‘And?’ said Nicholas.
‘That was all,’ said the boy.
That was all. Nicholas looked at what he had been doing, which was nothing very much, and laid down the stone and the knife and, clasping his knees, looked at Diniz. He said, ‘Has it shocked you?’
‘About your mother? It happens everywhere. It makes me feel different,’ Diniz said.
‘In what way?’
‘We may be cousins. If Simon is your father. If he is, why didn’t he believe …?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Nicholas. ‘But I was glad for a lot of reasons that you didn’t aim true in the dyeyard.’ He smiled, watching the boy’s face turn crimson. ‘I didn’t blame you.’
‘So why? Why send me there?’ Diniz said. The flush was still there, and in his voice something that might have been an appeal.
‘Not from spite. Some day I’ll tell you. Diniz, you are not to take part in this feud. Katelina was warning you. All she says is true: Simon will blame me for everything. But you can’t protect me, no one can. He is beyond believing the truth, especially when the truth itself is not black and white. I expect she has asked you to tell him everything that has happened, and persuade him to make friends and thank me? But she knows, too, in the depths of her heart, that it isn’t possible. He is beyond reason, Diniz. What you must do is help him forget; plunge him in business as your father would have done; save him from ruining the rest of his life hunting for vengeance.’
‘He’ll kill you,’ said Diniz. ‘She says he’ll try to kill you unless one of us gets to him first.’
‘He might,’ Nicholas said. ‘That isn’t my fear. My greatest fear – my greatest fear is that I shall find I have to kill him.’
At that point, Abul Ismail came into the yard and said, ‘Messer Niccolò.’
They had turned her pillow so that it was fresh, and the tawdry finery had long since been replaced by a smooth, pale quilt that reached to her breast. Over it, the slender bones of her arms showed under the sleeves of her bedgown, with no roundness of flesh left anywhere. The brown hair, the dark brows and, when he took her hand, the open brown depths of her eyes were like molasses drained from white sugar. Lady Sweet Grace.
He said, ‘I have a complaint. I’ve been kept out.’
Her lips were leaden, but able to smile. ‘He is a bully,’ she said. ‘Nicholas. You must hide. I can’t wait.’
But for Diniz, he couldn’t have followed the thought. He said, ‘Simon? I know. I’ve thought about it. I shall be careful.’
Her fingers stirred in his. She said, ‘I can’t wait. Abul has told me. When the siege ends, you can leave Famagusta. Go somewhere safe. The King, Astorre will protect you.’
Peace of mind was all he could give her. ‘I shall,’ he said. ‘And Diniz will get safely home. I shall see to that.’ He waited again. He found he couldn’t pursue the thought to its proper conclusion. He couldn’t distress her with his own, raw, terrible dilemma.
She divined it. She said, ‘You are wondering about our child, too. If you think it right, I want you to take him.’
He couldn’t stop himself showing what he felt. Then he didn’t try to stop it. Katelina said, ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’
There was so little time. He got back half his control, and then all of it. He said, ‘We spoke of this. No. Simon must never doubt who his son is. Katelina, who could care for him? Would Lucia take him, now Tristão has gone? Or Tasse – perhaps I could get Tasse. She looked after –’
He stopped. Tasse, adoring, elderly Tasse, had looked after Marian on the journey that led to her death. Katelina said, ‘I wrote a message, to Lucia, in case you thought of that. And to Simon. There is another note, just a record. If the child stayed with Lucia, Diniz would be kind.’
‘Diniz doesn’t know?’ Nicholas said.
‘No. I’ve told him you think I should have called my son – what is it?’
‘Arigho. It’s only a pet name for Henry. And Arro is the little name.’
‘Like Claes,’ she said, and fell into still, smiling silence. Then she said, ‘And Tasse. She looked after Marian. Marian was afraid for you, too. She said you couldn’t protect yourself. She saw you learn how.’
His hand cradled hers on the coverlet and he studied each wasted finger, rather than have his face read. He said, ‘She brought me up. I used to dream that, one day, I would come to her with the girl I was going to marry.’ He raised his head slowly. The hollow eyes on the pillow were filling with tears. He would never have said that to anyone living. He had said it because she was dying; and she knew it. The greatest balm he could bring, brought on a knife-point.
The door opened on the bearded, calm presence of Abul Ismail. He said, ‘She is in pain, Messer Niccolò. Give me a moment.’
