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By Root 2825 0

had no chance: that he knew. He had been lucky. No. Luck didn’t enter into it, or should not. The pause stretched on, while the Grand Master, crooking his finger, brought the Chancellor to his side for an exchange. They muttered. Thomas, whose soldier’s French had a different vocabulary, suddenly appeared to come out of a dream, and belched concisely. Tobie made a sound which could have been anything. The Chancellor straightened and moved away, and the Grand Master sat up. He said, ’Messer Niccolò. You have heard the complaints. The integrity of both yourself and your company has been impugned. Proof is lacking on many counts, but on some the indictment is clear. You did seize and detain against his will a chaplain of this Order. You are and have been for many months a recipient of a fee from James, the bastard claimant of Cyprus. Your acts to date have been to the detriment of the Queen and the Order, rather than the reverse.

‘You say, and rightly, that our cause is in need of men, and you claim to wish to serve it. I cannot think that, great though our need is, we on this island can afford to maintain a company of such equivocal loyalty. You will therefore leave Rhodes. You will leave on a ship of the Order, which will ensure that wherever you go, it will not be to James of Lusignan, or to the infidels of Constantinople or Cairo. You will pay for your passage by work. And ahead of you, by means of the Order, we shall let it be known that this company, whatever its value as mercenaries, has shown itself suspect in other ways. This is our judgement. I will hear no appeal.’

He had lost. Had he lost? Someone was getting up; was coming forward from the stalls, his eyes on the Grand Master. ‘My lord.’

A tall, bluff man, with gold stuff all over his doublet, glinting under his robe. One of the Genoese. Who?

‘My lord,’ said the man. ‘Her excellence my mistress asks you to hear me.’

‘Sir Imperiale,’ said the Chancellor. The Grand Master looked irritated at the reminder, as well he might. Imperiale Doria, commander and seaman, was a luminary of both the Queen and the Order. Last autumn, his ship had encountered and hailed the Doria as she brought Nicholas on his enforced trip to Cyprus. Another Doria, but one whom he had never met.

The Grand Master said, ‘Yes?’

Nicholas stood still. No matter what you did, no matter what you planned, the unexpected happened. The gamester he didn’t know and wouldn’t acknowledge suddenly leaned over and picked up a card, or a lever, and everything changed, and had to be newly thought of, and accounted for. Sir Imperiale Doria, Genoese, said, ‘My lady the serene Queen of Cyprus has some pity for this young man. She believes that in the past he has indeed endeavoured to help her. She believes that he has been importuned, but has in the main resisted the advances of the Bastard Zacco. She believes him brilliant, but also unstable, so that his company cannot reach their full potential unless the young man himself is placed under restraint.’

He stopped, and turning looked closely at Nicholas, and then at the other men at his side. He said, ‘Rather than throw this gift back into the furnace, the Queen asks me to say that she is prepared, if your lordship agrees, to take it for a short term to Cyprus, under the most stringent safeguards, extending to the imprisonment of the young man himself. He is held in high regard by his company and they will not desert, she believes, while he is so held. At the first sign of defection, naturally, she would retaliate. Any who rebelled could expect a dishonoured death.’

The Grand Master prodded his chin through his beard. ‘Is the lady serious? She invites a Trojan horse, it may be.’

‘She is confident,’ said the commander.

The Grand Master thought. Beside him, the Chancellor caught his attention and nodded. The prince’s gaze sought that of Lomellini, and after a pause, the Treasurer nodded too. The Grand Master said, ‘Ser Niccolò. I have a choice. I can send you away, or I can release you into the custody of the Queen of Cyprus, with leave to do with you as