Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett
During any siege, there was little need for senior medical staff. The cases were mostly fever, or dysentery, or the occasional wound from an arrow. Zacco’s tour was soon done. He left, with his retinue. The physician had said, detaining Nicholas, ‘My lord. Your late injury does not trouble you?’
In the light clothes they all wore, Nicholas supposed its state was obvious enough. ‘No. I thank you,’ he said.
The lined, bearded face considered his. Abul Ismail said, ‘But you would not condescend to let me examine it? I feel responsible. Because of me, your own doctor prefers not to be present.’
‘Because of me, I rather think,’ Nicholas said. ‘Although you went to extremes which he would never contemplate, nor indeed should I. But that is past. No. He has experiments in the south which keep him occupied.’
‘The bodies drowning in sugar. We spoke of this once. We have had the same in Damascus. The question is, is it caused by the eating of sugar, or does sugar alleviate the disease? – You would not care to sit there, while we talk of it? It is my chamber, and private. The examination will take no more than a moment.’
It was, indeed, quick and deft. As he covered his shoulder, Abul Ismail said, ‘Such excellent suturing deserves better care than you have given it. You have been told, I am sure, how lucky you were. Also, you have escaped your marsh fever so far? This is an island that breeds these sad fits of palsy.’
‘I seem to bear a charmed life,’ Nicholas said. Now the King had gone, there was silence beyond the curtain, save for the steamy breathing of seething water, and the whisper of a brazier, heating irons. He said, ‘And now I must go.’
‘Without discussing what lies between us?’ said Abul Ismail. He turned from washing his hands and picked up a towel. His box stood beyond with trays of instruments in it: probes and tweezers, needles, syringes and scalpels. Beyond that stood a table like a refiner’s, pierced to hold slotted bowls. Except that the bowls contained blood and not sugar. Abul Ismail gathered his robes and sat down. He said, ‘I observe you. You owe your success to many things, but mostly to your gift for examining the thoughts of your fellow men. I spoke just now of books, and you were familiar with them. Master Tobie, before our estrangement, told of the manuscripts you brought from Trebizond, enshrining Arab science in the words of the Greeks. Here, I cure Muslim and Christian. At St Hilarion, I performed an action for the sake of the greater good of my nation, and this island and, indeed, the particular salvation of Master Tobie and yourself. I am not afraid to discuss these things. We are civilised. An interchange of views need not lead to abuse, mental or bodily.’
‘You could conceive that I might persuade you that your viewpoint is wrong?’ Nicholas said.
The Arab smiled. ‘You know well that we shall not change our stance by an iota. But I shall understand you, and you me. Will this not serve well for the future? We must live side by side for so long as the war lasts: perhaps longer, if you have your way. You have told no one, for example, that your sugar-master came from that great Turcoman prince, the lord Uzum Hasan?’
Nicholas heard the silence develop and let it; for this needed thought. He said eventually, ‘You have friends in Damascus?’
Equally without haste, the Arab took his time to reply. ‘And Cairo. And Kharput.’ He waited again.
‘But you have not yet told Tzani-bey,’ Nicholas said thoughtfully. He sat very still, crosslegged on the mattress with his hands between his knees as he had learned to do in the camp of the Ottoman Sultan to which he had come, in the dying days of the Empire of Trebizond, to assist at the fate of its Emperor.
‘No,’ said Abul Ismail. ‘Or your King James, who equally would have to kill you if he knew. Or Venice would abandon him.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Nicholas said.
The brown-smudged eyes were heavy and still as a Persian painting. The Arab said, ‘Because you think the princesses stronger than their husbands? Or …’ He inhaled and said, ‘I see.’
‘Perhaps you do,’ Nicholas said. ‘So why have you told me?’
The man raised his thick brows and tilted his head. ‘Is it not self-evident? Sooner or later, you would hear that I knew. You have established a strange web of communications, my lord Niccolò, with your humble travelling friars. Then I might have suffered some accident before I could say, as I say now, that this matter does not concern me. I do not propose, now or at any time, to reveal it. In pledge of which, I have placed my life in your hands, as you have proof of my good intentions. I could have poisoned you many times over.’ He did not glance at the knives, or the irons, or the bowls of thick liquid.
