Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett
Around the ground, the noise rose and fell without cease. Towards the sea, there was no sound, and none from the Citadel. So far, nothing had interrupted the duel. If nothing would, and the duel was what it seemed to be, you would think that Tzani-bey would fight even harder. On the other hand, he was both vicious and fit. He might be teasing Nicholas; testing him; tiring him; so that, in a sudden real onslaught, he could have him at his mercy at last.
It might be that. Or it might simply be that his force of Mamelukes was coming late. Or was there, but awaiting a signal.
There was nothing that Nicholas could do for he, too, had to prevaricate. And that was best done on horseback, for as soon as one or both were unhorsed, the duel could not last very much longer. Nicholas renewed his grip on his sword, and felt his animal falter as he put it towards the emir again. The cut had gone deep, and there might be others. He might have to fight on foot after all. He said, as he came up, in Arabic: ‘Have you learned from your dancing-girl, emir? Why not fight like a man? I shall see that your widows are cared for.’
And that brought the serious fighting. He didn’t enjoy it. Twice, he made a hit with his sword-point, and heard the emir grunt, but he took a spent cut on the helm that dizzied him despite all the padding, and a slash in the side that filled his clothing with blood. Through it all he husbanded, as well as he could, what was left of his energy. No interruption. No disturbance. No relief. Face to face till the end, perhaps, as he said he had wanted. It came to him that soon he would have to decide to try and kill Tzani-bey, no matter what it did to anyone’s programme. Either that, or lose the fight and his life.
He had not quite made up his mind when the decision was made for him by Tzani-bey. They had circled, closed, circled, drawn off and were together again. This time, without warning, the emir changed his sword to the hand that held his buckler. And as he closed upon Nicholas, he snatched something from its place in his saddle and brought it down like an axe.
It was neither an axe nor a mace, but an iron bar. Astorre had warned him. Illegal even among Mamelukes, it could, at a blow, take off an arm. A mace might have been deflected by armour. The bar fell between the protective plate and his neck, on the left, on the wound of ten months ago. It shrieked its protest, although Nicholas did nothing but gasp. His eyes became dark. He managed, just, to disengage and ride and heard, through his nausea, the beating hooves as the emir came after him. He didn’t have very long, and he couldn’t see very well, but – play or not – he was fighting now for his life, and so was Tzani-bey. Nicholas turned, and used his spurs, and this time drove his blood-smothered horse straight at the Mameluke.
The animals crashed together and staggered. Nicholas, dropping his shield, struck the emir with the weight of his shoulder and, drawing his mace, half dislodged him with a blow from the saddle and leaped free as his horse foundered. Tzani-bey’s horse, ungoverned, started away; the emir’s sword hesitated as he fought to control it, his studded boot out of the stirrup. Nicholas stood in the field and, like a Roman thug, swung his mace to gain momentum and released it. It swept the emir from his horse, which snorted and fled. Tzani-bey rose, sword in hand, and confronted him.
There seemed no doubt, now, that the only battle today in Famagusta was the one taking place now, to the death. If Tzani-bey expected support, it hadn’t come. If the plot had never existed, Tzani-bey, having toyed with him, was now in no doubt that he fought for his life. They were alone together, on this field, with their swords. Except that Tzani-bey, in place of his shield, was wielding his mace.
A trumpet blew. The emir’s eyes flickered, in his glistening face. Then he returned his attention to Nicholas. Blood soaked the handsome Syrian surcoat, as it blotched and stained his own padded jupa and linen and shirt. He felt the weakness of it, but not yet the pains. The old wound was the worst: his white-hot shoulder beat and rang like a forge. The trumpet blew again, and a herald called something. No shouting; no surge of action; no summons to battle. Just a command from the King to cease fighting.
Nicholas laughed at Tzani-bey and the emir, surprisingly, showed his teeth in return. The emir said, ‘You do not scamper when called? I commend you.’ Then he leaped, his scimitar in the air. But the mace, in his other hand, was whistling down to the Christian sword.
