Race of Scorpions (33 page)

After the weeks of confinement, it was a relief to leave the City behind: to exchange the massive walls, the stately buildings, the burnished court etiquette of chivalric Europe for the open country of a Levantine island, with its fields and its hamlets, its fishing villages and its broken pillars, residue of ancient cities at least as great.

From end to end, Rhodes was less than fifty miles long. Setting out from its northernmost tip, a group of people might expect very soon to find two men who had lost their way, but who were not unintelligent, and had arms, and the ability to call for help. But riding along the sandy shore towards the plain and the wooded hill that was called Mount Phileremos, Tobie recalled that the island was also mountainous. The long spine of afforested hills provided in summer a rough, dusty traverse from one side of the island to the other. Now, in winter, the way was treacherous with swollen streams and slippery inclines and mud.

He supposed that accidents were not uncommon, and that it was usual for the Hospitallers to offer aid to noble guests in distress. He knew Katelina believed that these particular visitors were victims of malice. It was possible. On the other hand, her theory might owe a lot to her suspicions of Nicholas. Notwithstanding his own suspicions of Nicholas, Tobie observed that Guinevere had, on the whole, responded as any innocent man might to a mild emergency which had not yet turned into a serious one.

Riding beside the white beach, with the low sun on his right, Tobie found himself watching Nicholas and the girl racing in front, her gilt hair flown aloft like a pennant. The flogging pigtails of Guinevere raised dust from his shoulders, and his earrings jangled like buckets. Primaflora, holding him fast, was speaking into his ear. Over Tobie’s shoulder, Katelina was speaking as well. She said, ‘Can’t you ride faster? I’m supposed to help find the way.’ If she wanted to eavesdrop on Nicholas, Tobie had no objection. He moved up to ride beside Guinevere’s fluttering girdle and sleeves. Primaflora smiled at him sweetly, and stopped speaking immediately. She was an amazingly beautiful woman.

They left the sea, and the ride became much more unpleasant. There was a blustering wind from the north, and splattered mud dashed in their faces. Other men joined them, and before they had gone very far, one or two of the Knights came up quickly. One of them, Scougal, was a Scottish Hospitaller whom Tobie knew. Tobie said, as they rode, ‘What do you think has happened?’

The Knight heard him, but threw an uneasy glance at Katelina. She said, ‘You might as well tell us. I’ve heard the party’s dogs came back, injured, but the horses haven’t been found?’

The Knight said, ‘The gentleman and his son seem to have been deliberately sent where riding is difficult. They had with them two guides who have disappeared too. And if they found their way to the shore from the mountains, they might have run into a raiding party. Without guides, it is a dangerous island.’

‘A raiding party. Of Turks?’ Tobie asked. He was taken aback.

The Knight said, ‘You haven’t seen the burned houses and ruined fields by the shore? The coast of Asia Minor is only seven miles away. The pirates make a quick landing, and pillage and destroy what they can. If someone wished the demoiselle’s family ill, it wouldn’t be hard to snatch them and hold them to ransom. I hear Tristão Vasquez is highly valued. And Muslims esteem handsome boys.’

Tobie said, ‘That’s enough. They’re more than likely just wandering lost on the hills.’

But it was Astorre, not far away, who shook his head. ‘Rhodes is a small place. The first search party must have used dogs. If they didn’t find them, they’re either hurt, or concealed, or off the island.’

Guinevere removed a hank of hair from his teeth. ‘If I were a Turk, I doubt if I’d have heard of the Vasquez. If they were deliberately cut off, it wasn’t the work of a chance raiding party. Demoiselle? Who had a grudge against the Senhor and his son?’

‘You,’ she said. ‘And your men.’

‘But we were kept inside the City. So, business rivals? Who else?’

‘No one else,’ she said. Her knuckles bruised Tobie’s back.

‘That you know of. How were the dogs injured? Did the page say?’

‘He didn’t. They’ll be at Trianda: the stronghold; the monastery. The Knights are sending a servant to guide us. You could have paid someone to do it,’ said Katelina.

‘I could have paid someone to do it on shipboard, but I didn’t,’ Nicholas said. He didn’t sound frivolous, and the earrings looked less a conceit than an irrelevance. Ahead, Tobie saw the wooded height which must be Mount Phileremos with the fortress, the ruins, the monastery on its crown. A group of men, emerging from trees, was running towards them. Among them, leading them, was a hulking black figure he recognised. Tobie slackened his knees, and felt the weight shift behind as Simon’s wife peered round his shoulder.