Nicholas again let silence fall. Presently he said, ‘It was unlikely I should discover such a thing. You have told me for some other purpose?’
‘Indeed,’ said Abul Ismail. ‘A purpose divined by an accident of the soul. In medicine one learns, one talks, one teaches. In life, too, this is necessary. I would have your company, now and then, as, I think, you need some such as mine. Unless you believe your King would be jealous?’
Nicholas smiled. Abul Ismail smiled even more widely, showing spaced yellow teeth. He added, ‘Jealous of me, as who would not be? But I speak, of course, of a different congress.’
Even so, the character of the King was such that his anger could not always be avoided. At the beginning of June, Nicholas set in motion an action against Kyrenia designed to accelerate the pressure on the fortress and to help exhaust its ammunition. The King was absent, as sometimes happened, now that the days of great heat had arrived, and cooler sport could be found in the mountains. The short, hard-hitting attack on the castle took place, and Nicholas, returning from it tired and triumphant was struck, on entering the compound of his camp, by a change in the quality of the sound which told him, before ever he saw the activity, that the King had come back. He had barely reached his own tent before a messenger stopped him. The King was breaking in a new horse, and required his assistance.
The signs were ominous. James de Lusignan well knew the magnificent figure he cut, alone with his whip and a rope and an unbroken stallion. In temper, and especially out of it, he would choose this perilous means of exerting himself. Now, half-naked in a fog of white dust, he hurled a rope at his mercenary and spoke through his white teeth. ‘You come filthy into my presence?’ ‘I have fought for you,’ Nicholas said. It emerged as a gasp. He took the strain of the rope and his sinews, settling, took up the burden. The horse was broad-built and powerful and angry.
‘Why?’ said Zacco. ‘Did I ask it of you? Did we not agree to wait? Why should the garrison trouble to respond to a pinprick? They must know that we know that they still have some food?’
‘They didn’t,’ said Nicholas, panting. ‘They thought we thought they were starving. They thought we were going to throw the whole army against them. Behind those walls, they were terrified.’ His shoulder, where the axe sank, was burning violently.
Zacco turned round, got pulled half off his feet, and turned back, twisting the rope round his wrist and cracking his whip. He yelled, ‘If the blockade’s as good as you say, how did they know we thought that?’
It was getting to be like a piece of jester-dwarves’ dialogue. Nicholas began to laugh and let go his rope; Zacco looked angry and then, beginning to smile, jerked his head to bring over a groom. He transferred the plunging horse and flung a sticky arm round the shoulders of Nicholas. He smelt of perfume and sweat and his limbs were heavy with dangerous muscle. ‘It was a ruse?’
‘Ask Astorre,’ Nicholas said. ‘Andrea Corner, Marco’s brother, works for Queen Carlotta. We know Marco is loyal, but no one in there would be surprised if a letter came over the wall on an arrow, warning Andrea that we were about to storm the castle because we thought they were starving.’
‘And they believed this?’ Zacco said. ‘They wasted ammunition, replying?’ He withdrew his arm, bestowing playfully on Nicholas a vicious, upward blow with the side of his palm in passing. He placed his fists on his hips and breathed deeply seve
‘My lord King,’ Nicholas said, ‘the last thing we planned to do was sacrifice the royal troops to some vain expectation. There was a mounted charge, immediately following cannon-fire. Half were Egyptians; half were our men disguised as Egyptians with armour under their robes. And hackbuts, of course. Not expecting Christians, the men on the walls were not ready for firearms. We picked off their archers; sent fire-bolts into their palisades and viewed the state of the walls from much closer. A quick foray, soon over, and not expensive of men.’
At the sluice, he was made to take the slave’s role with the buckets and, throwing water, went on being persuasive against all the odds. Immediately afterwards, he was compelled to go back to the horse-ring, but he had Zacco’s ear. He had, in the end, Zacco’s reluctant commendation. Just after the end, when despite all his energy, Nicholas felt that a rest was something God ought to vouchsafe him, Zacco let him know his real feelings. He said, ‘You are slow. You are getting old and slow, and I think I will stop paying you soon. You let your taste for adventure lead you into an unsanctioned battle, and might have wasted your men and mine. You might have been killed.’
