Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [223]
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Your lover? Your wife, it may be?’
‘She would like to be,’ Nicholas said.
Her mouth opened wide as a fish-scoop. She said, ‘Oho! We climb out of a lady’s window to escape her? She has no dowry? There is another?’
‘There is another. But,’ Nicholas said, ‘I think we must know one another better before I can tell you.’
He had had a lot of experience with middle-aged women. Within a day, he had a bed inside the house. Within three, she knew about Katelina, and had promised to help him. He thought it very likely she would then sell him to someone else, but there was little he could do until he could walk again. And Primaflora would wait at the rendezvous they had arranged, since for her sake he would not go back to the villa at Lindos. And from that rendezvous, of course, they would make their way back to Cyprus, as husband and wife.
His injuries were healthily mending; his abrasions and fingertips healing when Boulaki’s aunt brought him the news he was waiting for. ‘The Flemish lady who waits for a ship. She is going.’
He was sitting at table, whittling out a new puzzle with cautious fingers. He looked up and laid down the knife. ‘Good news! When and how?’
The woman sat down and lifted an edge of the puzzle. ‘Toys! Child’s play! You who should do the work of a man! She rides north at dawn tomorrow from Lindos to the City. She has a good escort. She will sleep on the way at Kalopetra.’
In all their exchanges, usually, she glared at him. When she was being kindest, she glared at him. Now, her head bent, she fingered the puzzle. Nicholas said, his voice gentle, ‘It is a strange route, for the City.’
‘So,’ said the woman. ‘You know the route. Before she arrives at the monastery, she will be abandoned. Her escort will be attacked, and will run.’
‘And the attackers will kill her?’ said Nicholas.
‘Not as before. No. No. They will leave her unharmed, but with no protection, no guide and no horse. There are many dangers,’ said Boulaki’s aunt, ‘and that spot, as you know, is deserted. It is natural that she would wish to walk there, where the Portuguese lord met his death. What happens to her, too, must be natural.’
‘I see,’ said Nicholas. He took the puzzle back and slowly cleared it of sawdust and shavings. He said, ‘But how can they be sure she will die?’
The woman said, ‘You mistake me. She may die. Death is simple. But for some, there are fates –’
‘– worse than death,’ Nicholas finished. He looked up. ‘So, rape?’
Her black eyes glared. She said, ‘Do you not know her? Do you not know what she fears to the point of madness?’
He looked through her, thinking, recalling. A fan. A veil. A napkin at Kouklia. Precious plants, which nevertheless could not be watered by lamplight. And, long ago, an event in the valley of Kalopetra itself. He said, ‘How do you know what she fears?’
‘It is known,’ the woman said. ‘Her servant talks. She is watched. They have weaknesses, these rich women with husbands.’
Nicholas said, ‘They are cruel, who prey on them.’
She glared at him still. ‘Not my nephews,’ she said. ‘This time they have been told to do nothing. You promised no harm would come to my nephews. You may kill their hirelings again if you wish. I hold you to that.’
‘I meant it,’ said Nicholas. ‘I spoke the truth, too. I can afford to tell no one. Only I shall be there when it happens, if you will get me a mule. Can you do that?’
‘You are a good worker,’ she said, ‘although foreign. I can do that. Save her, marry her, and give her sons. Sons are worth all the gold in the world.’
‘They are worth what their mothers are worth,’ Nicholas said.
Dressed as Guinevere, Nicholas had of course been before to the ravine he was going to, although riding through a winter’s dusk then from the opposite end, and not by himself. Astorre and Tobie had been with him, and an unknown soldier and Loppe, and Katelina. And, of course, Primaflora, riding pillion behind him with her moveable warmth and her golden hair and the gleam, white and gold, of her limbs. It was here they