Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [278]
Nicholas said, ‘This should never have happened.’
Her tears had half closed her eyes. He cupped her cheek in his hand and pressed his kerchief under and over her lashes. She said, her eyes shut, ‘I chose to come. They told me Diniz was here.’ She opened her lids. ‘I would rather be here than in Portugal.’
He shook his head, taking her hands again. She said, ‘Yes. When must you go?’
‘How could I go?’ he said, smiling. ‘For the length of the truce, I’m a prisoner. They can’t stop me seeing you. Unless you get tired of me.’
She had begun to weep again. She said, ‘It’s just weakness, I’m sorry. Diniz has been so good, and I am so happy. Is that wrong? Is it wrong, what we’ve done? Will you be punished?’
He knew what she was asking. He said, ‘You talked to someone?’
The weeping had stopped. ‘A priest,’ she said. ‘He is dead, now. He said that this is my reparation, and I need fear no other. But you –’
‘Simon will never know,’ Nicholas said. ‘If we’ve betrayed him once, he has betrayed you many times. And if some greater authority decides the offence requires atonement, then I can only say that I shall pay the cost of it willingly.’
He couldn’t tell whether it was enough to comfort her. She smiled, her eyelids heavy. He studied them, smoothing the fragile skin of her hand, and saw them falter shut, and heard her breathing soften and settle. There was no other sound, outside or inside the room. After a while, he let his head sink on his arms, deep among the chilly, metal-chased velvets.
Perhaps he slept. He roused to a touch on his shoulder and Abul Ismail stood at his side. The Arab said, ‘Come. Eat and share some of our wine. Your escort will wrench you away soon enough.’
This had been the house of a banker. There were two servants still: the woman he had glimpsed, and a steward more frail and more sullen. The Arab said, ‘They blame me for guarding the food. But if they gorge, they will die. The boy Diniz is wiser, though weak. All his food has gone to nourish the lady, and to placate the woman, so that she would stay here and nurse her.’
‘And the lady?’ Nicholas said.
Long ago, outside Kyrenia, he and this man had come to know a little of one another. He would never be able to read Abul Ismail, as he found he could decipher so many. It had pleased him, that discovery. He had wondered, also, how much the mediciner had been able to guess about his own mind and nature. Whatever it was, he knew he would receive the truth now, however unpleasant, and was aware of nothing but thankfulness that it should be Abul Ismail here to tell him.
Abul Ismail said, ‘She was starving before the beams fell on her body. Her limbs lack feeling: she would never have walked. Now she seems to have little pain, and little hunger, although she takes what the boy gives her, and today, we have improved upon that. You must not blame the lad either. He tells me he implored her to let him beg her release, but she refused. She wished to share his fate. She wished to die under the flag of St George, and not the flag of the Lusignan. She is loyal to the allies of her husband, however weak a provider her husband has been. But she has said nothing of that. I am only guessing.’
Nicholas said, ‘For what you are doing, I hope God or Allah will reward you. Tomorrow, I will have her taken to Nicosia.’
‘No,’ said the physician. ‘Forgive me. I have said this to the boy. She will die very soon. Such a move would cause her pain, would shorten her days, would deny the stout heart that has kept her here all these weeks. Now you are here, she has all she wants. Take her to Nicosia, but only if you will not do her the service of remaining here, in this town, at her side.’
In face of that, there was no question, now, of disturbing her. The questions he had to ask now were practical ones, to do with comfort and nursing, and the mediciner answered them. Presently Diniz himself, released from duty, walked into the kitchen. The boy said, ‘You came.’ He paused. He said, ‘Senhor Abul