The Unicorn Hunt (96 page)

‘I trust then,’ said Nicholas, ‘that the lord Hadji Mehmet and his companions intend to speak to the Knights at Rhodes and to the magnates of the West before such a confusion of interests occurs?’

‘We leave for Rhodes in two days,’ said Mehmet. ‘We shall be in Venice in a matter of weeks.’ In public he used his native language and an interpreter although, as Nicholas knew, he spoke both French and Greek. He added, ‘If the Knights cannot help us, however, we may be unable to follow the good advice of Ser Andrea. We may be obliged to wait for the Baron Cortachy and sue for help from the Genoese of the Order.’

Zacco said, ‘What do you mean? The Knights will help you.’

Corner cleared his throat. ‘Monseigneur, you have heard what the lord Uzum Hasan requires. Ships, cannon, hackbuts, metalworkers, gunnery officers – the Order can provide little of that.’

‘They have money!’ said Zacco.

‘Well,’ said Ludovico da Bologna. Suddenly, below his ceremonial clothes, Nicholas felt his skin tighten. He kept his breath even.

‘Or if not, Venice has?’ Zacco had decided to sneer.

Andrea Corner said, ‘Venice has artillery, or her merchants, like Ser Niccolò here, could provide it. But all her present weapons and money are already committed to war. Venice has been fighting unaided for Christendom for too long already. Only Rhodes has some access to gold, were she permitted to employ it.’

It was so neat, so lethal, so exquisite that there was never any doubt but that he would rise to it. ‘To how much gold?’ Nicholas said.

‘Over four hundred pounds. If they are permitted to keep it.’

‘You surprise me,’ said Nicholas. ‘It must amount to something like three mule-loads. The ownership is uncertain?’

‘I shouldn’t say so,’ said Ludovico da Bologna. ‘Morally, it belongs to the Knights. Without it, they could never afford to buy what they need from Venice to arm Uzum. Weapons. The use of an army. Ships. Silver and timber.’

‘Timber?’ said Nicholas.

‘Egypt needs it. They used to get it from the Karamanid Emirate on the Anatolian coast. There are some concessions on the Venetian border which have been in dispute with the Tyrol. The same with the silver. But of course,’ said Andrea Corner, ‘there would be no question of legal processes now. And Cairo would be strengthened in their resolve to help Venice and Cyprus. What does Ser Niccolò feel?’

Laughter welled, but he knew better than show it. Beneath all the formality, he was being told that the thieves of his African gold were the Order of the Knights of St John, captors of the
Ghost
, and, no doubt, of Ochoa de Marchena. From there, step by step, it all followed. And now, with supreme and brilliant insolence, he was being offered compensation. Don’t fuss, and we shall use it to pay you for your excellent services.

If he agreed, he would have no gold to offer to Gelis.

He could find the child without gold.

He said, ‘I am not sure that I am interested. It would depend on what men and supplies I should be required to provide, and on what precise terms.’

Ludovico da Bologna said, ‘Particular, aren’t you? So are we. We’d expect you to go with Hadji Mehmet to Rhodes for their views. Then we’d all know after the Papal meeting at Rome what the Italian states are doing. By the time Mehmet here comes to Venice you should have worked out your figures and we’ll all know the answers.’

‘I should be the sole dealer?’ said Nicholas.

‘If you want to be,’ Corner said.

‘And if I decide to refuse?’

‘Someone else gets the business,’ said the Patriarch. ‘And you get nothing at all, or, if you prefer, a lot of expensive litigation. You don’t need to decide now, tomorrow will do. The Order is sending a galley.’

‘I hope you will come,’ said Hadji Mehmet in Arabic. ‘Come to Rhodes. Then meet us in Venice. You will not regret it.’

He was smiling. Nicholas said, ‘Never ask an innkeeper the way.’

‘Of course. But it will benefit yourself as well.’

‘Perhaps. I hope I shall be able to accept by tomorrow,’ Nicholas said, just loud enough to be heard by the Patriarch, who was not unconversant with that language.

The door had opened and servants were bringing trays of pastries and Candian wine. He seemed to remember that Corner was paid in sugar and wine: it was not the thick, sweet Commanderie wine of the Knights, whatever his new fondness for the Order. He wondered if the meeting were formally over, and decided that it probably was. He said to the Patriarch, ‘Are there still some Greek bishops in Cyprus?’

After barely one bite, the Patriarch seemed clothed in sugary hair. ‘Four,’ he said. ‘And the Church of St Sabas, over at Karoni in Paphos. And the Karpass, up in the north-east. The Bishop of Famagusta has his home in the Karpass. Beside the monastery.’

