Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [234]
‘That he was going to lose all the value of his sugar revenues if cane plants of our quality were established in Madeira. That the woman who had taken them had also been spying, and it was in Zacco’s interest to have the plants destroyed and the woman induced to leave Rhodes as quickly as possible.’
‘By now, he will know you are back,’ Loppe said. He suddenly laughed. ‘You realise, the demoiselle Katelina was sent to Episkopi by the King’s mother for your sake? If you had managed to alter her feelings for you, she would have ceased spying, or having designs on the plants, and your life would have been safe from her. Instead-’ He stopped himself. ‘Instead you bring back another woman, just as troublesome.’
It was not what he had been going to say, Nicholas recognised. Instead of making Katelina his mistress, he had performed that office for a princess of Naxos, and driven Katelina from the island. He had always suspected Loppe knew that. Loppe knew everything. Nicholas said, ‘You think Primaflora may still be serving the Queen? It hardly matters now, if the Queen is losing Kyrenia. If she is dangerous in any other way, it is for me to deal with.’
He waited. He would not get from Loppe, he knew, the kind of inquisition the others would subject him to. Direct questions, from Tobie. Indirect, from John. What, in due course, his more distant connections would make of it – Gregorio and Julius, Godscalc and Anselm Adorne and, most of all, Tilde and Catherine his step-daughters – was something he had had to forecast from the beginning. He was used to planning.
Loppe said, ‘There is no reason to be concerned. The King will appreciate that, having helped you to destroy the plants and see the demoiselle safely out of the island, the lady Primaflora could hardly be left to face the Queen’s anger.’ He paused again, and said, ‘The demoiselle Katelina set great store by the plants.’
It was as direct a question as Loppe would ever ask. Nicholas said, ‘I have met her, and she knows of the marriage. She is sailing home to her husband: Diniz will be there already. There will be no more trouble. No more trouble even from Simon, perhaps.’
He could hear Loppe’s even breathing. The lamps guttered. A glow from the courtyard of Venus told that the copper cauldrons were simmering, adding their heat to the clinging night air. Loppe said, ‘Yet she went?’
‘There was nothing else to be done,’ Nicholas said. He began methodically to rise from the table, but Loppe was first on his feet. ‘No,’ said Loppe. ‘Stay. In the dark, it is peaceful. I shall leave you.’
The rest of his itinerary brought severe trials to the head of the Bank of Niccolò, but by then his command of himself was unimpeachable. He rode back quickly to Salines where there now awaited an escort to take himself and his bride to Nicosia. Primaflora, beautiful in the heat as she had been in the snows of Bologna, welcomed him back.
He treated her welcome as the work of art it was. In marriage as in concubinage, she studied what he wanted, and gave him something more. If she denied him, as she had done at Lindos, it was for a purpose. He had had no need to tell her, joining her in the fading sunset at Rhodes, that in denying him she had miscalculated; that what he had taken to Katelina had not been unwelcome. He had assured Primaflora the plants were destroyed. He had said no word to her or to anyone of the ravine at Kalopetra. On the first night on board out of Rhodes, she had salved the injuries