His eyes had not given him away, but his mind did. To avoid the scimitar completely was not possible. But Nicholas took only half of its slice in his body, and his own arm was positioned for all it had to do. As Tzani-bey brought down the mace, Nicholas cut off the emir’s right hand.
Warm, thick blood sprayed in his face. The emir’s own features were blank. Then the man dropped to his knees, his left hand crossing to grip his right arm with its core of white bone. The mud flooded with crimson. Around them, silence exploded into a herring-gull screaming. Nicholas raised the point of his sword, and pressed it against Tzani-bey’s chest and said, ‘You are defeated.’
The blood pumped: the weakened fingers could not quite stem it. But the emir’s gaze was steady in a face of pallid olive. He said, ‘I acknowledge it. I have said my prayers. Dispatch me.’
‘Why?’ said Nicholas. ‘I was to be your entertainment. May I not reserve you for mine? Allow me to help you.’ He pulled off his gloves and, freeing the strap of his helm, bound it crudely about the emir’s arm over the artery. The emir closed his eyes. He said, ‘Of course. Who could gainsay you? I have brought you, in any case, a token of my submission. In the saddlebag of my horse. I had hoped not to have to present it.’
‘Is it of the nature of your other gift?’ Nicholas said. He rose, and felt himself swaying.
The emir opened his eyes. ‘It follows the pattern,’ he said. ‘Here is your mistress.’
Zacco hit him with his open hand, first on one cheek, then the other. He said to Nicholas, ‘You heard the trumpet. I will do that, the next time you disobey me. What is he saying?’ The King had run alone on to the field. The others were only now racing after him. His arms were round Nicholas, his face anguished as in Nicosia, the first time.
Nicholas said, ‘There is something in his saddlebag. His horse is there.’
The object was a bag made of finely-sewn leather. Tzani-bey, a soldier at either side, knelt in the mud and smiled up at Nicholas. Zacco released him. Nicholas opened the draw-string and tipped to the ground the single object it contained. It lay in the mud, but not contaminated by it; the beard combed, the eyes closed, the mind, with all its learning, withdrawn from the service of mankind. The head of Abul Ismail, the physician.
The emir said, ‘If I have misjudged him, he will be in his pavilion in Paradise. But I think he was a traitor. There is a demon, Ser Niccolò, within that artisan clay that forms your nature. Or perhaps you would call it a siren like Melusine; a serpent; a scorpion. An island of scorpions has invited another. I wish you and your lord of Lusignan well of each other.’
‘Abul Ismail. Who told you he was a traitor?’ Nicholas said.
The Mameluke was gasping now, but his teeth were still set in a smile. He said, ‘The King will tell you.’
‘The King does not know,’ said Zacco steadily. ‘A brave man has died, but disloyalty has met the punishment it deserves. But for Abul Ismail, I should be dead on this field.’
The Mameluke was yellow-white, but he laughed. ‘How? Have I tried to assassinate you? I am alone.’
‘That was not your plan,’ the King said. He looked up. The Sicilian Rizzo di Marino dismounted, mud-covered, and came to stand beside him.
The chamberlain said, ‘Why is he living?’
‘Only to hear your news,’ the King said.
Nicholas thought his voice sounded peculiar. He felt extremely cold and oddly isolated. It came to him that all the voices around him sounded strange, and that his eyes were closed. He opened them. Astorre, behind him, said, ‘It wasn’t bad, but you were stupid to take that one in your side. Go on. Keep standing. I’ve got you.’
The kneeling man he had maimed said, ‘What news?’ i
Rizzo di Marino said, ‘Oh, you can guess. I’ve just come from your camp. I took with me my whole force from Nicosia. You had learned – I shall not ask how – that the King knew of your plot to overthrow him. You cancelled their march to attack Famagusta, and your men were still complaining because of it. It was dark. They hardly heard us arriving.’
‘You’ve raided my camp? Taken my soldiers?’ said Tzani-bey.
‘Taken them? In a sense,’ said Zacco’s chancellor. ‘In the sense that none of them got to escape us. Two hundred Mamelukes and two hundred foot. They’d have caused quite a battle if you’d changed your mind, and they’d attacked Famagusta.’
‘But they didn’t,’ the emir said.
