Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [51]
He looked up. ‘A sobering matter, abduction. Why do you think they brought you on board? Once they had me, there was no need.’
‘I think I know,’ she said. ‘You heard them. They hoped by threatening me to keep you quiet, and prevent you escaping. And, too, they thought I still served the Queen, and they don’t want the Queen to know what has happened. I don’t know which they want more – to use you, or simply to deny you and the ship to the Queen.’
‘Thank you,’ said Nicholas.
She frowned. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you are very young, and you have wasted almost a year.’
‘So have you,’ he said.
She lifted one shoulder. ‘What do you expect me to say? All my life is a waste? I enjoy my life. Or did. I shall enjoy it again.’
‘In Cyprus?’ said Nicholas. ‘I thought we might do better than that.’
‘We?’
‘I can’t jump ship without you.’
She said, ‘You won’t get a chance to jump ship. This is a round ship, remember. She sails, she doesn’t have to rest oarsmen, and her holds will carry all the provision that’s wanted. She need hardly call anywhere. They will lock that cabin door, and they will keep your friend Crackbene under guard, and all his officers. In any case, I wouldn’t come with you.’
‘No?’ said Nicholas.
She said, ‘Would you keep me with you when we had escaped? I rather think not. And what would I do on some remote Venetian island? If I am going anywhere, it might as well be to Cyprus. And you heard what he said. If the King himself cannot persuade you, then they are prepared to let you go.’
‘And risk my crossing to Queen Carlotta? Of course not. If I don’t agree, it will be prison, or worse.’
‘Perhaps. But not for me,’ said Primaflora.
‘No. Not for you,’ said Nicholas slowly. ‘You don’t mind that? You’d rather join King James’s Egyptian court than escape with me?’
‘Why not?’ said Primaflora. ‘Perhaps, after all, you should try to escape. Did you believe their threats against me? Of course not. If you go, I expect I shall pass between those two or three Cypriot-lovers up there. Then they will take me back, a prize for the Lusignan. If you see a chance, leave. Shall I play to you?’
‘What?’ said Nicholas.
‘You are puzzled and weak. There is wine. I have my lute. Lie down, and let me play for you. Has music a place in your life?’
Hearty folk song in Bruges, and obscene versifying in the dyeyard. Consorts, scratchily playing at some big house where merchants were tolerated. Violante, once heard to sing. And in Trebizond.… In Trebizond, the anthems that had come through the doors of the church of the Chrysokephalos, and the song of the nightingale, drowning them.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. I know nothing of music.’
The tunes she played him were French, and once or twice she sang, playfully, making the words teasingly clear. They were a courtesan’s songs about dalliance, and quite specific. He thought that she didn’t expect him to understand all the words. But although his working language was Flemish, he had been reared in Burgundy, and his mother tongue was the same as hers. He lay and listened, the empty wine glass beside him, his eyes shut. He heard, but gave no sign, when the sound came nearer and when, still singing and playing, she stooped and sat, gently, on the edge of his bed. He heard his own breathing, and opened his eyes.
‘You have a dimple. Two,’ she said.
If he smiled it had been in self-mockery. She lifted a hand from the strings and touched his cheek. ‘And a scar.’
In the lamplight, she looked like a painting; a pristine confection of tint and line drawn from the ether. Her brows were fine as threads; the twisting forms of her hair echoed the curl of her lips and the little curve between nose and cheek, with its exact carmine crescent. Below each underlid, he observed a fine crease: part