Race of Scorpions Read online

  There was only one other chance, and it turned out to be no chance at all. After they had paid their call at Crete, another ship hailed them. Nicholas was on deck at the time, and watched its coming with attention. From its size, it was a carrier, one of the biggest he had seen, and it came from the east, which meant it was returning from Alexandria, or Cyprus, or Rhodes. Then, as it came nearer, a trumpet call came over the water, and it ran up its flag.

  The emblem was the eight-pointed Cross of the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes. It was all he saw before an angry voice spoke somewhere behind him, and he was hustled below. Later, the man who came to unlock him was smiling. ‘Gave them a fright, didn’t it, those bastards in the big cabin? Stands to reason, if a ship’s called Doria, it’ll attract every friend of the Genoese on the ocean. Especially if their commander’s called Doria as well.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I thought it was a ship of the Order from Rhodes.’

  ‘It was,’ said the man. ‘Knights of St John, effing bastards. Sail all the time, getting supplies for that prime bitch Carlotta. Sir Imperiale Doria it was, on that ship. Brings the Queen cattle and grain, and hocks her silver when she calls for more money. Wanted to come aboard and tell us what the Turks are doing on Lesbos. I can imagine what they’re doing on Lesbos, and we’re not going to help stop them, I can tell you. Your rich friend in the cabin had to tell him we were infectious before my lord of Doria would go.’

  ‘Who is the rich man in the cabin?’ said Nicholas.

  The man tittered again. ‘They don’t tell you, do they? Well, I’m not going to risk a whipping and let on. What’s it to you, with free food and drink for the asking? Whenever, that is, you’ve breath to spare from laying the woman.’ He backed and said, ‘None of that. Digi!’

  By the time Digi flung open the door, Nicholas had recovered. The men left. He flung himself down on a chest, and a moment later the door was unlocked again and Primaflora rejoined him. She said, ‘What was the shouting?’

  ‘Nothing. I made a threatening gesture,’ Nicholas said. ‘Stupid of me.’ He was still breathing quickly. And aware, in his anger, that she was here again, and the afternoon would be spent as it was always spent, in exquisite instruction.

  Well, not today. When he got up and walked over, he did not even undress her. He ignored, as if he had never learned them, all the delicacies; the devices to postpone, to heighten, wonderfully to protract, and simply made straight, as if time were short, for what he wanted. And she, extinguishing self, met him with feverish greed as if she, and not he, were in extremity. Her skills were, after all, to give pleasure.

  Later, he lay on his face. She said, ‘I cannot go away. I could ask for another cabin. I am not sure why you suddenly think this is wrong.’

  He had explained nothing. She was good at divining. He said, ‘It isn’t wrong. But it is a waste.’

  ‘Waste!’ she said. ‘That word again? What blows have you had, that you feel unshriven unless someone is beating you? Ten months of misery were a waste. But pleasure is not.’

  ‘Then let us say,’ Nicholas said, ‘that I don’t deserve it. One should work, and one should take relief from one’s work. That, my dear, is the Flemish way.’

  She was quiet, as she always was when he held her at arm’s length. His thoughts were his own, and not Primaflora’s. His vision of Catherine and Pagano, locked exactly thus in this room by their voracity. Catherine his step-daughter, and Pagano Doria, whom he had caused to be killed. He turned over. ‘But your way is better, and I’ve been ungrateful. So long as you’re prepared for a parting. You know I’m going to refuse to serve this man. James the Bastard. This alternative king of the sorry island of Cyprus.’

  She said, ‘If you worked for him, you could have both your relief and your trade. In the Flemish way.’

  Her eyes were not smiling. He said, ‘You would stay with me? There must be more …’

  She said, ‘Do you expect a declaration of love? You won’t get it. I made that mistake once, and fell out with my employer. Now I need another patron, and it would amuse me to stay with you. Also, you require someone like me. You learn quickly. You conceal what you know. I had not expected –’ She paused.

  ‘What?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘To talk,’ she said. ‘In the evenings, when we hold conversation, it is what I enjoy most.’