‘So might you,’ Nicholas said. ‘In the mountains. You didn’t invite me.’
‘You are not in season,’ said Zacco. The broken horse, sweating and shivering, stood at his side, its head drooping. Zacco stood, his eyes steady and cold, and his smell and that of the horse were the same.
Nicholas said, ‘There is a season for fighting, and I am in that.’
‘With me, they are the same,’ Zacco said. He moved, his muscles oiled over with sweat, and slipping the bridle over the exhausted horse, laid the reins over his shoulder and led it slowly out of the ring. He said, ‘Well, Niccolò. Playing at soldiers without sense, without leave, you know you missed a messenger from Nicosia? It seems your silly child in the dyeworks has gone. Now perhaps we can get on with this war.’
Nicholas stood still, hesitated, and walked on again. ‘My lord?’
‘Yes?’ said Zacco, waving to someone.
Nicholas said, ‘Diniz Vasquez? My lord, where has he gone, and when?’
‘How should I know?’ Zacco said. ‘Four or five days ago, I presume. They sent to tell the woman at Episkopi, and found she had heard of it, and hearing, had disappeared. But you will not be distressed about that. You wanted nothing to do, as I remember, with Katelina van Borselen. Go and get clean. When I want you, I shall send for you. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the next day.’
They parted. Nicholas stripped, deep in thought, as he walked to his tent, and let his servants sluice him outside, as he had just sluiced the King. Somewhere over the bustling heads he glimpsed the plumed helm of Tzani-bey, and beneath it his face, attentive and still as if watching him, or his scars. If so, he was welcome. In Astorre’s quarters, a violent celebration seemed to be taking place without requiring his presence. As the sun’s heat began to make itself felt on his bare head, and through his light robe, Nicholas retired to his tent and then, presently, crossed to his little field desk and took up his pen. A shadow fell, and John le Grant said, ‘If anyone lost, I suppose it was the horse. Not you, at any rate. That’s the King confused, the war advanced, and Katelina and her nephew shamed and neatly got rid of. Who or what next?’
Nicholas finished writing. He said, ‘You need to move that bombard, and place another one, much lighter, on the other hill nearer town. Now they’ve had a shock and lost all those arrows, the garrison won’t hold out very much longer. I’m suggesting to Zacco that he slackens the sea blockade in Kyrenia and makes it complete, from now on, at Famagusta. Once the mastic crops are in, the Bank of St George will put all their money and ships into saving the Genoese colony. Genoa won’t have any to spare for Queen Carlotta. Kyrenia should fall in two months: Famagusta by winter. I’m going south.’
John le Grant came and sat beside him, his red-fluffed arms folded and smelling of metal and gunpowder. He said, ‘The boy and the lady have gone, and not by your orders?’
Nicholas said, ‘I could have released the boy any time that I wanted. I gave Bartolomeo no new instructions. The lady was being held against my wishes by the King’s mother, and I haven’t spoken to her yet. Once I have, I shall go down to Episkopi. If Katelina and her nephew are both conveniently on their way west to Simon in Portugal, I shall come back.’
John le Grant said, ‘Where else could they be?’
Nicholas powdered his writing and sat back, thinking a little. He found his teeth had locked like those of a ferret and he was abrading them hard with his thumb knuckle. He changed to a negligent pose. ‘Who can guess what has happened? Here was a sad lady. She resented me; she resented Cropnose; she resented captivity. She may have tried to spy for Carlotta. Whatever she may have done, her hands were tied because of the hold I had over Diniz. The moment Diniz escaped, she was free to do as she wished.’
‘To hide and kill you?’ said John le Grant. As sometimes happened, the mask of his freckles seemed to obliterate his features. He said, ‘You’re all thumbs with that woman. You were both in Kouklia.’
It was neither a question nor quite a comment. When nothing more came, Nicholas said, ‘I didn’t touch her in Kouklia.’
‘Then you’re a fool,’ said John le Grant. ‘Or you wanted to frighten her. Did you? Whom did you touch, that could have sickened her of the whole vendetta?’
