Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [312]
Diniz felt himself flush. He said, ‘No, I think I could help.’
‘You can,’ said the doctor. ‘By staying away.’ He touched the man Loppe and, turning, made for the door. The negro glanced back once as he left, although Diniz couldn’t read his expression. But later, alone in his room, he heard a tap on the door and found Loppe waiting to speak to him.
He had never considered who or what Loppe was. As major domo of the villa, as manager, so they said, of the sugar estates, he was clearly a person of more consequence than he appeared – a former Guinea slave, a negro, the member of an inferior race. But he was also, he had found, a member of the Bank of Niccolò; a voice, if a quiet one, in its deliberations, and a friend of vander Poele whose personal association with him went back for several years. Now Loppe said, ‘Master Tobie has decided to stay. It is better. Sometimes Master Nicholas is offered more help than he needs. If he requires any now, it is in another direction.’
Jordan de Ribérac. Diniz said, ‘If I could see my grandfather, I might be able to explain what has happened. Otherwise he will blame Messer Niccolò.’
‘It is what I wondered,’ said the negro. ‘I could have you taken to the Palace. I cannot tell if M. le vicomte would see you. Would you come?’
He went, and met total failure. The name of Niccolò vander Poele was known throughout the Palace. Diniz learned where the prisoners of the Adorno were held, and saw the guards, and arranged to be admitted to the locked room where his grandfather was. The guards disappeared to speak to his grandfather and returned. He had braced himself in vain. His grandfather refused to entertain him.
He didn’t believe them, and sent them back. They returned, lashed by the Ribérac tongue, and told him to go away. He insisted.
That was a mistake, for it caused a disturbance, and finally some other guards came and he was locked in a room until someone checked who he was. He sat nursing a headache of the kind he now shared with Niccolò, and which Abul Ismail had said would disappear. It got worse. He expected, when the door opened, to see the captain of the palace. It wasn’t. It was a beautiful woman. It was Primaflora, the wife of Niccolò whom, under normal conditions, Niccolò said he wouldn’t have married.
Long ago, Diniz had thought her the fairest woman on earth. He continued to think so even after he had found out she was a courtesan, and was helping Niccolò, and was prepared to allow him what Diniz himself only dreamed of. After his father died, Diniz had ranged himself against vander Poele on account of Primaflora as much as anything.
And then had come her long absence in Rhodes, and his service in the dyeyard, and the act of his that was meant to kill the man he blamed for all his misery. The treacherous act, for which he had been punished. After that, the reality of Primaflora had faded, and he had escaped to Famagusta without seeing her again, and had met Niccolò vander Poele, and had found that, after all, he could trust him. Even when told of his marriage, he had felt no jealousy, except on Katelina’s behalf. And he had no doubts now about the quality of Niccolò’s commitment to Katelina, before or during her illness. Or indeed to his fellow men. No one who was merely a trickster could have behaved as he did, week after terrible week, when their lives, their relationships, their souls seemed transparent. After Famagusta, all the strivings of everyday life appeared paltry.
Now, seeing Primaflora, his first thoughts were still with Katelina, and the promise he had made. He said, ‘The vicomte de Ribérac is my grandfather. Can you help me to see him?’
‘Your grandfather?’ she said. ‘But of course I shall help you. Were you stopped? Diniz, how you have suffered! All those months in Famagusta, you and the sad lady Katelina. You were strong, and survived. That is courage. You made your peace with Niccolò, too. You know he is wounded?’
‘I heard. It’s about that. In a way, it’s about that,’ said Diniz. ‘If I can’t see my grandfather, I think Messer