Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [166]
Tobie also spent time with Zacco, whom he found attractively bold as well as receptive. On his first visit, he was given mulled wine, and became eloquent on the topic of dysentery. The name of Tobie’s uncle, physician to kings, was not mentioned. On his second visit, Tobie found that the King had asked to his table an Arab mediciner from the Mamelukes. The conversation proved highly agreeable. Afterwards, back in his tent, Tobie continued drinking until Nicholas came to investigate. Immediately, Tobie made a pronouncement. ‘If you don’t want Zacco, I’ll have him. I know how to take St Hilarion.’ After which the evening ended quite well, for Nicholas, entranced, helped him finish the wine-cask.
Thomas, brought in to carouse with the other lieutenants, heard their tales of their lord, and felt a different awe. ‘This man who cheated at cards,’ Thomas related that night, back in the company tent, ‘Zacco knocked him down, and ground his spurred boot in his face.’
‘Makes an example. Sharp boy,’ said Astorre.
‘And the merchants he let go from Salines. Remember? You know why he released them?’
‘To add to the mouths that would starve in a siege. Even I thought of that,’ said John le Grant. ‘He’s got a bonny body and brain, has the Bastard, but don’t let it fool you. You don’t inherit three hundred years of scorpion blood and end up a buttercup.’
Alone of the group, John le Grant resisted the temptation to enjoy the King’s easy confidence. He answered the Bastard’s legitimate questions, of which there were many; but his private life remained his own, as did his philosophy. Or so perhaps he thought, since work with cannon, with tunnels, with bombards appeared to him as normal as breathing, and he thought nothing of what a man might observe as he chalked out the plan of a project, or sat by a forge, silent, watching a new tool take shape. James de Lusignan was a good observer. Nicholas, never quizzed, had cause to know it.
Only the negro escaped, and on purpose. When Zacco was near, Loppe melted into the shadows. Before he went south, it was Loppe who watched the Lusignan, not the other way round.
Meanwhile the garrison at St Hilarion, of course, knew all that was happening. Separated by twenty miles, the protagonists could hear one another turning in bed. Nicosia knew when the fortress sent out its last foraging parties, got in its supplies, and closed its gates with reluctance. St Hilarion knew when the Bastard Lusignan’s army moved north to cross the eleven or twelve miles from Trakhona to the hamlet of Agridi. From there, the Pass of St Catherine led through the hills to Kyrenia. And on the height to the left of the Pass stood the enchanted palace and fort of St Hilarion, Byzantine watchtower, Frankish ward and Lusignan bower, built for pleasure and killing.
By the middle hours of the day he set out, Zacco’s tents and camp fires surrounded Agridi; the scouts and sentries were placed, and the Bastard’s banner hung over a settling host. Over their heads sprawled the mountains: the long jagged range that lay between them and the flat coastal selvedge. From the camp they could see the start of the Pass, the way that led to Kyrenia, three miles from its end. Kyrenia could not be taken by any means they now had. What they needed was unchallenged domination of the road through the Pass. Tobie said, ‘How high is it? The castle?’
He and Nicholas were waiting for food; seated not far