Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [50]
Nicholas turned to go, and then stopped. Approaching the master’s cabin, head down, was a newcomer: a fair, bulky man with a complexion of brick, against which his chin-bristles twinkled like bird-quills. Purposeful, light on his feet, he took the steps in a stride, like a man with a job he was good at. Then he looked up, and halted. He stared. From brick, his fair face turned scarlet. He said, ‘Master Nicholas? Lord of Mercy, you’re better!’ It was his own sailing-master, Mick Crackbene.
They looked at one another. The man in the straw hat appeared suddenly at his back, speaking calmly. ‘Master Crackbene has work to do. Take Messer Niccolò to his quarters.’
Crackbene said, ‘Have they told you –’
‘That’s enough,’ said the man behind Nicholas.
‘No, it isn’t,’ Nicholas said, without turning. ‘How does Master Crackbene come to be here?’
Crackbene drew breath, but once more his abductor forestalled him. He said, ‘He is not here by his own choice. Don’t blame him. We found him near Manfredonia, in charge of a ship we felt would serve very well back in Cyprus. The King would also prefer that the vessel should not be sent, full of corn, to Carlotta. We were present in strength, and Master Crackbene had dispatched all his protectors to fight for Ferrante. We took the ship as she lay, and Master Crackbene and his officers with her. You will not lose by it. It will be paid for. It will be regarded, shall we say, as an indefinite charter?’
Nicholas looked slowly about. The round ship pattern, so familiar to all of them. The big cabin, so like his own, except that it was newly painted. The place he had lain which, he now realised, was a cell of the round ship he had brought back from Trebizond. The Doria. He was in his own ship the Doria, a prisoner, and sailing to Cyprus. He said, ‘May I talk to the master?’
‘I am afraid not,’ said the man. ‘Or not at present. It depends. All depends, as I have said, on your conduct. Agree, and there is nothing that is not within your grasp.’
Passing Crackbene, Nicholas contrived, he hoped, to look both resigned and reassuring and Crackbene, in return, managed a faint worried smile. Nicholas supposed he had cause to be worried. Himself, he had lost his ship, the ship by which Astorre and the rest might have followed him. On the other hand, he knew all its officers.
Later, there might be something to be done about that, when he felt less unsteady, and his head had ceased to ache. Meanwhile, he had the problem of the girl Primaflora.
In the cabin which, embarrassingly, they were to share, Nicholas found a second pallet already made up, with his horse gear and satchel beside it. The clothes he had fought in were absent, and so were his sword and his knife. The room, wide and low, was wainscotted and pleasantly furnished. It had made a bridal chamber, only last year, for Pagano Doria and his step-daughter Catherine. Forget it. Forget it.
The girl Primaflora stood by her bed until they both heard the lock turn in the door. Then she said, ‘They will bring us supper. We will talk after that. You should sleep now.’
He still stood, though not easily. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You’ve lost your privacy.’
She looked as though she found him naïve. She said, ‘Through me, you have lost your freedom. You owe me no apology. Lie down. I don’t intend to nurse you or seduce you or slaughter you.’
Nicholas let himself drop and stretched out. He felt his eyes close. He said, ‘Please yourself. Whatever you do, I’ll be asleep when you do it.’
The promise on both sides was kept. She shook him awake, in the end, when the food came, and he demolished more of it than he had expected. The Lusignan family employed capable cooks. Astorre, who liked his food, would have enjoyed this. Astorre. Both he and Tobie would learn immediately of the pirating of the Doria. But if they did, would they connect it with his abduction? And would they link it with Cyprus, or be misled, as he had been, by the more personal danger from Anjou? Again, incoming ships would