Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [284]
In the sickroom or with Diniz, Nicholas never threw doubt on the arrival of Katelina’s dream fleet. Nor, in the long hours of her sleeping, when he and Diniz shared the same room, did he say more than he thought might reassure the young Portuguese. Any plan for the future depended on the term of the girl’s life now ending, and neither could speak of that. Sometimes, though, the boy would now talk of the past. ‘You were in Rhodes. The demoiselle spoke of it. She said my father was killed because of her.’
‘Because of me,’ Nicholas said. ‘We had a misunderstanding, the demoiselle and I, and, for a while, she wanted to punish me. The Queen thought my life was in peril, and she should get rid of my enemies. She thought too, she would recover Cyprus. She didn’t want Madeira to rob her of vines and of sugar, and your father had tried to do that once. So she had no compunction, I think, in allowing your father to be lured into danger, so that the demoiselle would leave the City to follow him. The assassins meant to kill her. They didn’t care whether or not they killed your father or you.’
Diniz said, ‘The demoiselle said my father was killed by the Queen and someone else. She didn’t say who it was. She said the Queen and somebody else made sure she knew I was in Famagusta. She said you went to Rhodes to find out who killed my father.’
‘They were only hired assassins,’ Nicholas said. ‘Astorre helped me kill two of them. The Queen was behind most of it. She needed mercenaries.’
‘But you were already with Zacco when they tried to kill the demoiselle at Kalopetra,’ the youth said. He paused. ‘Was that why you married the lady Primaflora? Did she warn you of the new plot, and needed protection?’
‘She told me where to find Katelina,’ Nicholas said. ‘I should have stayed, then, to make sure she left safely for Portugal. But I was being hunted as well.’
‘But you didn’t love Primaflora?’ the boy said. ‘You wouldn’t have married her otherwise?’
‘I shouldn’t have married her otherwise,’ Nicholas said. After a moment he said, ‘What do you think you’ve been watching, these weeks?’
The boy’s eyes were dark and level, dense as the Arab’s. ‘Compassion?’ he said. Leaving, Nicholas crashed the door open and then, remembering, closed it soundlessly in the last inch of its movement. The word followed him into the courtyard. When, calmer, he went to her room, Katelina was awake, and he was able to expend on her all that Diniz thought he was capable of.
The following day, Diniz apologised. Nicholas heard it in silence. She was worse, today; her breathing irregular, her words sometimes confused. Latterly, she had been in pain. Today, Abul Ismail had stayed at her side, and now Nicholas had been banished from the sickroom.
Diniz also had stayed, and had found his way out into the yard, and the broken pillars of the loggia, where he had found somewhere to sit out of the wind. Today it was cloudy but bright, and the thick, accustomed smell of the city was better than the hospital smell in the house. Coming out for the same reasons, Nicholas found him there and heard him make his excuses.
His mind was not especially on Diniz. He said, ‘You needn’t be sorry. None of this is your fault, and a good degree of it is mine, which is why I lose patience easily. I have nearly insulted you, several times, by promising that you will forget all this when you are home again.’
The boy’s eyes fell. Nicholas dropped to sit on a block, and picked up a stone, and took out the knife he had been given back. Diniz said, ‘You made carvings in Bruges.’
‘It passed the time,’ Nicholas said.
A short silence followed. Diniz said, ‘Katelina says you think we are cousins.’
Both his hands stopped. ‘Katelina?’ he said.
‘She asked me to call her that. She says your mother was