  He smiled at last. ‘Shall we,’ he said, ‘write this down and post it up on the door? It might earn me the respect of the crew; but I very much doubt it.’

  She said, ‘Then you will keep an open mind about James?’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘If I don’t serve Carlotta, then I’ve no wish to serve James. I will hear him and leave, if he will let me. If he does, will you stay?’

  She had a robe she wore in the heat, light as a chemise. It lay crumpled about her as she reclined on one elbow, considering him. He had given her no time to undress. She had not complained, but had been generous. He added, ‘I should be afraid for you.’

  Her eyes opened. ‘Would you?’ She lifted her head from her hand and, stretching her arm, ran her fingers down his bare arm. She said, ‘I said you were young. I can look after myself. What happens to me is not your affair.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t leave with me?’ Nicholas said.

  She smiled, and moved the track of her fingers. ‘You don’t want me. We share an appetite, and satisfy it as well together as any man and woman could do. But your mind is set on war, and I need a great household to live in.’

  He bridged her hand with his fingertips, stilling it. He said, ‘But you were willing to stay with me in Cyprus?’

  She looked at the silent embargo, but made no effort to break it. ‘Because you would have earned a great household,’ she said. ‘I won’t deceive you. I tease you over your youth, but you have in you the fire of success. I should profit from that, as you would profit from – what you have just had. I shall ask you something. Why have we been made to share a chamber like this?’

  ‘I thought we knew,’ Nicholas said. ‘To exhaust me into docility.’

  ‘So once we reach Cyprus, I am not needed,’ she said. ‘Unless there is another reason for making us lovers.’

  Of course, she was far from simple. She had wondered about this, as he had. He had not talked about it. They might have been thrown together for the sake of prurience. Even at second hand, such things could excite men’s imagination. But of course, it was not only that. He said, ‘Perhaps they are uncertain of both of us, and hope passion will solve all their problems. If I elect to serve King James on Cyprus, you will reject Carlotta for ever and stay with me. If I leave, you will go with me and will not remain to betray them.’

  She became very still. ‘I am not a spy. I am not Carlotta’s agent.’

  ‘They don’t know that,’ he said.

  He saw her relax, bit by bit. Her lips curved, the little creases of irony deepening. She said, ‘They don’t fear, then, that I shall seduce you to Carlotta’s side?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Nicholas said, ‘that I have given proof of resistance. I left you in Ghent.’

  ‘And paid for my freedom,’ she said. ‘Do you think I had forgotten that?’

  He said, ‘A freedom you didn’t take.’

  ‘A freedom I did not want,’ she said. After a moment, ‘At the time, there was nothing for me in Italy. As I told you, I have certain requirements. It is a profession, like any other.’

  A freedom I did not want. He pursued it only obliquely. He said, ‘Where will you go, then, when I leave Cyprus? If I am right, and they won’t let you stay?’

  ‘I shall tell you,’ she said, ‘when you leave Cyprus. Make your decision. Niccolò, Niccolò, I am not your concern.’

  Her eyes smiled, with a small frown between them. He turned, and made her his concern with tenderness, as if they had been truly lovers. It was the last such conversation they held before they reached Cyprus.

  Nicholas vander Poele had seen, in recent years, many beautiful islands and t
he empire of Trebizond, the gold and ivory relict of Byzantium. Byzantium had once reigned over this island too. Before that, Cyprus had been part of the Hellene kingdom of Egypt, whose coast was so near to her shores. Then Rome had come, with her shrines to Apollo and Venus, and after Byzantium, the isle had been seized by Crusaders. Rich, lovely Cyprus: a floating fortress in the Levant, so conveniently close to Asia, Africa, Europe: a strategic prize for any red-blooded soldier.

  On his way to the Third Crusade, King Richard of England had stopped to marry there, and later presented the island to that grasping Crusader Guy de Lusignan, son of a French count and last Latin King of Jerusalem. The English King could hardly have foreseen how tenacious, how fertile the family Lusignan were to be, once uprooted and planted in Cyprus. Their descendants still reigned there, and still called themselves Kings of Jerusalem. But that kingdom, long since, had been in infidel hands.