‘No, they couldn’t,’ said Rizzo di Marino. ‘They really couldn’t. Not then, or any other day. We killed them all. Every last man is dead.’ He turned and said, ‘He’s heard the news now.’
‘So he has,’ said the King. He looked at Nicholas. ‘Nikko? It is your privilege. You suffered the insult. Abul Ismail was your friend.’
On the face of the emir Tzani-bey al-Ablak was only contempt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘If there has been a massacre, I should guess your little lord Niccolò must be thanked for it. I should guess none of this would have happened without him. Your Nikko will not strike my head off. You will have to do that. But his is the blood that will pay for it.’
He spoke to the King, but his eyes were on Nicholas still, and remained there before and during and after the slash with which the King cut off his head.
Chapter 44
IT WAS EXTRAORDINARY, after that, how difficult it was to leave Famagusta for Nicosia, which Nicholas had fled, to the risk of his life, nearly two months before.
To begin with, of course, he couldn’t ride. Indeed, they took him straight from the field to the Franciscan monastery, where he was received with cries of dismay and admiration by the loving, gaunt, familiar faces. Now, the wards where he had served were half empty, and the store cupboards full, and the gardens outside the cloisters green with grass and weeds growing together, and the first waxen petals of cyclamen opening under the bushes.
Infected Famagusta was not the best place for the healing of wounds, but they had fresh ointments and bandaging, and their sutures were nearly as good as Tobie’s or Abul’s. It was the friars of St Francis who found for him the sundered body of the Arab physician, and took it into their care until it could be committed to the soil of his own land.
Astorre came to see him, and Thomas, and John. Philip Pesaro was among the first, and there were other captains. They tended to talk boisterously of the fight, but not of its implications. It was as if the breaking of a hundred years of Genoese rule in Famagusta had happened in a way that could not be assimilated. As if, occupying itself with bursts of familiar activity, the army which had striven so long to conquer the island was unable to comprehend what had happened. And to this had been added an event of primaeval ferocity. The Mameluke force supplied them by the Sultan at Cairo had been annihilated, and the repercussions of that, in Cairo, in Venice, in Constantinople, had still to be faced.
James of Lusignan came to the convent of the Franciscans later than most, and brought the Archbishop William Goneme with him. There were no tender attentions, as there had been in the villa in Nicosia. The King’s face was marked with indecision and his fingers moved restlessly on his knee. Nicholas said, ‘This is nonsense. I shouldn’t be here. A good horse and some strong boots, and I’ll be in Nicosia tomorrow.’
‘No!’ Zacco said. ‘With such cuts? With such loss of blood? Take your ease. And when your mind seeks occupation, go to Sigouri. Call your men there. Acquaint yourself with the castle, its lands, the sugar fields all about it. Nicosia is merely a depot. But what has to be done here? The harbour cleared, the ships raised, the warehouses rebuilt, the villas cleansed and made habitable. The mills and conduits are damaged. The yards are wrecked that used to produce soap and oil, dyes and wine. The food stores are polluted and empty; the quays weed-covered and useless. The workers, the merchants have to be induced to come back. The city needs horses, camels, oxen, goats and cows to be milked; poultry to lay. Its defences must be restored. Where are the records of its customs? How many of its craftsmen have died – the smiths, the coopers, the workers in textiles and metal; the artisans of the arsenal? Where are the women and children, the elders that were sent from the city and must now be brought back? Have you thought of that, Niccolò?’
‘Someone must think of it,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I accepted a contract to fight, and to bring the sugar reeds into profit, and foster the dyeworks. You have other hands for the rest.’
The King rose. ‘That contract is ended. I offer you a better one. Should I not? I owe you my kingdom, my life, my wellbeing. Think of it. Take it.’
‘And the Mamelukes?’ rejoined Nicholas, quickly.
The King gave a disarming smile. ‘You prepared the way, my sweet Nikko. The Sultan Khushcadam in Cairo will appear shocked, but will be quickly appeased. Our Archbishop is no naïve ambassador: he has performed this task before, and successfully. With our abundant regrets, he will take glorious presents.’ Zacco shot him a sudden radiant glance. ‘Nikko? You could go with him.’
