Race of Scorpions (77 page)

No. John was ahead of him, softly running and climbing. Nicholas followed, his eyes searching above. The line of the wall-walk was not suddenly crowded. Of the two galleries he could see, he had already decided that one was unmanned. But the other had somebody in it. Several men, all of them at the end closest above them, and peering.

Nicholas caught John by the arm and they stood, their backs pressed to the wall. Far to one side, Nicholas now saw the remaining sapper, also frozen, his eyes on the gallery. The fallen man lay in the ditch, black upon black, and made no sound. A long moment passed. A gun boomed; then another, blanching the sky to the south. They stood in the shadows, unmoving. Then suddenly the sky above them flashed a stuttering crimson, and iron balls and lead shot rapped into the ditch from above, in a din of sharp hackbut explosions. Chipped rock flew, and the noise of it ricochetted from wall to wall of the ditch and then faded. He could hear John breathing, and in the distance, distinguish the dim shape of the sapper. He hadn’t moved. They hadn’t been seen. It had been a nervous reaction – a test – an act of meaningless defiance from the worn soldiers watching above. They waited. Voices came from the battlements, and a twinkle of steel. Voices from the gallery. A more authoritative voice from above, and dwindling noise, and an absence of glitter. And finally, only the gallery, silent again, with the men on duty watching unspeaking.

After a long spell, John touched Nicholas on the shoulder and pointed. Nicholas nodded. Then, as John began to climb to where the other had been, Nicholas felt his way to the fallen sapper.

He was dead. Nicholas knelt, then lifted him to the base of the wall and knelt again, to make certain. He felt a touch on his shoulder. The other sapper was looking at his partner. Then he whispered, ‘Ser Niccolò? You too?’

After that scything spray of stone he had felt the blood, but whatever had cut him, it was minor. He shook his head. The man said, ‘Broke my arm. You’ve to finish mine off. Master John’s going up for the high one.’

A one-armed man was no use. Nicholas sent him off back to the tunnel, and glanced upwards. Master John, a natural chimpanzee, was always going for the high one. If he had been able to shout, Nicholas would have told John to let well alone. But he couldn’t, so he climbed to the disabled man’s perch, and began a sensitive, confident probe, and discovered quite soon how far the man had progressed, and finished the work, fast and easily. He had wanted to do this job with John alone, but miners were professionals, and didn’t like laymen interfering. He cut the correct length of fuse, and set it, and lit it, and looked to see how John was doing.

The last mine was giving him trouble, partly because his position on the wall was so insecure. Once, this had been an expanse of perfect, squared masonry, but three years of siege and three months of heavy bombardment had produced enough gouges and bruising to offer some kind of a foothold. Where there was a real flaw was where the explosive itself was being planted.

Because it was difficult, John was unable, he could see, to keep watch around him. The battlements offered small danger: such was the slope of the wall that a man would have had to lean far out to see him. The penthouse above them was different. For the present, John’s position was wholly in shadow and the bombardment, if the single, continuous shots could be called so, was lighting the sky from emplacements which, as they planned, left their stretch of wall in welcome shadow. It was possible that flares might be dropped. The real threat was more substantial, and imminent. Somewhere in that clouded black sky there was a moon due to rise very soon now. The disturbance had slowed them, and so had the loss of two workers. Now he and John were still on the wall and, caught by light, would be fully in view from the gallery.

John was not far away, and the stretch of wall that lay between them was not wholly smooth. Bit by bit, Nicholas began to inch towards him. He had progressed halfway when John raised his head and noticed. Nicholas pointed to the sky, made a gesture, and then clutched the wall, swearing. It was his year for skinned fingers, and climbing. It was the end of his year. He knew anyway what John was doing, which was setting the fuse. He waited, watching John’s hands shielding the spark from the tinder, and the moment he finished, he turned to descend at his back.

He had taken two steps when the guns stopped.

It had happened before: a mortar would jam, overheat, miss its turn. If caught climbing you checked and adhered to the wall, until the bombardment resumed to cover the rasp of your movements again.

