Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [145]
Nicholas ran down among the men, and assessed the few injured, and spoke hastily to the officers he found, and began to make his way to the fighting platform at the prow. On the way, he met Loppe, who thrust a cuirass at him. It was his own, and so was the helmet that came with it. He slung both on, without fastening the buckles, and bounded upwards on his way. John le Grant met him beside the broken timber. Nicholas said, ‘Well?’ Despite everything, he felt better than he had since the battle of Troia.
John le Grant said, ‘Calm down, and listen.’ The engineer looked as he always did, tool in hand; white-lashed gaze speculative in a freckled face smeared with unspecified oils. His voice was not as it always was. He said, ‘The two galleys you are looking at are from Salines de St Lazare. They’re James de Lusignan’s.’
Nicholas turned and, springing, handed himself fast up the rigging. Then, stopping, he gazed narrowly over the water. He saw the flank of the gilded enemy galley, packed with Muslims. Next to the pumpkin-turbans and scimitars hung the velvet cloth of the canopy, sewn with the owner’s devices. The wintry light traced the cross and crosslets of Jerusalem and the three crimson lions of Christendom: one for Cyprus; one for Armenia, and the last for the royal Frankish race of the Lusignan. The coat of arms – John was right – of James, King of Cyprus, whom he had hoped was his friend.
For a moment, Nicholas stayed without moving. Then, taking slow breath, he set himself to scan the enemy vessel. The ship rose and fell. Fraction by deliberate fraction, he examined the waist of the galley: noted the thickets of bows and the bright turbanned helmets above them; moved his gaze past the waist to the prow, and lifting it at length to the foredeck, found at last the figure standing alone there, his golden belt glinting, his heavy cloak flying behind him. Nicholas considered it, shading his eyes; seeking the tall, huntsman’s body, the powerful neck, the beautiful face set in some purpose he would recognise instantly. Nicholas, too, had chosen to stand in isolation so that he could be seen, and so that, whatever there was to come, there should be no doubt about it.
The figure he viewed was not tall, though it was above the usual height for its race. The shield it carried was inlaid with gold, and the helmet was shaped like a cone, with ostrich feathers that tugged in the wind. Between the cheek-tongues of the helm, the black moustache and the dark, vicious face were unmistakable.
Nicholas lowered his hand, although he kept his eyes still on that remote, triumphant figure. Before him was the war fleet of James de Lusignan, Bastard of Cyprus, sent for no other reason but to intercept Nicholas and his company. Only James had not come with it. Instead, in cold anger – in forgivable anger – he had committed the charge to the emir Tzani-bey al-Ablak.
So there was no longer much to hope for, unless he could escape. The precaution had not been enough, and the message from Zacco was clear. I gave you your life, and you have failed me. Here, then, is your fate, at the hands of the man from whom you would most hate to receive it. He remembered that Primaflora was on board. And Katelina. And Diniz. He called, ‘We have to beat them. John, we have to fight our way out.’
And John le Grant said, ‘Look again.’
He had been searching before for a man. Belatedly now he saw the glitter of parallel tubes on the deck of the galley. Copper tubes, long and slender, with their mouths levelled at the flank of the cog. John said, ‘You see them? The other galley has them as well.’
Lomellini had come to the deck. As Nicholas sprang down to his side, the Genoese examined the enemy ship in his turn. He took down his bracketting hands. ‘I see,’ he said.
‘Tubes for wildfire,’ Nicholas said. ‘They were playing with us.’
‘It seems very likely,’ said John