  For nearly three hundred years then, the Lusignan family had ruled over Cyprus, bringing Latin landowners, bishops and nobles to a place whose natives spoke Greek, not French or Italian; and whose worship used the ritual of Orthodox Greece. The Latins built themselves great mountain fortresses, and gave fortifications and holdings to the Knights of St John, stocked from their neighbouring island of Rhodes. Nor did the people of Cyprus find it better when the Lusignan rule became weak. Then the Genoese jumped in, and seized the best town and harbour for trading. And later, worse than that, the Mameluke rulers of Egypt threatened the kings so successfully that, for a generation now, the Christian rulers of Cyprus had been paying craven tribute to the Muslim rulers of Egypt, and taking oath to behave as their vassals.

  All this, Nicholas knew. It was as a Lusignan queen, married to her own cousin, that Carlotta was scouring the world, begging money and troops to drive the Muslim interests out of her island. And it was as an ally and protégé of infidel Egypt that James, her bastard brother, had invaded Cyprus, capturing all but the patch in the north to which the Queen and her consort had fled. Carlotta possessed Kyrenia, and had the use of Famagusta, the port where the Genoese ruled. All the rest belonged to James, and the Egyptian army. It was a beautiful land ripped asunder, and Nicholas vander Poele wanted nothing to do with it.

  He stood, as the round ship drew close, and saw with impassive eyes the green mountains, the creaming ocean, the rosy bastions of rock that fringed the seashores. Here was the birthplace of Venus; the prize of royal Alexander; the love-gift of the Roman Mark Antony to Cleopatra of Egypt.

  Beside him stood Primaflora. She said, ‘Have you heard of the grapes of Cyprus? Do you know the Song of Songs? Over there are the vineyards of Engedi.’

  He said nothing aloud. His mind said, without reason, I wish I were dead, and had sown no seed, and had left no one to suffer. He thought, not of the usurping royal bastard and his Egyptian hordes, but of a Greek with a wooden leg listening somewhere, amused. And of his grandfather, Jordan. He didn’t know why he thought of them. He turned without speaking and went below, and stayed there until he was called to the boat that would land him on Cyprus.

  In the event, they took their prize to the south coast of Cyprus at night; standing off the bay called Episkopi long after the sun had sunk to their left. Ahead in the darkness spread the land conquered and held by James the Bastard, who had had Nicholas brought here by force. Beyond the seas at his back lay Beirut and Damascus and the Syrian coast. Below, on the water, the ship’s boat had been lowered for its passengers. The September night was sticky with warmth. Nevertheless, leaving the Doria, Nicholas had been given a cowled cloak to put on, and so, he saw, had Primaflora and the woman her servant. The maid looked frightened. Primaflora descended into the skiff like a court lady entertaining the poor. He had seen her brace herself for the rôle, withdrawing even from him. He thought she was afraid, but was too wise to console her. In the boat, he did try to speak once, but instead of answering she glanced over her shoulder to where the seigneurs from the cabin were ensconced. The boat-master said, ‘You will be silent.’

  He could make nothing of it and sat weaponless, his hands clasping his knees, thinking of Crackbene, who was not present and who must therefore still be on board. But Crackbene, like Astorre, was a thorough professional, and would be treated well no matter who employed him. And, unlike Astorre, he had no prior allegiance to the Charetty company. Crackbene was unlikely to do anything rash, even had he had enough men to support him. Nicholas was therefore alone, he and Primaflora, in the hold of the Bastard. Should Nicholas decline to co-operate, he had been told, the Bastard James in his mercy would free him. Nicholas had learned, with some pain, never to believe what he was told, especially by strangers.

  The skiff laboured on. At first, it seemed to make for the river where he had heard the Corner jetty lay. Then it turned south and east and instead, rounded the whole squat peninsula that lay between Episkopi and the hamlet of Limassol. In Limassol was a castle, and the seat of the bishop who had been James’s envoy in Rome, and perhaps even James’s agent at Silla. But once more, instead of going to Limassol, the boat turned, and the journey suddenly ended. They had been brought to shore just round the cape, at a place where the beach receded to shadowy flats and a glimmering cluster of lights told of some group of low buildings far inland. He was made to exchange the boat for a firm timber jetty, and the fresh air of the sea for the miasma of land, warm and rank and smelling of citrus and brine. A sea bird cried and was answered by a low mellow sound, whispering over the sands. Across the pale rise of the beach a shadow fled, dark as a shred on the eyeball, to be followed by several others. He stopped, and somebody chuckled. ‘There is nothing to fear, Messer Niccolò. You do not know the name of this cape?’

