Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [246]
And he didn’t tease her, or court her, or divert her, because what she had done was risk death, which was a thing better honoured by abstinence. Only, next day, he rode to Famagusta with less than a light heart, to lead his men to the end of the game.
Chapter 35
THE HOT CYPRUS autumn moved from one week to the next, and Zacco prepared for his forthcoming triumph by installing himself in the moated citadel built by his great-grandfather at Sigouri, ten miles west of the besieged Famagusta.
This was not to say that he didn’t spend time with the army, lending vigorous help as the trains of oxen dragged the batteries into position, and the wagonloads of food and fodder, weapons and powder bumped fifty miles south-east from Kyrenia to where Famagusta lay, lodged in its bay, divided by ninety broad sea miles from Syria.
As the cannon arrived, so the masons prepared the stone shot, meeting the carts that arrived every day from the agora and temples of Salamis, tipping fluted cylinders and marble capitals and Egyptian granite into the yards. Camels, horses and oxen ground the dried earth to powder, and the deposits of sheep and cattle and goats, pigs and poultry added their stench to that of human and vegetable waste. The physicians were busy, and Nicholas seldom saw Tobie or Abul, spending two-thirds of his time with Astorre and Thomas and John, and the rest at Sigouri, with Zacco.
Here, there was no ambiguity; no difficulty over marriage or courtship; no women at all but the camp-followers, or the whores who were for sale, with other merchandise, from the second, vagabond camp that stood as a fringe to the first. It was at that time like wine to be in the presence of the Lusignan Bastard, ebullient, assured of success, glowing with pride in himself and his army. ‘The Feast of St Nicholas!’ he had cried, slapping Nicholas one day on the back. ‘We shall give you a celebration on your Feast Day, Niccolino, in the place best fitted for it. A Mass in the Cathedral of St Nicholas in Famagusta itself, and a feast in my Palace to follow!’
The Feast of St Nicholas was in the first week of December; a month away. Until the age of seven, Nicholas had received a treat every year on the Feast Day of his patron; and from the age of ten he grew to know that the day would generally be marked for him in some way or another – in many different ways, although not every year – until, of course, his wife Marian died. Now, as if it had never happened before, Nicholas thanked the King, but not as the King wanted.
Later, John le Grant got Nicholas away from Sigouri, put him in a tent and said, ‘Right. We’re not going to do this in four weeks.’
‘I’ve heard Astorre say that too. So long as neither of you says it aloud. We’re not going to do it at all if the King loses interest too early.’
He kept his voice as reasonable as he always did, since there was no point in anyone becoming heated. They had both hoped for a classic siege manoeuvre: a complete blockade of supplies, followed when the city was weak by an assault over ditches infilled by themselves, and preceded by feints, night attacks and heavy bombardment. To this end, a deep trench had been begun long ago: deep enough to bring a file of men and their weapons in safety close under the walls. But, baked by summer, the earth and rock round Famagusta had resisted digging, and the sappers themselves had been depleted by storms of arrows from longbows and crossbows; by the methodical firing of handguns and serpentines. The trench was only three-quarters finished, and wouldn’t progress until the rains came. The rain which would turn their campground to mud, and fill the cisterns of Famagusta.
So there faded their hopes of a final assault before winter. That left deprivation. Nicholas said, ‘There’s still a very good chance they’ll surrender. They haven’t used their bows or their guns for four days. We know their food is low. You’ve drained the water table and their wells are either dry or running