Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [111]
From the basilica emerged Nicholas, running, with a girl on each side. One was fair and one was brown-haired, and both were delightful. Other men came out without girls, and scattered. There was some shouting. Nicholas said, ‘The joust’s off. The Vasquez, father and son, are in trouble.’ He bent, and gave a foothold to the golden-haired woman to mount, and then turned to do the same for the other one. Two armed men ran forward and caught the reins of the yellow-haired woman who had turned to speak, smiling, to Thomas. Nicholas stopped what he was doing and went back to her. He said, ‘Your escort? We can’t mount them, Primaflora.’
She looked down at the two men. ‘Then they will have to stay,’ she said.
One of the men took her reins, and then her elbow. ‘We have our orders,’ he said. The girl looked at Nicholas.
Nicholas said, ‘You still want to come? All right. They can take the free horse and ride with us. Tobie, take the lady Katelina behind you.’
The lady Katelina stepped back and looked where Nicholas pointed. Tobie, recoiling, saw that she was recoiling as well. He peeled off his nose and threw it away. ‘The Loathly Damsel,’ said Nicholas. ‘Go on. He’s a doctor, but he won’t rape you in public. Who knows where we’re going?’
‘I do,’ said Katelina van Borselen. ‘We go to Mount Phileremos. The Knights at Trianda will direct us. Why do you want to come?’
‘Because if I don’t,’ Nicholas said, ‘and there’s been a catastrophe, you will certainly say I arranged it. In fact, you’ll say it in any case. I just want to be there to deny it.’ He looked from Katelina to Tobie. He said, ‘If you both ride side-saddle, that horse will fall over.’
Tobias Beventini, physician, hurled his wig from him, dragged up a double layer of taffeta skirts and bestrode his horse, swearing. His wimple, which had not disappeared with his wig, threatened to cut his throat with its wire. He saw that Nicholas, mounted, was being embraced becomingly round the fitted waist by the exquisite blonde Primaflora. Behind Tobie himself, the other young woman sat sideways, looking for something to grasp. She settled at length for his girdle: he could feel her knuckles. Katelina van Borselen, whom he had last glimpsed in Bruges, newly married to Simon and heavily pregnant. Pregnant, as he now knew, with the son of Nicholas. He had never spoken to the girl Nicholas had wronged, and had hoped never to have to. He could see, well enough, that she could make a man lose his head.
But, barring the principals, no one else here knew what he did. Lancelot, turning round, said to her, ‘Well, demoiselle, I hope you notice the good turn we do you, considering that you saw to it that we had a poor welcome on Rhodes.’ His beard jutted, an exclamation under his silver helmet.
The demoiselle showed no sign of intimidation. ‘Blame your leader, not me,’ she said curtly. The last word ended in a jerk, because Tobie dug in his spurs, and they all began moving at speed towards the gates of the City.
After the weeks of confinement, it was a relief to leave the City behind: to exchange the massive walls, the stately buildings, the burnished court etiquette of chivalric Europe for the open country of a Levantine island, with its fields and its hamlets, its fishing villages and its broken pillars, residue of ancient cities at least as great.
From end to end, Rhodes was less than fifty miles long. Setting out from its northernmost tip, a group of people might expect very soon to find two men who had lost their way, but who were not unintelligent, and had arms, and the ability to call for help. But riding along the sandy shore towards the plain and the wooded hill that was called Mount Phileremos, Tobie recalled that the island was also mountainous. The long spine of afforested hills provided in summer a rough, dusty traverse from one side of the island to the other. Now, in winter, the way was treacherous with swollen streams and slippery inclines and mud.
He supposed