Katelina van Borselen turned towards Nicholas. ‘I know that black man. He’s your servant.’

Tobie opened his mouth and then shut it. Astorre, still riding, said nothing, nor did le Grant or Thomas. Nicholas, spitting out hair, said, ‘You mean he’s the spy planted on me by the Grand Commander Louis de Magnac. I don’t mind. He’s good with a razor.’

‘Maybe too good with a razor,’ said John the Lion.

‘No. He’s called Lopez. He’s Portuguese, like the Vasquez,’ Nicholas said. ‘He wouldn’t harm them. Unless you think he’s got orders from Louis de Magnac? But the Knights at Kolossi were friendly.’

Loppe came up. Loppe, who – Tobie knew, Astorre knew – was indeed the servant of Nicholas, and would do whatever Nicholas wanted. Loppe went straight to Scougal with his black mantle and said, ‘Senhor, do you lead for the Knights? The horses have been found, and two of the four men. They are dead. I have to take you to where they lie. There are tracks, but they are confused. We need many men to follow them before it gets dark.’

It was not a mild emergency any more. The Knight said, ‘Sit behind me. Which men have died?’

‘I will run,’ said Loppe. ‘Not the foreigners. The men who died seem to be grooms. They were killed with arrows, like the dogs. You are all armed?’ He turned, scanning the rest of the party, and let his eyes widen.

Nicholas said, ‘You nicked my knees, but I forgive you. We’re all armed. We were on our way to a joust. Let’s go. There isn’t much daylight.’

Tobie stayed where he was. More, he grabbed Guinevere’s reins. He said, ‘That’s far enough for the women. It’ll be dark soon; it’s dangerous, and they’ll slow us.’

Primaflora said, ‘I don’t mind staying behind, if-’

‘I’m not stopping,’ said Katelina. ‘Get me a horse for myself.’

The courtesan smiled. ‘Then neither am I. Two horses.’

Tobie waited, expecting Nicholas to turn off the woman and leave her. Instead Nicholas pushed up the coils of his sleeves. ‘There’s no time. Half a horse each, as at present. Let’s go.’ He dug in his spurs. His burdened horse leaped and broke into a canter. Tobie hesitated. Behind him, his co-rider lifted both feet and kicked the flank of their mount which shied, collected itself, and began racing after the other. Astorre gave a short bark of appreciation and set off at speed, with the rest.

There was nothing to be done about Katelina. Of all people, Tobie couldn’t blame her for her aversion to Nicholas. None the less, it made him uncomfortable, or more uncomfortable than he already was. The Loathly Damsel’s dress was coated with mud, and it had begun to rain on his scalp. Tobie let his horse open up to a gallop, and cursed Nicholas and all his women.

It wasn’t far to the place where the dead servants lay. The negro, running ahead, stopped and waved. There were dark shapes among the thickets of broom, and a smearing of brown. Tobie drew rein, but the woman behind him neither spoke nor dismounted. Men were on the turf, bending over. He saw Loppe straighten, his eyes
meeting those of Nicholas, although nothing was said. Tobie said, ‘Hell and damnation, what are they doing?’

Astorre answered him, mounted again. ‘Two dead men: the servants. They were killed by arrows, shot from a distance. They still had their swords at their sides. We’ve tracks from the two Vasquez horses, and a lot of footmarks, and a place over there where other horses were waiting.’

‘So someone’s got hold of the Portuguese?’ Tobie said.

Primaflora walked over. She had tied up the skirts of her gown, showing fine linen stockings full of holes and whiskered embroidery. Her hood had dropped back, and her hair fell treacle-gold in the wet. She said, ‘Messer Niccolò and the negro think not. They think they escaped on foot from the struggle, and the attackers set off to pursue them. The early searchers found horses’ tracks near Kalamonas, but most of the marks have been lost in the rain. It means casting wide in small groups, with only a short time before dark to do it. The Knights will give orders.’

‘Are you going on, madonna?’ said Tobie.

‘Why not?’ she said. She was not smiling. ‘It is quicker than going back.’ She said to Katelina, ‘Demoiselle, your kinsmen may have escaped. They may hear us, and come out of hiding.’

‘They may see us, and go into hiding,’ said Nicholas. ‘If you’re coming, get up.’

As she swung into the saddle, Tobie received a view of one arching limb, clean from ankle to garter to thigh. To white and gold glimmering thigh. He dropped a rein and, fumbling for it, cursed Nicholas all over again.

