Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [243]
Lionetto’s smile rarely displayed, as now, his obelisk teeth. He said, “There’s Greek for you, and names for all the unnatural vices. That’s the brat I flung in the sea. It didn’t cleanse him.”
Nicholas returned the gaze, lying quite still as he was. His skin sparkled with sweat.
Tobie jerked into sitting position. One lamplit nostril had curled like a snail. He said, “The lord Federigo has sent for him perhaps?”
“Now I’m sorry to hear that,” said Lionetto. “So Urbino is tainted as well. Is this wine? You don’t mind. The news has made me thirsty. Oh. There now. I spilt it.”
The trail of wine crossed the floor, and the wrinkled sheet on Nicholas’ bed, and ended in a pool at his throat. Lionetto laughed down at him, the goblet tilted still in his hand, and Nicholas continued to gaze back, saying nothing. “You look better now,” Lionetto said. “Wet.”
Behind, Tobie was on his feet, scalp glittering, eyes round and threatening. He said, “And he’s got more patience than I have. You’re drunk. I’ll report it.”
“Drunk?” said Lionetto. He strolled back to the table, hauled out a stool and sat on it to refill his cup. He said, “Half the camp’ll be drunk by tomorrow, illustrious medical man. Drowning our sorrows. Hiding our poor little fears. What’ll the high-handed widow do now? The pawnbroker’s daughter that thought she was a man. But you showed her she wasn’t, didn’t you, wet boy? Married her. Didn’t bed her. Couldn’t bed her. But got the business. What business? Burnt business and all her little soldiers gone and dead. Poor old bitch.”
Nicholas sat up. “News from Naples.”
The doctor, arrested staring down at Lionetto, suddenly leaned forward and knocked the wine out of his hands. “Is it? News from Naples?”
Lionetto roared. Nicholas acted, scooping up the fallen cup, filling it, and thumping it in front of the captain. Then he stood, his hand on the doctor’s elbow, holding him. “Tell us,” he said. Veins of wine crawled and tricked over his skin. He shivered.
Lionetto said, “If you go outside, you’ll hear Piccinino’s men starting to cheer in a minute. The survivors are just coming through. Naples is lost. Ferrante’s dead. The army’s smashed. And you know why? Because the handgunners hadn’t been paid, and crossed to the enemy. Ferrante had Duke John and all his army penned up in Sarno. Instead of starving them out, he attacked them. And the handgunners stood on the walls and shot red holes through their helms and their cuirasses until there was no one left to fight.”
He drank off the wine and looked up grinning. “Astorre’s men. Using handguns you bought for him. Now he’s dead, and you’re both safely here with the condotta money.”
“Be quiet,” said the doctor. He was looking at Nicholas, who had shivered again.
Nicholas said, “No. They were fully paid. Julius would see to that. And Astorre had control of them.”
Tobie said, “It hardly matters.”
It didn’t, of course. Astorre. Julius. And Felix.
Lionetto said, “Well, it matters to the statesmen, I dare say. Now France can put their candidate into Naples. But I’m all right. A contract till September and I can go back home. Or cross back to Piccinino.”
Tobie said, “What’ll happen now?”
“Here? Piccinino has nothing to do but stay there on his hill, blocking our way. Maybe in a week or two, the Duke of Milan and the Pope will raise more troops and try again. Another thousand and we could offer the little Count battle. We could march south and take back some of the towns that used to be under Ferrante. But we couldn’t take Naples. That needs a whole new force on the east.” He cocked an ear. “I told you. Listen.”
Through the stuff of the tent there had appeared, bright and dim, the blooming of many lamps, and the red of revived fires. You could hear the confused sound of talk, getting louder, and a braying and barking as livestock were roused.
“I thought you’d like to be among