Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [315]
The veil blew, reflectively. The King’s mother said, ‘He holds high position because he has performed commensurate services. He is right. Whatever wrongs have been done you, it is not a matter for our jurisdiction. I shall mete out no punishments. It is my concern only to safeguard my son the King. We place trust in Ser Niccolò. If he has erred, I should like to be told of the circumstances. You call him Claes?’
‘His name in the dyeyard,’ said Jordan de Ribérac. ‘But he called himself Nicholas when he thrust my grandson among the stinking vats in Nicosia. He paid his ransom himself in order to keep him. Ask where the boy lived. In the villa! Ask whether he knew his master’s bedroom – he slept there. And ask how the boy got to Famagusta. Did you choose even that, Diniz, rather than continue to suffer? Or did he tire of you first, and release you, knowing where you would fly?’
Diniz said, ‘The manager helped me escape. Bartolomeo Zorzi.’
Above the veil, the woman’s eyes were intent. The fat man said, ‘He saw what was happening? He was sorry for you?’
‘No,’ said Diniz. ‘He worked me as hard as anyone. He was amused by anything that might embarrass Messer Niccolò. When I hit him –’
Nicholas moved, but too late. Diniz stopped. Behind the veil, the wheezing voice said, ‘When you hit whom?’ Under the broad, elaborate hat, the brows of Jordan de Ribérac were raised, also, in polite enquiry behind which, one could swear, was a gleam.
Diniz said, ‘The supposed accident with the axe. It wasn’t. I struck Messer Niccolò with it. You can’t precisely claim, can you, that we were lovers!’ His black hair, disordered, clung to his hot face.
The King’s mother said, ‘Lovers have tiffs. Messer Niccolò neither punished you nor reported it. Why was that? And why did you strike in the first place?’
‘I was angry,’ said Diniz. ‘I thought he had put me in the dyeyard to shame me. Afterwards, I saw I was wrong. But it was Zorzi who suggested I should finish what I had started and kill him. He said his elder brother wouldn’t like it, but his elder brother needn’t know. I think he wanted the dyeyard,’ said Diniz. The King’s mother stared at him. So did Nicholas.
The vicomte de Ribérac said, ‘I had no idea you had inherited the family temper. My congratulations. You tried to kill your tormentor, just because he put you in a dyeyard?’
‘No,’ said Diniz. He hesitated.
Nicholas said, ‘Tell everything.’
Diniz said, ‘I thought he had killed my father. I was wrong. Carlotta arranged it. Carlotta and someone else.’
‘Wait,’ said the King’s mother. ‘Why should the lady Carlotta have your father killed? Who told you? And who was the other person involved?’
Nicholas said, ‘Forgive me. If this is to continue, honoured lady, would you allow me a seat?’ It was not Primaflora who brought it, but a page.
Diniz, oblivious, waited fidgeting to make his reply. He said, ‘I had it from the demoiselle Katelina van Borselen. She told me the Queen – that Carlotta – wanted Ser Niccolò in her service, and was trying to remove all impediments. She had designs on the demoiselle, and didn’t care which of the party was injured. She said she didn’t know who had arranged it.’
The King’s mother said, ‘It was known, M. de Ribérac, that the Flemish lady held some grudge against Messer Niccolò, and was bent on harming him. Forgive me if I speculate, but perhaps your own poor opinion of Messer Niccolò has grounds in the same family quarrel? Perhaps you even hoped the poor girl would act as your agent? Certainly, you made no effort to ransom and remove her.’
‘There is no harm, Highness, in speculation,’ said the fat man’s mellow voice. ‘If the gold did not come, it was simply because I was financially pressed. And my son, whose proper task of course it was, was abroad at the time. I would point out, however, that if I did not ransom the demoiselle Katelina, then neither did Claes. He did not wish to