Their hands fell apart. He bent and kissed the tears in her eyes, resting his lips in their hollows. Then he straightened and left. Standing waiting, he heard the noise of the city oddly magnified, like the clamour of a classical triumph, with guns and bells, drums and trumpets and piping. And the roar of many voices. The door of the sickroom opened, and the doctor came out. He said, ‘I need your permission, and the boy’s. She is in pain, but wants to endure it. What she may endure now is, however, nothing to what she will face very soon. I would not inflict on her either this knowledge, or this eventual indignity. I ask your leave to remove her pain when it begins to grow past her bearing. You have seen me do this for others. She will drift into sleep.’
‘And never waken,’ Nicholas said.
‘It may shorten her life by a day,’ said Abul Ismail. ‘I would allow her this peace, if you can. Is the boy there?’
‘I shall fetch him,’ Nicholas said.
But Diniz was not in the yard when he sought him, or anywhere to be found in the house. In a rage of despair, Nicholas flung open the doors to the street and he was there, running towards him, and the clamour he had heard was real, and louder than he would have thought possible. And Diniz, arriving, flung his arms around him sobbing and said, ‘Oh, tell her! Let us tell her! It is coming!’
Then Nicholas held him off, and said, ‘What is coming? Diniz, what is it?’
‘A ship!’ Diniz said. ‘A round ship from Genoa. The fire-signals are burning. The ships in the harbour are letting off rockets. We told you it was coming, and you didn’t believe us. Zacco drew off his vessels. It will come in. It will save us. The siege will be lifted. And Famagusta stays Genoese!’
Within Nicholas, all the clamour fell silent. He said, ‘What is the name of the Genoese ship? Has anyone signalled?’
‘Yes!’ said Diniz. ‘It’s the Adorno.’
And that, then, was what she had been waiting for.
He said, ‘We shall go and tell her. Diniz, she is dying.’
‘Then she will die happy,’ said Diniz. He stopped. ‘You won’t be angry with her? She said you and Abul would be set free. The treaty ensured it.’
‘I shall be angry neither with her nor with you,’ Nicholas said. ‘The doctor has something to tell you. Make your decision. Whatever you want, I shall agree to.’
The door of the sickroom was open when they got there, and inside was quietness, and no movement except Abul Ismail’s, withdrawing a slow, smoothing hand from the pillow. No movement at all, not even of breathing. ‘No!’ said Nicholas in a whisper.
‘No?’ said Abul Ismail. ‘God is great, God has called her. Is this a man who prates of mercy and would deny it another for his own sake? She has won the Truth; she is in Paradise. In the night does she see the sun, and in the darkness does she see light. When God decreeth a matter, it is not for man to deny him.’
‘I would have said farewell,’ Nicholas said.
‘The loss is yours and not hers,’ said the Arab. ‘She learned that the vessel had come, and was glad, for she said that the young man would speak for her. And she left you her soul, and her son. To hold such a cure, a man must aspire to the crown of humanity. You know, and only you, if you are worthy.’<
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‘No,’ said Nicholas. He did not look up.
Her soul and her son. A boy in Bruges, he had been older in wisdom than Katelina. He had let himself fall in with her will, and had not seen that she had no will, but was calling, alone, for a friend. From that had come all this misery. All he had given her was bodily joy, and a life that had ended in pain, among strangers. He said, ‘I have destroyed her.’
And: ‘Look at her,’ said Abul Ismail. ‘When you die, you should wish to die thus.’ And Nicholas looked, and saw for the last time the face of Katelina van Borselen, into which Abul Ismail read contentment. And it was true, and in that lay the tragedy.
She lay, her eyes closed and smiling, surrendered to death like the moth, symbol of passionate love, which yields its life to the taper that lures it.
She had died, who was not his beloved, and he had killed her.
Outside the sealed city, the advent of the round ship Adorno roused the kingdom. One by one, the north-west balefires blossomed in warning, and St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara added their signals. The news came to the capital, where James of Lusignan struck the bearer to the floor. It was his mother, arching her brows, who said, ‘Zacco. Desist. I think you will find this has been prepared for.’
Outside a grand villa in the same city, a priest in an assortment of ramshackle clothing stopped his mule in the gateway, descended by lifting a leg and bellowed to the first person he met, which was Tobie. ‘Are your ankles too weak for your belly? There’s a Genoese ship on the way. Zacco’s off to the coast with his officers. If you want to see it, start riding.’ He retired, lifted a leg, and was carried bobbingly onwards.