‘I don’t remember. It was dark,’ Nicholas said. He made a great effort, and kept his voice civilised. He said, ‘I hope she has left the island. It wouldn’t be difficult. She knew ships called from time to time, and the Order would be friendly and, of course, the Martini. If she was really determined, the Martini would help her leave Cyprus.’
John le Grant uncrossed his arms and stretching a finger, hooked up the medallion of the Sword on its ribbon. It hung, revolving one way and then the other. He said, ‘And would they send her to Portugal?’
‘If there was a ship,’ Nicholas said. ‘If there was, she and Diniz would be on it. If there wasn’t, they would both end up very likely in Rhodes. Katelina would go where she thought the boy was. Rhodes is friendly, and near, and they could wait for a ship of the Order.’
‘Then that would be all right, wouldn’t it?’ said the engineer. In some ways, Nicholas was glad it was John le Grant he was having this conversation with: in other ways it was awkward. Nicholas said, ‘It depends. I don’t think Carlotta or the Genoese or the Order would harm her.’
‘Even if she took cuttings?’ le Grant said. ‘That was what it was all about, wasn’t it? The Vasquez family were taking cane and vine cuttings to Madeira. Fine for the Genoese and the Portugese, but not so good for the people whose crops here were their livelihood. But could she get cuttings away from Episkopi?’
‘Probably,’ Nicholas said. ‘Especially if the Martini were to help her.’
‘But –’ said John le Grant and stopped. Then he said, ‘The Martini are Venetians as well. You mean they’d take her to Rhodes, and see the cuttings never got there? Or see that she never got there?’
‘They’d see she got there,’ said Nicholas. ‘If that’s how it happened, she’ll be there, safe and well.’
They looked at one another. John le Grant said, ‘Until you follow her, and get rid of the cuttings? As you did with the Vasquez? It’ll spoil your sugar business as well if Madeira becomes the new source of supply for the Western world.’
Nicholas said nothing.
The engineer said, ‘If she’s in Rhodes, you will follow her. And that’s what the Venetians want. They want you out of Cyprus, away from Kouklia, away from the dyeworks, away from Zacco. You said it yourself. Kyrenia’s going to fall; the starving of Famagusta is planned for. Cyprus is saved for the Venetians, but the Venetians don’t want th
‘So I don’t follow her,’ Nicholas said. ‘She stays, being expensively quartered in Rhodes, and the gallant Simon finally comes to collect her. I think it’s a perfect solution.’
There was another busy silence. ‘But,’ said John le Grant at length, ‘you’re going to Nicosia, and possibly south?’
‘To make sure she is in Rhodes or in Portugal. Yes. You have it,’ Nicholas said. ‘Now can I get out? There’s a hell of a party going on over there, and I’ve not had so much as a pistachio nut.’ He didn’t feel like another staring match, so he lowered his lids and got up and stalked out of the tent, leaving John le Grant, if he wanted, to follow. And before John, of the devious mind, could detect how much he was lying; or could introduce the name he wanted forgotten which was, of course, that of his partner in love, Primaflora.
In Nicosia, Bartolomeo Zorzi strode into the villa with three impeccable ledgers under his arms and a string of justifiable complaints. ‘Are we to dye everything crimson? I know we have madder, but look at what your blockade is doing to imports! And all the shore workers down south are servicing war galleys, who bring in nothing but metal and powder and arms. What about the boy? He tried to kill you!’
‘Well, his uncle’s going to kill me if I don’t produce him,’ Nicholas said. ‘The lord Simon is coming from Portugal, and I want to lay my hands on that boy. Where did he go?’
‘Portugal, if you believe the note that he left,’ said Bartolomeo. ‘And that’s what he wrote to his aunt: but I don’t see what ship could have taken him. At any rate, someone helped him get out of Nicosia.’ The slight pallor he had brought from Constantinople had left Bartolomeo Zorzi: above the rim of black glossy beard his skin was roseate brown. ‘He couldn’t get clear so fast to the coast without something to carry him. Someone got him a mule, and money, and clothes, and food, and helped him over the wall. One of his father’s Genoese friends, it might be? No one saw him. Why worry? If Zacco had found out what that boy tried to do to you, he’d be dead. You should go back to Zacco. Keep your employer happy. The boy is of no consequence. What is an uncle?’