Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [245]
He always enjoyed her silences, because he knew she was trying to read him. Sometimes, she succeeded. Now she said, ‘Why is Famagusta so difficult?’
‘Because it’s Genoese,’ Nicholas said. ‘And they are not going to give it up. Also, it’s not simply a garrison, it’s a fortified city; with damned great walls and ditches and bastions built on three sides of it, and the sea to defend it on the fourth.’
She said, ‘A place of that size must contain thousands; and must have to feed thousands. Or have they all left but the soldiers?’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘The children have gone, and the sick, and the older women and men. The rest are all still there, because the blockade was not very efficient till recently. We found two underground passages, one to the sea and one to the landward side. It’s how they got supplies in, among other means. We have sealed them.’
‘But they will have stockpiled all the food and wine, the grain and livestock and powder that they could? What about water?’
‘They have some brackish wells, and some very deep ones. Until recently, they had water,’ Nicholas said.
‘But you have stopped it? In some way you have stopped it? I see,’ she said slowly. ‘I see why you hope for surrender before the rain comes to refill their cisterns. Or they may linger on, starving all winter, to the shame of Zacco; inviting Christian rescue? What if there is a Crusade, and Cyprus is still divided? Venice, Burgundy, Bohemia, the Pope longing to throw out the Egyptians and reinstate Carlotta?’
Nicholas said, ‘There can’t be a Crusade before next summer. And by that time, if Cyprus is still divided, then I shall be too. But it won’t be. Famagusta will fall, and the Pope will regard Cyprus as a unified, Christian kingdom.’
‘So you may even join his Crusade?’ said Primaflora, surprising him again.
He laughed. ‘The Crusade he’ll pay for from papal alum? As it happens, there’d be a certain rough justice if I got a wage from it. But no. Even if my fighting contract has ended I shall still, I hope, have my sugar franchise. Only if I lost that would I have to take my little warband elsewhere. Unless you think I should? Are you tired of Cyprus?’
She rose, and crossed the room and, taking a cushion, knelt at his feet, gathering his hands in hers. She said, ‘Sometimes you wonder, I know. Sometimes you believe that, with the first change in fortune, I shall go back to Carlotta. Sometimes I think you suspect me of many things. But don’t suspect me of wanting to leave you. I didn’t tell you this, for if you loved Zacco it might make you dislike him; or change the dealings you have with his mother. While you were in the north, his mother spoke to me.’
‘I remember,’ he said. Her hands were cool, in spite of the heat. His hands were cold.
She said, ‘I kept to myself what she said. She said, under pain of death, I was to leave you, for I interfered with her son and his lover.’
Her eyes, unshadowed, intelligent, were unmoving on his. He said, ‘Did you believe her?’
‘I believed she hoped it would happen,’ said Primaflora. ‘Perhaps I was wrong in what I then did. I said you and I were man and wife, and to lose me would break or damage your bond with the King. I asked her to let me put the matter to Zacco himself, and let the King decide. I said that, if need be, I would share you.’
Her gaze remained direct; her body still, but the fingers between his were rigid. Nicholas withdrew his own hands and placed them lightly on her two shoulders. He said, ‘And today, the King himself exacted this promise, and you gave it?’
‘I am used to sharing,’ she said; and laid her cheek in fondness, or in weariness, or in sorrow, on his knee while he stroked her hair, his head bent, and then kissed it.
Nicholas said, ‘He has always had hopes. They are always going to be disappointed. Primaflora, now he will blame you.’
She lifted her wet face, smiling at last. She said, ‘What is this? You want me to urge you to submit to him? No. All I am saying, my dear, is that you have another reason to end this war quickly. When he is truly King, he