Race of Scorpions (81 page)

It proved to be some extremely strong wine he had hidden. It allowed Nicholas a long, hard night’s sleep, followed by a splitting headache in the morning.

Chapter 41

O
N THE DAY
after Epiphany, Famagusta heard that the treaty had been sworn before the Haute Cour in the Royal Palace of Nicosia, and that the fourteen days of extra truce had begun. A year of peace with the city would follow, provided that, as the city expected, a relief ship or ships arrived before the end of that period, passed the chain and entered the harbour of Famagusta.

If such a ship or ships failed to enter, the city would capitulate by the time January entered its twentieth night. In that event, the ambassadors stipulated that Famagusta would be governed henceforth by James of Lusignan and his Christian lieutenants, and not by Mamelukes, Moors or other infidels, who were to have no authority over Famagustans. The lord James had undertaken that the Sultan in Cairo should not contravene any article of the pact, and his emir Tzani-bey al-Ablak had been asked to give his word to that effect. The Genoese city of Famagusta did not intend to be at the mercy of Mamelukes.

By then, released from stricter vigilance, Nicholas had been able to move from the Citadel to the house of Katelina, and soon Abul Ismail was permitted to join him. As the life of the city began, haltingly, to achieve some simple routine, Nicholas spent his time more and more on the business of medicine. He was good with patients, as he was good with children. He watched Abul Ismail in silence, and helped without flinching. He learned, among other things, what alum served for, besides dyeing. The rest of the time he spent with Diniz, and Katelina.

Once, it had seemed that the candle of her life would burn only till Christmas, and that it was towards that single point that she was spinning out the last hours of her life. Then it became apparent that she was holding to some other lodestar.

She believed in the ship, and was waiting for it. Abul Ismail had said that she was loyal to Genoa, and it seemed this was true,
whatever Carlotta had done to her. She had lived among Genoese merchants in Bruges: Anselm Adorne had her respect and affection. Genoa was the home of Simon’s company, and he owed his start in Madeira to Genoese money and skill. And through Genoa, the ally of Portugal, she could repay her debt of indifference to Tristão Vasquez, who had married Simon’s sister, and her gratitude to the boy Diniz, on whom her eyes rested, half sleeping, in a strange, touching pride.

In the sickroom or with Diniz, Nicholas never threw doubt on the arrival of Katelina’s dream fleet. Nor, in the long hours of her sleeping, when he and Diniz shared the same room, did he say more than he thought might reassure the young Portuguese. Any plan for the future depended on the term of the girl’s life now ending, and neither could speak of that. Sometimes, though, the boy would now talk of the past. ‘You were in Rhodes. The demoiselle spoke of it. She said my father was killed because of her.’

‘Because of me,’ Nicholas said. ‘We had a misunderstanding, the demoiselle and I, and, for a while, she wanted to punish me. The Queen thought my life was in peril, and she should get rid of my enemies. She thought too, she would recover Cyprus. She didn’t want Madeira to rob her of vines and of sugar, and your father had tried to do that once. So she had no compunction, I think, in allowing your father to be lured into danger, so that the demoiselle would leave the City to follow him. The assassins meant to kill her. They didn’t care whether or not they killed your father or you.’

Diniz said, ‘The demoiselle said my father was killed by the Queen and someone else. She didn’t say who it was. She said the Queen and somebody else made sure she knew I was in Famagusta. She said you went to Rhodes to find out who killed my father.’

‘They were only hired assassins,’ Nicholas said. ‘Astorre helped me kill two of them. The Queen was behind most of it. She needed mercenaries.’

‘But you were already with Zacco when they tried to kill the demoiselle at Kalopetra,’ the youth said. He paused. ‘Was that why you married the lady Primaflora? Did she warn you of the new plot, and needed protection?’

‘She told me where to find Katelina,’ Nicholas said. ‘I should have stayed, then, to make sure she left safely for Portugal. But I was being hunted as well.’

‘But you didn’t love Primaflora?’ the boy said. ‘You wouldn’t have married her otherwise?’

‘I shouldn’t have married her otherwise,’ Nicholas said. After a moment he said, ‘What do you think you’ve been watching, these weeks?’

The boy’s eyes were dark and level, dense as the Arab’s. ‘Compassion?’ he said. Leaving, Nicholas crashed the door open and
then, remembering, closed it soundlessly in the last inch of its movement. The word followed him into the courtyard. When, calmer, he went to her room, Katelina was awake, and he was able to expend on her all that Diniz thought he was capable of.

The following day, Diniz apologised. Nicholas heard it in silence. She was worse, today; her breathing irregular, her words sometimes confused. Latterly, she had been in pain. Today, Abul Ismail had stayed at her side, and now Nicholas had been banished from the sickroom.

Diniz also had stayed, and had found his way out into the yard, and the broken pillars of the loggia, where he had found somewhere to sit out of the wind. Today it was cloudy but bright, and the thick, accustomed smell of the city was better than the hospital smell in the house. Coming out for the same reasons, Nicholas found him there and heard him make his excuses.

His mind was not especially on Diniz. He said, ‘You needn’t be sorry. None of this is your fault, and a good degree of it is mine, which is why I lose patience easily. I have nearly insulted you, several times, by promising that you will forget all this when you are home again.’

The boy’s eyes fell. Nicholas dropped to sit on a block, and picked up a stone, and took out the knife he had been given back. Diniz said, ‘You made carvings in Bruges.’

‘It passed the time,’ Nicholas said.

A short silence followed. Diniz said, ‘Katelina says you think we are cousins.’

Both his hands stopped. ‘Katelina?’ he said.

‘She asked me to call her that. She says your mother was Simon’s first wife. I call him Simon,’ he added.

‘He is your uncle,’ Nicholas said. He had resumed carving again. ‘Did she say anything else?’

‘She said that Simon denied he had fathered you, and this was the cause of the feud, and that it would get worse, unless something stopped it. She said that when she was … that Simon would think you had killed her. Would think that you had killed my father. That unless something was done, he would kill you.’

‘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.’