Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [49]
‘Men change their minds,’ said the other. ‘King James wishes to see you. He is merciful. If you insist, you need not fear he will keep you.’
The spokesman glanced for the first time at the two men on his right. The older, his black hair mixed with grey, returned the look from under his brows, grimly silent. The younger shifted position and, as if compelled by the other’s taciturnity, said, ‘There are opportunities such as perhaps you could not imagine. But we know the King well. You may trust him.’
Nicholas said, ‘Then let us save my time and his. No argument will persuade me. When you next touch land, I wish to disembark.’
‘I regret,’ said the other. ‘Not only my own life would be at risk. We have the lady, Carlotta’s servant, to consider.’
So we had. Through his considerable headache, Nicholas considered the problem of the lady Primaflora, who had clung to Thomas for months and who had undeniably been attempting to rejoin himself. Why, he did not yet know. On the affirmation of the man in the chair, the girl had not knowingly led his captors to him. But his abductors were working for Carlotta’s rival and, though she denied it, Primaflora might still be attached to the Queen.
He had a memory, suddenly, of a girl desolate in the snow with a dead man’s blood staining her breast. In Bruges, he had thought he saw truth in her face and had given the help that she asked for. Help to hide from a Queen who took it for granted that she would move from Ansaldo’s arms to his.
She sat, her head downbent, without looking at him, while he weighed one thing against another. Nicholas said, ‘She has left Queen Carlotta. You must know that.’
‘To bring you back,’ said the other. Through the passable French ran a strain of amusement.
‘No!’ said the courtesan Primaflora. She stood.
‘Then why?’ said the man in the chair.
Nicholas said nothing. The girl looked at him, and then at the man in the chair. She said, ‘The Queen ordered me to recruit him, but I only pretended to do so. I was escaping her.’
‘By following the man she had told you she wanted?’
The girl said, ‘Because he understood, and was kind, and I had nowhere else to go.’
‘You have formed an attachment to him,’ said the man in the chair, for whom Nicholas was forming a respect several degrees short of liking.
She did not answer at once. Then she said, ‘No. My lover is dead.’
‘So,’ said the man, ‘there is no feeling between you. On the other hand, Messer Niccolò is clearly a man of chivalrous impulses. I must tell him therefore that we intend to hold the lady as hostage for his good conduct. Any attempt to leave ship, and we kill her.’
‘Kill her! She’s a courtesan; a messenger; she earns her living by moving between men in high places. She has done nothing to deserve death,’ Nicholas said.
‘No. But there is a risk in moving between men in high places. You have incurred it yourself. She is aware of it. Nor is she in the least danger except for your actions. She looks to you for her life,’ the man said. ‘And now, we have spoken enough. You have suffered. You need food, fresh air, rest in a more salubrious cabin. We have one, at present occupied by the lady. She will not, I am sure, object to sharing it.’
‘There is no need,’ Nicholas said. ‘My own room will serve.’
The man raised his brows. ‘I am afraid the choice is not yours. You say Carlotta of Cyprus impelled you together. If that is your fate, then James of Cyprus will not reverse it.’
Someone took his arm from behind. Someone else came, and gave the girl a push to the door. The man in the chair spoke