Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [230]
And he laughed and said, ‘We frightened them. No. They live in the dark, where the trees and the butterflies are.’ Until then, she had asked him no questions except the small ones of intimacy; and he had mindlessly found himself courting her with Hesiod and Homer and Horace, as befitted the foam-born: and with her went Eros, and comely Desire followed her at her birth.
Later, when he had pulled her up from the gorge, and found his saddlebags, and unpacked wine and cheese, bread and melon, he could feel the silence behind him, and knew that the staved-off world had come back, and with it anxiety, if not doubt; and hesitation over the immensity of the gap which now must be bridged by words. He said, ‘Rich-crowned Cytherea, you are spent. Eat and drink, and then we shall see what has to be done. Don’t let anything worry you.’
Her hands round the wine-cup were trembling. ‘I didn’t care,’ she said. ‘They could have come in their thousands. At that moment, I didn’t care.’
He said gently, ‘They were up against the most powerful thing in the world. You may be frightened of them again, but perhaps never quite so much. Or perhaps not at all. How did it start? The fear?’ He was eating melon to prevent himself from touching her again.
She smiled, but her eyes were unseeing. ‘My dearest nurse died. The girl who came next had lovers. She let the moths beat on the lamp by my bed while she pleasured them.’
He threw the melon away and laid his arm round her, caressing. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘No. I want to tell you. Then the first time Simon touched me was in a garden. There were moths, gnats and a kiss –’ She broke off and said starkly, ‘I hated him.’
His fingers stopped. He said, ‘Don’t. I don’t. It is not what will help him.’
Then she said, ‘Is he your father?’
He laid her hand down. After a moment he drew up his knees and embraced them. He said, ‘I believe so. And so did my mother, his first wife.’
He could hear his voice, cool and quite steady. She said, ‘But he has never sired children.’
‘Oh, yes.’ he said. ‘A son, born dead before me. Between his death and my birth, Simon claimed never to have slept with my mother. My mother said she had slept with no other. I believed her.’
Katelina said, ‘You knew her?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘She lived with her father, after Simon cast her off. She died when I was seven.’
‘And?’ she said.
‘And so I was sent to take service in Geneva. I suppose Simon hoped I would stay there for ever. But my mother’s father – his wife – his wife’s sister –’
‘But Marian de Charetty gave you a home,’ Katelina said. ‘And reared you. And married you.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I asked her to marry me.’ After a bit he said, ‘Who told you? That Simon’s wife was my mother?’
‘Simon,’ she said. ‘He boasted that you plotted to destroy all your family, but had failed to harm him. He said you believed he was your father. And so, I thought, you had –’
‘Plotted to foist my child incestuously and secretly on him. Do you still think so?’ he said.
‘I haven’t been honest,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been honest with you, have I? You came to me because I wanted it. I told you it was safe. You had no way of knowing a child was coming. I don’t know why you married.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Then, you and I couldn’t have married; you couldn’t have borne it. It all came from unhappiness. I have always known that.’
‘I might have killed you,’ she said. ‘At Lindos …’
He turned and smiled at her, his hands tightly clasped. ‘You were within your rights. I came to poison the plants. You must know that by now. But hot only that. To find out if you were safe, and Diniz. And to make sure you would stay safe.’
She said, ‘But why should I not be?’ She frowned. ‘The fight at the ravine. My escort were attacked, and then left me.’ She looked up. ‘Left me to the snakes, but for you. Was that planned? How did you know?’
‘Through a cunning lady called Persefoni,’ Nicholas said. ‘She presented you with