There were only seven now in their group. On horseback, Astorre and Tobie, Nicholas and one of Primaflora’s protectors, with the two women still riding pillion. On foot Loppe, known to all but his colleagues as Lopez. As the light left the sky, the party grew silent. Loppe, striding ahead, spoke or called in a low voice, and sometimes one of the men spoke to him, or to each other. Sometimes they stood still, the salty wind tugging their clothing, while two or three cast about on foot. Far off, others were doing the same. Above the blustering noise of the elements could be heard distant voices; but never the sound of the trumpet that would announce the end of the search.

It was an intolerant country in winter, when the sun no longer smiled on its children, and the oleanders were dead, and the cots round the shores were in ashes. The windmills creaked. The fortresses stood on their hills; the crumbled temples of the Greeks, the staunch keeps of the Genoese, the stout castles of the Knights; and round them the cottages huddled, with the pigs indoors, and the goats safely penned, and the geese and hens secure from the fox, or the Turks.

They saw few such houses, for their task was to search the marshy areas, where men on foot might try to escape men on horseback. On rising land, they passed patches of ploughed ground, and put up hares, and smelled a plantation of carob trees. There were olives, some long stripped; some with their January windfalls half gathered. Twice, Loppe found deer slots. Then he found something else: the clear print of a spurred boot in the mud.

Its owner must have slipped sideways, and recovered himself. Further on, there was an impress of the same sole, overlaid this time by another. Nicholas dismounted, peered, and straightening, whipped off his wig by the plait and sent it whirling into the gloom like a pelican. Elation? No. Satisfaction, the doctor diagnosed. The satisfaction of an engineer, when the engine performs. The Lion said nothing but Captain Astorre said, ‘See? See, demoiselle? We’ll find them!’

The sky to the east had grown dark, and the sugarloaf mountain ahead was now dim. The Knights had provided pitch torches. Lighting their own, they saw where others jumped in the distance like woodsparks. Astorre said, ‘Will we call them?’

Nicholas said, ‘Numbers won’t make any difference. We’ll call when we’ve found something. Look. The prints lead to that dip.’

Primaflora’s protector said, ‘They hoped to get to the monastery, perhaps. They were making for Kalopetra, and were headed off. The dip is a ravine: half a mile of it, with hiding places in plenty. But the first search party passed this way earlier, and no one answered their call.’

Loppe said, ‘Here. They have come down the bank and followed the water to escape from the horses. One is hurt.’

He was speaking ostensibly to the soldier but always, Tobie felt, indirectly to Nicholas. They spread out, and the men dismounted. Here and there, in the light that was half flame and half twilight, Tobie could see the uneven track that Loppe had deciphered. One of the men was indeed injured. Tristão, who had married the sister of the hated Simon? Or Tristão’s son Diniz who – perhaps – Nicholas thought his first cousin?

That was why Loppe was speaking to Nicholas. Because of that, or because everything he said confirmed something Nicholas expected to hear. Death tended to come very often to kinsmen of Nicholas.

The ravine wound on, sometimes broadening to enclose trees and bushes and patches of meadow, sometimes narrowing to the extent of a footpath skirting a deep, tumbling pond. The rush of water shot back from the cliffs on either side and the groves of oak and pine masked the darkening sky with their tight-ravelled branches. There were other trees, smooth and leafless and eight times a man’s height, which Tobie had never seen before. A hail of
objects dashed over his head. Katelina screamed in his ear. Her fists gripped Tobie’s sides, cloth and skin wrung together. The horse plunged, and Tobie whipped his sword from its scabbard. ‘Birds,’ said Nicholas.

Primaflora laid her cheek on his back, laughing breathlessly. Then she caught herself, and turned to Katelina. ‘It could have been dangerous. They looked like bolts, or arrows, or stones.’

There was a pause. Then Katelina said, ‘I thought they were insects.’

Astorre, plodding beside her, grunted without looking up. ‘Insects won’t kill you.’

‘No,’ said Katelina.

Tobie felt her heavy as lead at his back. She had been afraid, and Primaflora had reassured her. Indeed, they might have been sisters, so carefully had Primaflora been watching the other girl. Katelina, of course, was intent on Nicholas. But if she didn’t cultivate Primaflora, neither did she seem to avoid her. In the wet and the dark, Tobie thought about it. Then Nicholas suddenly spoke. ‘That’s Lopez. Listen. He’s shouting.’ He gave an answering call, and started forward. Leading Katelina’s horse by the reins, Tobie splashed after.