Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [196]
It seemed that Marco Corner and his party were familiar with the route and the building. Without a glance they followed the road, which continued upwards and inland and, curving round, met a wall that seemed to be that of a monastery, and then another wall, and a gate within which a group of people awaited them.
In the front was Claes, her Flemish workman, motionless on a high-bred racing-camel streaming with gilded leather and tassels and silks. The animal swayed forward and stopped, to allow its rider to convey his welcome. Nicholas vander Poele, behaving like a Byzantine mountebank.
She watched his gaze number the company and thought him a little pale still, although he sat at ease, with one gloved hand on the reins and no sign of the stiffness of Nicosia. He was dressed in the Venetian manner, from his high-collared white shirt to his doublet, which was cut from thin double damask in a deceptive grey-blue, quite unlike the strident shade of the Charetty company. As he introduced them, she saw that all his servants and officers wore the same colour. It went well with the badge of his Order. Below his cylindrical cap, his hair was shorn to a spider-brown frieze. He said, ‘Be welcome and enter. First, to the house for refreshment. Then, if you wish, we shall ride through the lord King’s estates before supper. You honour us with your visit. My lord Marco. My lady Fiorenza. My lord Giovanni. My lady Valenza. My lord Jacopo. The demoiselle Katelina.’
He seemed to know both Corner and Loredano. His demeanour was free and a little amused; theirs was guarded. He had never before met Jacopo Zorzi or the two princesses. The sisters greeted him with the fragile delight of two fawns. Fiorenza said, ‘We have heard of you from our sister.’
His dimples deep, his hingeless eyes fully open, Nicholas said, ‘Yes? But she exaggerates.’
To Katelina he bowed, no more or less than courtesy demanded. Then his animal turned, and they entered the way to his manor.
At first, it agreed with what she had learned to expect. She caught glimpses of the same sunny copper she had seen on the Corner estate, and the same long sheds, and the same tables and barrows, although different in arrangement. His head turned, Marco Corner said as he passed, ‘Here are changes.’
And Nicholas, leading them down the long avenue towards the deep fortified arch of his manor answered with perfect composure. ‘It is a benefit, sadly, of vandalism. It allows one to replan a little. Later, you will see better designing down the hill there at Stavros. Meanwhile please come into the shade, and be welcome.’
Only then, passing between branches of myrtle and under arches of orange and almond, did Katelina catch sight of the flower-strewn quadrangle that lay beyond on her left, tenanted by dazzling, half-broken terraces, by Corinthian colonnades and fragmented chambers, by worn flights of great steps and fallen cylinders, gartered in bindweed. Paint-red oleanders leaned through crumbling marble and, near an arcade, a naked girl waited, grass in her breast, her white shoulder and flank dappled under the fig trees. In the centre, the marble flags beaten glassy about it, stood a single conical stone, black as sugar was white. There was a scent of sweet oils, and of earth, and a deep silence, tempered by the murmur of bees. On the horizon, the sea stood, still and blue.
Katelina said, ‘Where is this?’
Nicholas manufactured a small, glottal sound. The camel turned and stood, dipping. He said, ‘Demoiselle? This is Kouklia.’
‘This?’ repeated Katelina in anger. She flung out her crop, pointing.
‘It is Kouklia,’ Nicholas said. His face was seamlessly