It was not a good place to have to wait, this time. His handholds were slight, and his footholds were almost non-existent: from the way John was clinging, he was worse off. And to the right and
above them were the black floor and lighter awning and sides of the gallery, which contained three nervous men who had already let off their handguns at random. His fingers scraping, Nicholas let his mind dwell for a moment on fuses. They were lit, but they were long. They had been deliberately set to defer the explosions. There was intended to be time to descend, to retire through the covert and to supervise the fast, careful infill of stone that would give them their bridge when the walls fell. Of course, if a random ball hit a mine, the wall would collapse before that, killing them, and the men in the gallery.

He had cramp in both the hands stretched above him. On his right, John suddenly changed his grip, grunting. The guns had not begun again. None of them. Why? His ears sang. It was silent, and they were marooned in the silence. He turned his head, and saw John’s face, tilted enquiringly. There was no point in waiting. He jerked his head, and began to move down.

As if he had thrown a torch into oil, light exploded. Radiance spread from the sky, and every object in the wide landscape stood revealed by it. The wall, the ditch, the countryside, the camps, the immobile guns and their gunners appeared painted with light on stark vellum. Above, the cloud banks had parted: the moon poured down its drenching blue brilliance. Below, a serpent of flame wreathed the ground: a burning river of light which wound from behind a dark knoll and spilled, slow as honey, towards the blind gates of Famagusta.

He witnessed a great procession, black-edged, bearing hundreds of flambeaux. The torches blazed upon tall tasselled banners, and lit robes of white and scarlet and gold, borne by men with innocent faces. In their hands shone the emblems and harness of sanctity: gold rood glimmered, and monstrance and thurible; and the Crucifix from St Sophia itself rode the night like a ship on their shoulders. Behind it, rank upon quiet rank, marched the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, the white linen cross on their mantles. And the singing was not in his head, but rose from the cowled, slow-moving figures who edged the bright file with their tapers. Their petition reached to the walls, clear and pure, low and rhythmic, invoking God, and forgiveness, and pity.

Behind that, laden with food, came the wagons.

Nicholas turned his face to his arms, and was silent.

He couldn’t tell when the singing came to an end, or the Archbishop’s voice was first raised, addressing the city; offering it God’s peace and succour so long as the Feast of Christ lasted. He didn’t move until John’s hand smote his weak shoulder, and John’s voice said, with desperate hoarseness, ‘You thrawn God-damned fiend of a Fleming!’

He lifted his head, and they looked at one another. John’s face
was furrowed with tears. Nicholas said, ‘I didn’t know if they would do it.’ His arms over his head were an agony. He began to bring them down, still in a daze, and then remembered, with terrible clarity, where he was and what he was doing. At the same moment, he saw John’s eyes suddenly widen. The fuses. The fuses must be put out, or the miracle that was happening out there would be useless.

They scrambled, this time, as if secrecy didn’t matter, although of course it did. If they were seen, they’d be picked off. If they failed to reach the fuses in time, they’d be killed with the rest on the wall, and only a little earlier than the men of both sides who would open fire, without doubt, claiming treachery. They shared the task between them, descending first to the biggest mine, by the base of the wall. Next, the one fixed by the dead man. And lastly, the two higher up.

By then, the fuses were short, and there was no time to be nice about quietness. In any case, the wall-walk above them was empty. Only the hide-covered penthouse was occupied, and the three men in that were jammed at the opposite end, craning to watch the brilliant theatre; the exchange at the gates upon which their survival depended. Breathless and dizzy, Nicholas found and pinched out his fuse, and looked across gasping to John. The task was almost done. In a moment, they could take stock, and be thankful together.

Hampered by his terrible perch, the engineer, as before, was making slow work of it. As before, he had not wasted energy in trying to keep watch about him. Not as before, someone this time was leaning out, watching him from the gallery.

They had been seen. Not as yet by all three of the men, but by one who already had his handgun set up, aimed fully at John, and the flare in his hand to ignite it. Without thinking, Nicholas unslung his bow. Clinging with toes and with knees, he leaned into the wall and drew an arrow, fast, from over his shoulder. He had it nocked, and the hemp half drawn back when an extra flare lit the sky, and he saw how close the man was to firing, and how ill he looked, and how young he was: a hollow-faced boy, defending the walls of Famagusta.

Saw, then, that the hollow-faced boy was Diniz Vasquez.

