Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [65]
The young man said, ‘No! No! What a tragedy! Tzani-bey surely knew. He must have known. Did Messer Niccolò not try to tell him? He is not Carlotta’s man. He is a merchant, a captain, a banker. It is to persuade him to help us that the Venetians brought him. Brought him against his will, which was injury enough, but unavoidable. And now –’
Nicholas listened, his lids half fallen. The Venetians had not lied. Some Cypriot baron had blundered. Tzani-bey, lacking orders, had made a mistake. No: had not made a mistake: had taken the chance to enjoy himself. Nicholas, thinking of it, was certain of that. The woman in the chair interrupted his thoughts and the flow of the young man’s distress. ‘The harm is not irreparable.’ Her roaring voice was no different from before; her gaze merely speculative. ‘Messer Niccolò is young. He is strong. He is intelligent enough, I am sure, to understand that a mistake has been made. Let him be bathed, and his wounds anointed and bound. Let the monks give him a sleeping-cup, and after rest, some good food. You will talk, you and he, by the evening.’ A moment ago, she had invited the emir to whip him. Her brother, now silent, had threatened far worse.
The young man let her finish, then turned back to Nicholas. He said, ‘All these things will be done. Then we shall speak.’
Nicholas stood, a thing he had not thought possible. The room blurred and wavered about him. The other rose swiftly, made to approach, then desisted. ‘Who are you?’ said Nicholas. How many more nephews, uncles, would he have to see?
The other man stood, his arms at his sides, like a soldier answering a charge. He said, ‘I am the man you should have met at Cape Gata. It is my fault, what has happened. It is for me to make amends, if amends should be possible. My name is James de Lusignan, King of Cyprus. You will hear me called Zacco.’
For a space, he could not think. Then he said, ‘Amends!’ He sent it through the room like a curse.
Above the veil, the black eyes of the noseless woman were fixed on her son. Her son, James of Lusignan, usurping ruler of Cyprus, dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword. He drew it and rested it on his arm, pommel pointing to Nicholas. He said, ‘Do with it what you wish. There is my right hand.’
The woman moved, then. Behind her chair, her brother took a step forward, his heavy face flushed. The young man snapped, ‘Stay where you are.’ They both halted.
Nicholas stretched out his stained fingers and laid them on the grip of the sword. The goldwork on it was Arabic. He looked up. Unclouded and steady, the King’s eyes were on his, and the King’s right wrist was so held that one clean stroke could sever it. Behind it, unprotected, was his body. Nicholas let his eyes dwell on both, and then return to the sword and his fingers. He ran them over the gold, and lifted his hand from the weapon. He dropped his arm to his side. Nicholas said, ‘The weight, I believe, would be beyond me. Perhaps tomorrow?’
Become a little pale under its tan, the other face slowly warmed to a smile of untempered delight. The young man named Zacco said, ‘Tomorrow, all things will be possible.’
Later, wakening from his long, healing sleep in the monks’ deserted infirmary, Nicholas thought for a long time about what had happened. Questions brought him few answers from the nursing brethren. Those he received, in time, from the boy who saw to his dressings. Jorgin was the King’s own chamber servant and delighted to prattle.
‘How should you know who he was? The things he’s done, you’d never expect at that age. Four and twenty, he is. We call him Zacco. He might never have been born, you know. The last King and Queen, they never had more than a daughter. Carlotta. The one that’s blackening his name all over Europe. When Queen Helena found the King’s mistress was pregnant, you never heard such a row. That’s when the Queen bit off her pretty nose, to