Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [216]
He saw they had crossed the island. A single line, fine as a scribe’s, ran across his vision, and sharpened. Above and below it hung something that was not colour at all, except perhaps a deep pigeon-grey; or grey mixed with mother of pearl, or pearl mixed with rose madder, or all of that mixed with shearings of silver and gold.… Mixed, thickened, ribboned, oh God, with vermilion. By God, Who could afford all that vermilion, as He could afford ultramarine, and love, and revenge, and never get hurt.
The boy said nothing. Below where they had halted, the hills ran unevenly down to the coast. Against the luminous veil of the sea stood a headland crowned with steep rock, and upon the crown floated a palace made of fine columns, pink as the light on the face of the boy riding behind him; pink as the insubstantial light on his hands, on the path, on the boulders about them. ‘That is Lindos!’ said the boy, loudly and clearly.
And immediately, it seemed, the rocks about them grew figures, black against the pellucid vapours behind – for, of course, now that he could see clearly, so he could be seen. Three men or four, and another below, holding horses. They threw themselves at him together. He fought in silence, with bitterness, but they said nothing, except to mutter directions among themselves as they flung a blanket over his head and, dragging him from his mount, wrapped him in it. Then, tied at elbow and knee, he was slung over someone’s tall horse, and was held there, a broad hand on his back, as the animal jolted its way down the hill. Above and behind, he heard the light scramble of the little mule’s feet, and the boy’s voice, receding. The boy who, of course, had made no effort to help him.
Before very long, he felt his mount reach level ground, and then move from baked earth to something man-set that gave back discreet echoes. A slight difference in sound and in temperature told him he was among buildings; and then the hand on his back tightened as they began climbing again, steeply this time. When his horse turned abruptly, he was all but shaken off: the hand that shoved him this time came from behind. He realised that he had passed through a gateway, and that the small cavalcade had quietly come to a halt. A cock crew distantly and a dog barked somewhere twice. Nearer at hand, someone dismounted and he heard low voices, indistinguishable through the cloth. Then the hand on his back was replaced by many hands, heaving, rolling and lifting. He was half carried, half dragged across a carpet of pebbles, and then allowed to drop on a floor, which did his bruises no good but which at least felt smooth and appeared clean and might not be full of fleas. Someone cut the rope at his knees and his elbows, and someone else grabbed the blanket and tugged it off him. Their boots retreated, and were replaced by a small, high-arched slipper, and a knee draped with extremely fine taffeta and a hand, which stretched out and touched him. Above was a face that he knew, painted with art, and framed in hair half loosened today, in informal style, and half pleated into its little jewelled caul. ‘Well, my dear?’ said Primaflora.
He closed his eyes from sheer relief, and then opened them and began to laugh, for the same reason. He raised his own hand, with some trouble, and fingering hers, kissed and held it. She said, keeping the initiative, ‘Did you think Carlotta had captured you? Or the Knights?’
The men who brought him had gone. He was lying in the inner hall chamber of a modest if well-to-do house, its plaster walls and timber ceiling painted; its windows open on greenery. He said, ‘No. They were too quiet. And they didn’t climb high enough. Why didn’t you send me a message?’
‘Would you have believed it?’ she said. He sat up and, rising in turn, she drew him to his feet and stood, both hands in his, her head to one side. She said, ‘Goats? Fish, certainly. And perhaps lice as well as fleas. I think, my Niccolò, I shall send you back.’
‘Water is all that it needs,’ Nicholas said. ‘You knew I should come for you.’
She