at a carnival. The shipmaster walked to the rail. A man in the advancing sloop called again, and continued to flourish his arms. The shipmaster signed to his trumpeter, and the oars back-pedalled and held. The sloop came nearer. ‘Hell and damnation,’ said John le Grant under his breath. Tobie said nothing.
In the sloop was the courtesan Primaflora. Her hood fallen back, she let the rain beat on her face as she gazed up at the deck of the cog. Nicholas raised his bound arms in a gesture of unassumed and explicit delight and, seeing him, her face opened in a smile to make every man envious. He stood, prevented from moving, and watched her. There was an interval, during which the sea lifted the sloop and the girl and her woman clung, struggling to board. Boxes were transferred. Then Primaflora was on deck, and greeting the shipmaster, the Grand Commander, Lomellini.
They looked mystified, Tobie thought. He said, ‘They didn’t expect her. Do you suppose …’
‘She’s here against the Queen’s wishes? I was supposing just that thing,’ said John le Grant. ‘And look at Nicholas, man. He’s got her again, and no marriage. I grant you. That laddie can plan.’
‘I should think the planning was hers,’ Tobie said. ‘And either a convincing lie, or a fair greasing of palms, or they would never have agreed to her boarding. She’s coming over.’
They hadn’t seen her since the miserable night when the Court of King Arthur attended the death of Tristão Vasquez. Then, she had been the Queen’s attendant but not, perhaps, enjoying the Queen’s fullest confidence. There had been soldiers with her, Tobie remembered, clearly told to stay with her wherever she went.
There was no one with her now but her woman. She left the Commander, the Genoese and the shipmaster and came across to them all. She said, ‘The Queen was so reluctant to allow me to come, I feared to miss the ship altogether. I have held up your sailing. I am sorry.’ She walked as she spoke, taking them out of earshot of the ship’s officers. She said, ‘They won’t let me talk to Niccolò, or at least, not yet. Will you give him a message?’
‘Of course,’ said John le Grant. Tobie looked at him suspiciously.
She smiled. She said, ‘I trust you not to give me away. I have no leave to come. I have left the Queen, but they mustn’t know until I have landed. Will you tell Niccolò?’
‘Won’t they send you back?’ Tobie said.
‘They would find it hard,’ she said. The Commander had come to her side. She smiled to them and, turning, to Nicholas, and then left the deck.
Tobie said. ‘Do you believe that? What are we talking about? We can’t give a message to Nicholas.’
‘Loppe can,’ said John le Grant. ‘Didn’t you see? Nicholas is to share the Grand Commander’s own cabin. They don’t trust him anywhere else. So all the trip, Loppe can run between us.’
‘And between Nicholas and Primaflora,’ Tobie said. ‘That makes me feel a lot better. No, it doesn’t.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Captain Astorre. Crossing the harbour bar, the ship lurched again, and gave every sign of continuing to do so. ‘Don’t worry. Remember which is the lee rail, and don’t think of Nicholas. You’ll get back your sea legs in no time.’
Very soon after that, the willing black servant Lopez had cause to unlock his master’s cabin in search of a boat cloak. Nicholas, lying on one of the seats, said, ‘Well, well. Tobie been sick yet?’
Loppe looked at him in the way Tobie sometimes looked, which reminded Nicholas of a collector searching for chips, scratches and signs of dubious craftsmanship. The African said, ignoring the question, ‘The lady Primaflora wishes you to know that she is here without leave of the Queen, although she has told the Grand Commander otherwise. She expects to join you on Cyprus.’
‘I counted on it,’ said Nicholas. ‘You can tell her that, if you like.’
‘It was obvious,’ the negro said. ‘I wonder, though, if she will be allowed to stay. Whoever employs you, they will want your undivided attention.’
‘They won’t get it if they don’t do as I ask. Primaflora will stay. Loppe, I must talk to her.’
The rich, musical voice never gave anything away. Loppe said, ‘I shall try to arrange it. She shares a cabin, but the other lady, I hear, does not travel well. You know, of course, the demoiselle is also on board?’
‘Who?’ said Nicholas. He saw by the look in Loppe’s eyes that he had spoken too quickly.
‘Katelina van Borselen,’ said Loppe. ‘At her own request, she goes to Kyrenia. And the boy.’ He paused and said, ‘I see I have given you so
me very bad news. I am sorry.’ Presently he said, ‘Messer Niccolò? I must go.’
Nicholas said, ‘Yes, of course. The boy?’
‘Diniz Vasquez. He did not sail for home with Ludovico da Bologna. He stayed on Rhodes with his aunt. I imagine,’ said Loppe’s gentle voice, ‘that he wished to protect her in the course of vengeance on which she is set. She blames you for the death of his father.’
‘I’m a fool,’ Nicholas said. ‘And it’s too late. She is here.’
He spoke to himself. But he saw, from Loppe’s eyes, that he understood him.
Loppe said, ‘It can be dealt with. There is only one thing that matters now. There are many lives in your hands. It would be wise to forget these family concerns until you are safely in Cyprus.’
‘Of course,’ said Nicholas. Loppe hesitated, and then took his leave, locking the door of the cabin behind him. Nicholas remained in the rocking chamber, gazing at the place where he had been, and seeing nothing. Katelina, Diniz, Primaflora. Obscuring his concise and elegant plans, the promise of misery.
Chapter 21
THE PROSPECT of being locked up in the cabin of Louis de Magnac for four or even five days and nights was one which Nicholas might have found depressing, had there not been worse things to dwell on.
Wealthy, grey-haired, distinguished, the Grand Commander of Cyprus had held the fief of Kolossi for twelve years, and his was the hand that had built the present great keep of the Knights there. It was de Magnac’s special domain that Nicholas had polluted by his attack on John de Kinloch, and by his abstraction – far more serious – of the diverted Kolossi sugar. Decked with the Order of the Sword, Nicholas had been allowed to house his men in Louis de Magnac’s own palace in Rhodes. Even his condemnation and banishment by the Grand Master had been transmuted by Queen Carlotta, whom Louis de Magnac revered, and whose very loyal servant he was. The Queen needed the services of this man Niccolò’s army, and the Grand Commander therefore was prepared to deliver him, as undertaken. He was not likely, however, to allow the fellow to enjoy the voyage.
Race of Scorpions Page 31