‘The monastery?’ Nicholas said. Someone had refilled his cup, but exhilaration still won over tiredness. Zacco was lying back, staring at him.

‘The one you’re thinking of. The monastery of the monks of St Catherine’s of Sinai. A couple of cabins in the Karpass, since your day.’

‘Brother Lorenzo must go there occasionally,’ Nicholas said. ‘Who else do you know? Father Moriz?’

‘Everyone knows Father Moriz. I’m going to take the Turcomans home. Can you hold off getting drunk till I call on you?’

‘Nikko?’ said the King’s voice.

‘I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. ‘Call on me and try. How do you get on with my wife?’

‘Ah,’ said Ludovico da Bologna. ‘You’d need to be sober to hear that.’

‘Caro,’ said the King; and this time he was standing beside him, his cloak over one shoulder. ‘We are riding back.’

The King, at least, had decided that the meeting was over. Everyone stood. Farewells were said. Outside, the fountain played and the horses, their escort, were waiting. The Florentine agent had stayed behind and only the chamberlain Rizzo di Marino rode silently at the King’s other side. The King said, ‘If you loved me, you would kill him.’

It was not clear whom he meant, or even to whom he was speaking. Then the Sicilian said, ‘You know it is impossible.’

The King turned to Nicholas. ‘When Charlotte died, I stripped him of everything. Everything.’

‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said. Now he knew. Careless father, perpetual lover, Zacco adored his natural children. Charlotte, aged six, had been promised to Sor de Naves, his Constable, as a bribe, and had died at twelve, the previous year, on the verge of her marriage. She had been the eldest of his illegitimate children and, of course, he had none yet by Catherine Corner, to whom he had not yet been introduced.

Nicholas said, ‘You blame Andrea Corner?’

‘Oh yes. He poisoned her. I stripped him of all his possessions. But I had to give them back,’ Zacco said. ‘I owe him too much money. You don’t wear the Order I gave you?’

‘I couldn’t take it to Sinai,’ said Nicholas.

‘And you are married to a van Borselen? My grandfather married a Charlotte de Bourbon. We are related,’ said Zacco and laughed. ‘Are you not glad that I –?’

‘No,’ said Nicholas. They had come to the gates of the palace.

‘She was barren,’ said Zacco. ‘Your wife. And dead, of course, now. We are here. Come in.’

‘Forgive me, roi seigneur,’ Nicholas said.

His arm was gripped. ‘No. That I will not,’ said Zacco. ‘Unless you are afraid?’

‘No, roi seigneur,’ Nicholas said.

‘Because you are cleaning Andrea Corner’s boots with your tongue? You know that he sends every month to know why I am not receiving my bride?’

‘He is afraid you will marry King Ferrante’s daughter,’ Nicholas said.

‘Monseigneur,’ said Rizzo di Marino, and laid a hand on his reins.

The King continued studying Nicholas. ‘You know a lot, don’t you? Or you think that you do. I was told that you called at Naples on your way to Alexandria and were kind enough to discuss my marriage with Lorenzo Strozzi.’

‘I wanted you to go ahead with it,’ Nicholas said. ‘And place yourself in bad odour with Venice. Did you think I wished you a trouble-free life?’

‘She was a prostitute!’ Zacco said.

The name of Primaflora had not been mentioned, and he didn’t propose to mention it now. He said, ‘My lord, I have to go.’

‘No. I want to talk. Bring him,’ said Zacco. Di Marino tightened his grip, then released the King’s reins. The escort moved close.

Nicholas said, ‘My lord, I have a journey to make, and it is late.’

‘An excuse. What journey?’ said Zacco. ‘It is night.’

He had been going to lie. Instead, he said, ‘I have to ride to Famagusta on an errand. It is so that I can decide on my answer tomorrow.’

The lustrous eyes studied his without changing. Whoever knew that particular secret, it was not Zacco. Nicholas found he was very glad. Then Zacco said, ‘It is more than thirty miles. On that horse?’

It was a hired one; well enough. He had begun to explain, but was stopped. The King said, ‘You will take one of mine. Or something else. I remember you once had a racing-camel.’

‘It will be barren,’ Nicholas said. For a moment the King looked at him; then dismounting, he threw back the reins and walked off, without looking behind, over the courtyard. The chamberlain glanced at him, and then followed. The escort waited, then scattered. Nicholas watched for a moment, then moved. Before he had turned to the road, a groom was at his side, calling.

With him was the horse which Zacco had been riding, still saddled, with the red Lusignan lion on its horse-cloth. ‘My lord says,’ said the groom, ‘that this will be sufficient to gain you entry to Famagusta, should the gates be shut when you arrive.’