Stumbling, alone, about Egypt. Nicholas quelled a snort of feverish laughter and said, ‘You are kind, my lord. But I wish, at present, to go back to Nicosia. In a marriage, such decisions belong to both husband and wife.’
He watched the King go, and the Archbishop, pausing to bless him. He rehearsed in his mind all that he wanted to say next time in private to Zacco, and then found that he had rehearsed in his sleep, and it was the following day. He said to the first friar who came near him, ‘Where is the King lodging now?’
And the friar, soothing him, said, ‘The King has gone to Nicosia, my lord. The others are about to depart also. They stayed, latterly, in the Palace.’
He got to the Palace, finally, using a stick, and eluding his nurses. Zacco had gone, and the horses were waiting for Rizzo di Marino. Nicholas had himself announced to his room.
The Chancellor said, ‘I should have come, but the friars tattle. Sit. The King says he has asked you to stay?’
Nicholas sat, and propped his underlip with the knob of his stick. He said, removing it, ‘You led the action, I’m told, against the Mamelukes?’
‘That is true,’ said Rizzo di Marino. ‘The emir’s absence was, of course, a prime necessity. The King has told you, I am sure, of our gratitude.’
‘He endorsed the killing?’ Nicholas said.
‘My dear Ser Niccolò, he knew nothing of it. Like yourself, he expected the Egyptians to enter Famagusta. I do not mind shouldering blame. It seemed to me,’ said the chamberlain, ‘that it was better to prevent such an event than to risk the King’s life.’
‘I am sure the King’s uncle agreed,’ Nicholas said. ‘It is sad, however, that Tzani-bey discovered not merely that we had been warned, but who had warned us. Just as it was useful, one might say, that Tzani-bey learned of the negotiations with Uzum Hasan that led him to plan the revolt. Very few knew of that.’
The Sicilian gazed at him. ‘Let me ask you. Do you regret Tzani-bey’s death? No. Does the disposal of a pack of leaderless Mamelukes disturb you? Surely not. Then by whatever means these things were enabled to happen, should one criticise them? I do not, and neither should you, I suggest. Take what you are offered, and enjoy it.’
He was loyal. Regrettably, Rizzo di Marino was loyal, and would betray nobody. There was one more piece of information, however, he might be willing to give. ‘And stay away from Nicosia?’ Nicholas asked.
Rizzo di Marino gazed at him contemplatively. He said, ‘I am like you. I take life by the jaws. I do not look for it to be easy or pleasant. Go to Nicosia if you must. But it is not what the King expects. Do not strain his affection, or count on his temper. Your time will come when he finds that, having disposed of the Sultan, he is threatened by Venice.’
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To John le Grant he said, ‘Nicosia late tomorrow. I have rounds to do first. What’s the news? Is Crackbene back from Salines? Is the King celebrating, planning, mourning, whoring or just getting drunk?’
‘Rumour says,’ said the engineer, ‘that he got off his horse and went straight to his mother. Crackbene’s in Nicosia with his Genoese prisoners from the Adorno. Tobie and Loppe have Diniz with them at the villa. Zorzi is still in the dyeyard, prior, I assume, to receiving the business from you by royal command on a big dirty plate. Our good old Venetian friends are all in Nicosia, since the King won’t allow them to come here in case they get dragged into corners and slaughtered. The leaders of Famagusta have been lodged till they see what their Republic will pay for them. Your wife is still in the Palace. What else do you want to know?’
Nicholas said, ‘Who are Crackbene’s Genoese prisoners?’
‘I don’t know,’ said John le Grant. ‘If you’ll stay here, I’ll go to Mick and find out. You think it’s someone connected with that poor lady?’
‘She thought so,’ Nicholas said. ‘So did Gregorio. He thought her husband Simon would come. And the ship was the Adorno. There’s no need to be my errand boy. I’ve said. I’m going to Nicosia tomorrow.’
The rounds he had spoken of Nicholas did next day himself, while John le Grant waited for him. They were simple enough: the churches, the hospices, the homes where he had worked with Abul Ismail. The villa. And another call.