Chapter 39

T
HERE WAS A
moment when Nicholas could have released his arrow: he let it pass. He spoke John’s name, to make him look up. Then he tossed his bow to the foot of the wall, and unslung and threw down his quiver. From the gallery, the feverish gaze of Diniz Vasquez held no recognition; but still he hadn’t touched fire to his weapon. His two companions, readying theirs, crowded behind him. The boy said,
‘What are you doing?’

Nicholas said, ‘We’d planted four mines, before we knew of the truce. We’ve just made them harmless. Bring us up: we’ll tell where they are; you can check them.’ His eyes on Diniz, he spoke in Italian. The boy’s sunken face changed.

A man said, ‘Treachery! The bugle! Sound the bugle! They’re Zacco’s soldiers. The bastards! The bastards!’ He was weeping. He said, ‘You thought these turds with candles were churchmen. D’you imagine those wagons hold food? Wait till we turn the guns on them all. Watch their powder blow up. Pour lead shot into their fat, meat-stuffed bellies. And as for you …’

It was his handgun that fired, not the boy’s. But although he aimed it at Nicholas, it fired into the air, for the boy knocked it sideways and held it. The boy said, ‘No. I’ve sent for the captain. But the men in that column are churchmen. Look. I know them. And look, too. The sides of the wagons are slatted. You can see baskets, Vito, not soldiers. And where is the ditch filled with troops? I see only two men, and a bridge too low yet to be of much use to anyone. You?’ He was speaking to Nicholas. Behind him, distantly, a bugle was sounding, followed by the clank and shuffle of armoured men running. The conference outside the gates had ceased, and the torches wavered as men turned to seek the disturbance.

Nicholas said, ‘It is a real truce. There is no army coming. Throw us ropes. You can hold us until you have proved it.’ Above,
the battlements had become crowded with men, and with the mouths of many handguns, pointing downwards. The voice of authority, heard once before, became louder and recognisable, and ceased at the battlements. It said, ‘Bring these men up as far as the penthouse, no further. I will speak with them.’ The voice of Napoleone Lomellini, last seen in the Lusignan castle of Kiti where he had lied, without pleasure, to try and prevent Nicholas from joining Zacco. And from which Zacco had freed him, on ransom, to take this post once again as his enemy.

There was no reason for a beleaguered host to be gentle when hauling two spies into their precincts, and in their anger and disappointment and fear, the men who handled the drag-ropes would have made sure, but for Lomellini, that these climbers never climbed again. Rising to his feet on the floor of the penthouse Nicholas staggered for a moment, while his wrists were being wrenched back and lashed; and knew from the way John was standing that he had received the same treatment. Where there had been three men there were now a dozen, although he could not now see Diniz Vasquez. Instead, Napoleone Lomellini stood there, no longer furred and beringed, in a helm and cuirass dented and dull in the moonlight. There was no softening in his stare. He said, ‘Niccolò vander Poele. I am told there are bombards. Did you plant them?’

‘I am the engineer,’ John le Grant said. ‘They’re safe of themselves, I guarantee it; but of course, a chance shot could do for them. If you give me a torch I’ll show your pioneers where they are bedded.’

‘It seems fair,’ said the Genoese captain. ‘And if they blow up, you will know you have forgotten one. Take him away and get him to do as he says. Vander Poele will remain.’ His face, grotesque in the torchlight, was little but bone, dirt and gristle. He turned to Nicholas. ‘I am in no mood for anything but the truth. You will probably die, but certainly you will speak before you die. You, the head of a company, are here as Zacco’s sapper? Explain yourself.’

‘The King is in Nicosia,’ said Nicholas. ‘And all his officers. This attack was my own. He knows nothing of it.’

‘But the churchmen did,’ Lomellini said. ‘They came to keep us in parley, while you assault us.’

‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘The church has come in good faith, and is innocent of any deception. I planned an attack, and have cancelled it. You will find we have lit and put out all our fuses. If you want better proof, ask the churchmen. You will learn Zacco has sent them. You will discover, I am sure, that he has forbidden me or anyone else to attack you. If you doubt me, ask yourself where is my army? If it were a ruse, they should be here to exploit it.’