Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [175]
‘There’s no hurry,’ Diniz said. He knew that, from pale, he had flushed. He said, ‘The yard is closed. I can stay.’
The steward paused. Then he said, ‘If they told you that, they were wrong. My lord has left orders. You are to return to the yard after dinner and work there.’
‘My lord?’ said Diniz. ‘Who is this? I know a Flemish base-born apprentice called Niccolò.’
The steward stiffened. The woman who had spoken before scooped up the bread and the cheese and, turning to Diniz, thrust them into his arms. She said, ‘Go and eat, son, and do as you’re told. Lord or ’prentice, I wouldn’t cross that Flemish brute after what he’s done in St Hilarion.’
‘And that’s good advice,’ Galiot said. ‘Over there. Find a place to eat over there. Here, they’re busy.’
Diniz moved, but not very quickly. He said, ‘I thought the castle surrendered.’
‘Over there,’ said the steward again. ‘Yes, it surrendered.’ The Frenchman pushed him out of the door, a jug of watered wine in one hand. The woman followed him with a cup. She said, ‘Aye, you would surrender if your women and children were poisoned, and your men burned to cinders with naphtha. He made sure, that young heathen, that those poor mites would never fight for Carlotta.’ She gave him the cup. She said, ‘If he says go back to the dyeyard, go back. And if he comes, say please and thank you and lick the salt from his toes if he asks you.’
Diniz found she had gone, and he was still standing. The steward said, ‘They’re frightened. I’ve met him. He’s no worse than anyone else. Eat your food. You’d better get to the yard before the procession starts.’
‘The victory procession,’ Diniz said.
It needed two of them to push a way for him back to the yard, the press was so great. There they closed and locked the yard gates behind him. It was a big enclosure, with sheds and an office and scaffolded shelters over the winches and dyevats. He had never seen it deserted before: an oasis of quiet, while the crowd roared like the sea outside all the walls. The King … the Bastard must have ridden out with his train from the Palace. If he stood on a ladder, he might see the tops of his officers’ heads as they went down the road to St Sofia.
The biggest space in the yard was occupied by the well with its wheel, and the cistern. The ground was always swilling. He went to the shelf where the clogs were and strapped them under his shoes. Before the Venetians came, the cold steeping had been done in clay-lined pits just sunk in the ground, and every winter flood water diluted them. Now they had copper vats. This morning, they had let the under-fires die, since they needed long tending if the colour was not to spoil.
He remembered his first days in the yard, and the havoc he had created. If there was a part of him that had enjoyed it, as the young louts who helped him enjoyed it, he had grown out of that now. He was seventeen, and a man who stood, now, for his aunt and his father. He wondered what Niccolò vander Poele – my lord – might be wearing. Cloth of gold, no doubt, and silver armour, and harness and plumes set with diamonds. They would throw roses to him, and comfits. The clergy would wait, in their robes, at the Cathedral and the cheering would stop, and the chanting, the prayers begin. He would know by the silence when they entered the church.
Because of the noise, he didn’t hear when behind him the yard gates unlocked. It was the sound of their closing that turned him.
Across the mud of the yard, two men stood at ease, looking about them. One, black-bearded and short, was a stranger. The other he knew, although the man didn’t wear cloth of gold but a travel-stained shirt and serge pourpoint, and his sword was sheathed in unjewelled shagreen. Under the cuff of his soft-crowned felt hat his hair looked brittle and frizzed; and the fine scar on his cheek stood among a curious mottling of pink. Diniz said, ‘You did use naphtha.’ Halfway through the words, his windpipe blocked for a second.
Niccolò vander Poele