Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [181]
‘And you don’t mind if he dies,’ Diniz said.
‘No,’ said Zorzi thoughtfully. ‘Unfortunately, I am not a free agent. I have an elder brother, and orders to follow. I think perhaps I should make some little effort. Of course, I might try very hard, but in the end nature could defeat me?’ He looked down. The scarlet pool widened, and thickened. Far across the yard, a banging noise made itself heard from the other side of the buildings. Bartolomeo Zorzi lifted his head. The banging stopped, to be followed by the jangling of spurs, and men’s voices. Zorzi said, ‘Who? The King’s men, at a guess, come to look for the fugitive favourite. Who has had an accident, practising swordplay, and whom we are doing our best to revive. Hide the axe. Come here. I need a stick and a rag. I apply my fingers here, and you bind as fast as you can. What is wrong with you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Diniz through chattering teeth.
‘Why deny you are weeping? It is right to show anguish. Through no fault of yours, the King nearly lost his good comrade.’
Men appeared at the end of the shed. Diniz said, his hands smothered with blood, ‘He will tell them. When he wakes, he will tell them what happened.’
‘Will he?’ Zorzi said. ‘Remember, he could have killed you and didn’t. He could have freed you, and didn’t. He wanted you in his power. And he has his wish now, hasn’t he, to a degree he hardly expected? You are at vander Poele’s mercy. And at mine, of course, also.’
Chapter 26
‘So YOU FELL on your axe?’ Tobie said.
From this, Nicholas deduced that he was now expected to live; since it was the first direct, normal remark anyone had made to him during several hours of extreme pain and confusion. He had little recollection of being carried, by soldiers apparently, back to his own room in the villa. The doctor’s face had immediately materialised, and the variety of sensations which ensued had been punctuated by Tobie’s voice emitting phrases of bitter anger, impatience, anxiety, and at times a form of bracing reassurance which Nicholas, unable to respond, had felt nevertheless to be deeply disturbing.
He was aware that he was now fully awake after what felt like a profound sleep and that he was in his own bed, from which rose a distinct odour of latrines. The upper left side of his body was encased in wrappings, beginning at his neck and continuing down over his shoulder and chest. The seat of the screaming alarm lay somewhere at the point of his shoulder and neck. Indeed, he remembered explaining to someone that he had been struck and felled by a boulder, and asking them to go and get tackle to lift it. That had been, no doubt, one of his less sensible conversations with Tobie. His head thudded and he had no wish to move, or conviction indeed that he could. It felt, now he came to think of it, as if he had lost a lot, quite a dangerous volume of blood. Now he came to think of it, he remembered how.
Tobie’s face, which had acquired a frown, was beginning to clear again. Nicholas said, ‘Well, I didn’t fall on my sword.’ He added, ‘Is the smell coming from you or from me?’ He further added, ‘I thought you stayed at St Hilarion?’
Tobie scowled, while looking paradoxically cheered. Ignoring this last, he said at once, ‘Are you serious? We had to wrap you in rags, or the bed would be as disgusting as you were. Even after we washed what we could reach of you, and scrubbed the floor, and burned your clothes, you could tell, by God, that you came from a dyeyard. Mind you, for smell, the stupid brat was the winner. Flowers died as he passed them.’ Tobie paused. ‘The Portuguese. The spoiled baby who did his best to kill you.’
Nicholas wished the conversation would halt. Against strong advice from his internal organs he said, ‘Who told you that?’
‘Bartolomeo,’ said Tobie. ‘The Palace, of course, has been treated to quite a different story. But Bartolomeo made sure, naturally, that we heard the truth. I didn’t like him when he came on board off Constantinople, and I don’t like him now. I don’t know why his damned peg-legged brother