He looked at it; then, dismounting slowly, took the velvet reins and laid his hand on the horse’s white neck. The groom said, ‘What of your own, my lord? I am to ride it home for you, or stable it.’

He didn’t want questions. He said, ‘Stable it. I shall send for it tomorrow,’ and gave the man a piece of silver once he was mounted. There were lanterns hung among the lemon trees. Outside Nicosia
the grape harvest had begun: it would be the fig festival soon. Riding from Nicosia in the past, the road to the south was the one he had been used to: the road that lifted over the hill and wound down to the sea and to Kouklia, and his estate; and the shrine of Paphian Venus.

It was warm. The sky, sprigged with stars, had none of the clear, open quality of Sinai, even at night. Two hours before dawn, the star of St Catherine, of Venus, would hang to the east and south of the monastery. It was the same sky: it would shine upon Cyprus as well. The Bride of Christ, the pagan goddess, born both in one isle.

He it is who appointed for you the stars, that you may be guided by them in darkness on land and on sea
.

A hatchery of chicks is ready and will be emptied tomorrow
.

He was not tired, but clear and empty, like the air over Sinai.

At first, when Nicholas didn’t return, Tobie tried to get the girl to retire and then, failing, settled down with her to wait for an hour. After that, she seemed to agree that it would be better to sleep, taking her reassurance probably from his manifest state of annoyance. She was actually asleep, he thought, when the hammering came to the door and the porter led in Ludovico da Bologna, under the delusion that he was about to discuss something with Nicholas.

The idea that Nicholas was not in the house was not one he readily entertained. Striding here and there, flinging doors open, he wakened not only the household but Katelijne, who sat up and gazed at him in astonishment. ‘So where is he?’ demanded the Patriarch.

‘With King Zacco, I should imagine,’ she returned crossly; moving Tobie to a mixture of admiration and alarm. The Patriarch grunted and withdrew.

In the chamber, ‘Is he?’ he said.

‘How should I know?’ said Tobie. ‘I haven’t seen him since we were all at the Palace. What are you doing here?’

‘Sometime,’ said Ludovico da Bologna, ‘I’ll tell you, when you’ve managed to get that man under control.’

‘I’m only his doctor,’ said Tobie. ‘If you’re talking about spiritual health, maybe you should begin with his wife. She’s here, is she? On Cyprus?’

‘God save us, of course not,’ said the Patriarch of Antioch tartly, and banged the door shut.

It opened again almost immediately and Katelijne came in, wearing a sheet. ‘Who was that?’

‘Haven’t you got a bedgown yet? It’s all right, he’s a priest. Ludovico da Bologna, the –’

She sat down. ‘The man who came to the monastery. We heard. He brought the lady Gelis to see M. de Fleury and then took her away. Will he go to the Palace and make trouble?’

‘I think,’ said Tobie, ‘that even the Latin Patriarch of Antioch would hesitate before doing that.’

‘But he wouldn’t say why he was here. Would he go to the King’s mother?’

‘You were listening,’ said Tobie accusingly. He regulated his thoughts. ‘The King’s mother isn’t here.’

‘Yes, she is. She sent her ladies to look after me at the Palace. I didn’t know that Henry’s mother died in Famagusta. The lady Gelis’s sister.’

He had no trouble concentrating now. He said, ‘She was caught in Famagusta while the siege was on, and was injured by the King’s cannon.’

‘By M. de Fleury’s cannon,’ she said. ‘Or so they said. He and M. le Grant directed the siege.’

Cropnose. What was the King’s mother playing at? Tobie said, ‘They ended it as well, at some danger to themselves. Nicholas was captured, and spent the last days nursing the starving. Nursing Gelis’s sister until she died.’

‘And Diniz. Diniz had been caught in Famagusta as well?’ the girl said. She had been told the whole story, he could tell.

Tobie got up and said, ‘Well, if we are not going to sleep, we might as well make ourselves cool.’ The water was fresh, and he mixed it with fruit juice and brought two goblets over. He sat down beside her. ‘The King’s mother has a great deal to do with her son’s life. She knows Nicholas, and her ladies were probably sent to tell you what they did. Do you understand?’

‘I suppose,’ said Kathi, ‘that that is a compliment. So Diniz didn’t think M. de Fleury was responsible for his aunt’s death?’

‘Ask him when you get home,’ Tobie said. ‘He will tell you he made some mistakes when he was here. He fought Nicholas, and wounded him, too. As badly as Nicholas wounded your uncle. That was a misunderstanding as well.’