‘What?’ said Loppe, materialising.
‘His lordship the Patriarch of Antioch,’ Tobie said, beginning to run. ‘There’s a rescue ship on its way to the Genoese. If it gets into the harbour, it’ll stop the surrender. Tell John. I’ll get the horses.’
‘I heard,’ said John le Grant. ‘What are you expecting to do about it?’
‘Get across to the bay, and watch what happens,’ said Tobie. ‘It’ll make a change. It isn’t really a day for the beach, but I’m tired of my sewing. And it would be nice to know who might be on board. Or hadn’t you thought of that?’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said John le Grant. Then he said, ‘How is she coming?’
‘Round the Karpass, because of the wind. She’ll hold off as long as she can; we won’t get much of a view, and they are saying shore batteries couldn’t do her much damage. Zacco’s men will either catch her at sea, or not at all. And once in the harbour, she can unload all she’s got through the sea-gate.’
‘That’s about it,’ said John le Grant. ‘She would expect, maybe, to get into Kyrenia, then see the Lusignan flag on the castle. At any rate, our Genoese friend has a chance. Round ships can come fast on the north wind, and our galleys will have the worst of it, facing them.’ He paused, and said, ‘So it’s up to Mick Crackbene then, isn’t it?’
‘Against the wind?’ Tobie said.
‘We discussed it with Mick,’ le Grant said. ‘Of course, plans get changed.’ He didn’t say what he was thinking. In Trebizond, Mick Crackbene worked for the Genoese against Nicholas, in the very same ship he’s now sailing.
Loppe said, ‘The sea-tower in Famagusta is high. Lomellini will see a relief ship is coming. Master Nicholas will have some sort of warning. And he is a hostage, and sacrosanct.’
‘Right enough,’ said John le Grant. ‘Just let’s hope that no one forgets it.’
For a month, he had played a master’s game lacking a master. Released from Famagusta, he had retired to Nicosia, as Nicholas wanted. Astorre, denied his attack, had stayed with Thomas in camp, uneasily brooding. Philip Pesaro had remained in Sigouri, stupefied with relief, and only briefly touched, it appeared, by Zacco’s displeasure. That had been reserved for Nicholas and even there, le Grant wondered how far it was genuine.
The King had forbidden Nicholas to attack, and when defied, had found a method of saving him. His concern for Nicholas was possibly real. But there were, patently, other advantages. No one, knowing the Patriarch, could doubt that, after a day of his voice, Zacco was sick of him. By allowing the Church to intercede, Zacco had ended by pleasing almost everybody. It would not do, however, to let Nicholas think so. Nicholas, therefore, was stuck in Famagusta over Christmas, and needn’t hope that Zacco was going to miss him.
That Diniz Vasquez was also in Famagusta was not common knowledge, although le Grant had told Astorre, Loppe and Tobie. Specifically, neither the King nor the court had been informed. Tobie, back in the villa and cascading with loud, screaming sneezes, had proposed marching at once to the dyeworks and shaking Bartolomeo Zorzi by the hand: le Grant dissuaded him. ‘No. The boy did well at Famagusta, and Zorzi had no right to do what he did. Nicholas wants us to let it alone. He’ll have it out himself with the Venetians.’
‘And when will that be?’ Tobie had asked. ‘After he’s had an axe sunk in the opposite shoulder? What can he do for anyone in that graveyard of a city except catch their rot and pass it on to us in the long run? If he’d talked hard enough, they’d have exchanged him.’
John le Grant had said nothing. He had seen some of the men of Famagusta. He had been appalled, as had the rest of the court, at the emaciation of the four ambassadors sent them by the city, but he had not been surprised. He was not surprised, either, when all of them took to their beds within a day of arriving at the Palace.
He hung about the Palace a good deal himself, as he was entitled to do, being the King’s only contact with Astorre’s army. He called on the Latin Patriarch of Antioch and had a brief, one-sided exchange. Occasionally he saw Primaflora who, from serving Carlotta, had turned her training to attendance on the King’s mother. On their first encounter, she had drawn him abruptly into her chamber and asked him to tell her about Nicholas. He had told her the story, and reassured her as far as he was able.