  It was the voice of his interviewer from the cabin, come in a rustle of silk to his elbow. Today he wore a round hat of cut velvet, below which sweat was trickling. ‘I don’t know it,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘You will find out. We are taking you to a place where your name-saint has been honoured for eleven hundred years. Over there is the monastery of Ayios Nikolaos, where the abbot has spread us a feast.’ His voice was encouraging. ‘You have been patient. Soon you will learn what is wanted of you.’

  There was a vague path of sand mixed with dust, pale in the moonlight, and chequered with the shadows of men who led the way without torches. The remaining two from the cabin walked behind him in silence – one surly as before, and the other uneasy, Nicholas thought. Behind that, Primaflora trod the soft ground in her pattens; at the rear, other men followed closely. Nicholas saw they didn’t wear swords. They had no fear, now, that he could escape. It was something else that made secrecy necessary. What it was, he had to find out. Then he smelled lemons again, and a scent that could have been spices or incense, and saw a high wall appear, with a lamp in a niche. There was a basin, made from the capital of a Corinthian column. Nicholas turned to his captor. ‘Am I to meet James de Lusignan here?’

  A bearded man robed in black had appeared at a gate, preparing to welcome them. The man beside Nicholas replied with what seemed to be his natural briskness. ‘No. The lord King is in Nicosia, his capital. You will ride there. An escort will come to this place soon to fetch you. Tonight, very likely.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Nicholas said.

  The man said, ‘It is two days’ journey away, and better to travel in coolness. Save your questions. There will be time enough.’ They stepped through the gate, and Primaflora’s face glimmered like pearl in the lamplight.

  It was an old monastery, and blessed, in these flat lands, with space for its orchards and gardens, its church and its cloisters, its cells and its stables and offices, all thick-walled, rounded and white, and fragrant with incense and woodsmoke. There was a smell of fruit and risen bread and cooked meat and, behind all these, the coarse odour of brine and something acid which was harder to place. In the centre of the yard was a well and a washing place, both of weathered carved marble of an age much before that of the monastery. Nicholas caught, again, a glimpse of fl
eeting dark shapes but said nothing of it.

  His curiosity, buried by anger, had sprung to life again. He felt little fear or anxiety, but an awakening of his faculties, a clarity that always came with the prospect of competition. Perhaps what lay before him was something so overwhelming, so final, so crude that no kind of ingenuity would serve him. But he could try, and if he survived, he could learn from it. Since Troia he had been nobody: a collection of assorted reactions. He began, quite suddenly, to feel like a person again.

  He saw the servants had gone. Alone with Primaflora and the three men who had abducted him, he stepped through an archway into an ancient cloister, with lamps which afforded a glimpse of bold furzy flowers, and the scarlet of hibiscus, and the shadow of vines. There stood before him a man with the veiled hat, the black robes and the beard of an Orthodox abbot, a nun at his side. The woman, smiling, advanced and took Primaflora by the hand. The man said, ‘We have long awaited you. My daughter, be welcome. Your room is prepared, and Sister Eudocia will see to your comfort.’ The abbot watched her leave, then gave his attention to Nicholas. His eyes were long-sighted and clear, like those of a sportsman. He said, ‘They tell me you are a child of my Saint. Be welcome, be happy, be worthy of him. Come and gave thanks for your journey.’ He had spoken in Greek. He turned, as if refusal were inconceivable, and led the way into the church.

  Primaflora had gone. Beside him, his senior abductor was smiling. He said, ‘I can see that you hesitate. But the good abbot believes you have volunteered, of your kindness, to help us. It will do no harm, surely, to thank the Almighty for your safety?’