After that, she didn’t seek him out, having no doubt more direct news from Zacco. In Loppe’s care, the villa ran smoothly without her. After a week, Loppe handed the task back to Galiot, mentioning that business required him in Kouklia. Tobie had been inclined to object, but le Grant helped him pack and assemble his travelling party.
Loppe had had least to say about the incarceration of Nicholas. His journey, John assumed, was either because of genuine business, or because he found it trying to wait in the capital. It irked John himself, the easy carousing of the long, sprawling festival, the noisy pastimes of the court, the King’s sudden tempers. He wondered how Loppe would know if Nicholas was sent back before Epiphany, or if there were news of a worse kind. Then he realised that Kouklia was in daily touch with Salines, and Salines, unobtrusively, with Nicosia. He wondered, again, who or what Loppe was eluding.
Then the ambassadors found their feet, and were to be seen at table, and occasionally with the King’s special officers. Returning to the villa one day, John le Grant said, ‘Something’s happening. The Bailie of the Secrète has been with them twice, and Podocataro, the lawyer.’ The next day, he said, ‘There’s rumour of some sort of pact. If the King lifts the siege, I’ll mine his privy.’
‘We could go home,’ Tobie said. ‘He’ll have broken the contract.’
‘I’ll leave you to tell him,’ said the engineer.
Then the terms became known, and the day the treaty was sworn, they retired to the villa and drank all night to celebrate. Surrender in fourteen days, unless a ship got in. And Nicholas had been sent for. The King regarded his penance as over.
Next day, as silently as he had gone, Loppe returned. The day after that, Tobie was commanded to the Palace and returning, seized Loppe by the arm and marched him into the workroom John le Grant had devised for himself, where he scowled at them both. ‘All right. Did either of you know about this?’
John le Grant laid down what he was working on. ‘About Nicholas? What? You know all I do.’
‘He’s written asking to stay in
Famagusta for two weeks. The King knows the boy Vasquez is there. He’s livid.’
‘I didn’t tell him,’ said John.
‘Nicholas told him. In the letter. He also said he felt responsible for the Flemish lady who, being royally connected, ought to be well looked after.’
‘What Flemish lady?’ said John le Grant. Loppe stirred, then said nothing.
‘You didn’t know. Katelina van Borselen. Famagusta is full of God-damned Flemings. She’s been trapped there as well as the boy. Simon’s wife as well as his nephew. He says she’s ill. I say it’s a trick to persuade him to stay. I think they’re trying to hold him.’
Loppe said, ‘He can’t be harmed, he’s a hostage. What is the King going to do?’
‘Well,’ said Tobie. ‘It began with striking his spurs off for disobedience, but ended more on the lines of he could stay and rot for two weeks for all Zacco cared. I thought the Flemish woman was sailing for Portugal? That was the point. So that Simon wouldn’t come looking for her.’
Soon after that, the news of the round ship arrived: the round ship called the Adorno.
On the hard, muddy ride to the shore, no one spoke very much. They joined up with others: Philip Pesaro and a group from Sigouri and later, a familiar glitter of feathers and armour – Astorre, pounding across from the camp with Thomas behind him. Every villager who had a mule seemed to be making his way that day to the beach north of Famagusta, by Salamis. The King was already there, with half the court and the Mamelukes; and a tent, shivering in the wind, had been set up but was not so far in use. For in view, over the ruffled grey sea, was the round ship from Genoa.
She was large, and low in the water, and the size of her guns showed quite clearly, as did the red and white flag of St George, glinting in occasional sunlight below a cloud ceiling harried by blustering wind.
The wind was strong, and from the north. When Zacco’s two war galleys appeared, they seemed hardly to move. The long shells of the hulls were wiped from view by the heave of the sea, so that the prow platforms and tents of the poop could no longer be seen, and only the pennanted masts told where they were, until they rode into view once more, in a steam of spume from the bite of the oars. The round ship raced towards them, her canvas taut. Her bows plunged, shouldering aside streaming seas upon which the galleys slid and swooped and plummeted like seal pups caught in the wash of a bear. The Adorno fired, and the watchers saw two patches of smoke, and heard the flat thuds, and saw the dash of white water between the galleys. One of them had broken away and appeared to be attempting to struggle upwind. ‘They’ll have naphtha,’ said John. ‘And they’ve got guns. But with that sea and that wind, the round ship’ll outrun them. She’ll be in Famagusta before they can touch her. So where in God’s name is Crackbene?’
Race of Scorpions Page 64
