Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [77]
Primaflora said, ‘And his appearance? How does he account for that?’
‘Captured by Mamelukes. The truth, near enough, except that he hasn’t said they took him to Zacco. The Venetians have never been mentioned. He claims he escaped on the way.’ The woman grinned again. ‘He has his wits, that one. He asks if you will go to Rhodes with him, or if you have found other patrons.’
Primaflora laughed. She took out her purse and took from it a coin, which she placed with its fellow in the woman’s lined palm. She said, ‘Why Rhodes? Never mind. Tell him I shall go where he goes, provided I can think of a reason. Whom has he met? I take it Father John wasn’t there?’
‘You’ve forgotten,’ said the woman. ‘He’s gone. They sent him to Kouklia, with a message for the Martini. He’ll be back in four days. I don’t know whom Messer Niccolò’s met. He’ll see them at dinner in any case. Remember you are the one who persuaded him, they think, to serve Queen Carlotta. The Queen is going to Rhodes. That, he will say, is why he must go there.’
‘And the real reason?’ said Primaflora.
‘One you would never guess. His army is there. He is going to join them.’
‘His army!’ She stared at the woman. ‘The men he left at Troia? He will join them? And then what? Will he bring them back to King Zacco?’
‘Of course. King Zacco has let him out on a very long chain, but it is a chain. It would take a better man than this Niccolò to escape it.’
‘Then I wonder,’ Primaflora said, ‘why they beat him?’
Chapter 12
WHATEVER FATE watched over Nicholas it was not a benign one, or it would have warned him not to go to Kolossi. He had no premonitions. He arrived on the heels of a mild success, firstly with Vanni Loredano and then in a much more extended and vigorous interview with the King himself. He had come from that with the promise of all the concessions he wanted, provided that he returned with his army to Zacco. The intensity with which Zacco had delivered that promise still quickened his blood when he thought of it.
Nicholas entered Kolossi with that on his mind; and besides that, two matters of pressing concern. One was the wellbeing of Primaflora, about which he was reassured at the outset by her woman. The other was a probable encounter with Luigi Martini, the taciturn Venetian of the Doria. Martini managed the sugar crop for the Knights and, because of Nicholas, was about to cease managing the sugar crop for King Zacco. Expecting open resentment, Nicholas was not sorry to find that Martini was not at the Castle, and that nothing awaited him but a harmonious welcome from the Lieutenant and his brother Knights.
He had no trouble in playing his role, which was that of a leader of mercenaries on his way to serve Queen Carlotta. He was made to tell the tale of his capture by Mamelukes, and his injuries were both inspected and tended. He enquired politely after the lady Primaflora who had shared his journey to Cyprus. She had shown a most sweet relief, it seemed, when told that he was at liberty, and to leave for Rhodes soon – for she, too, was on her way to her mistress the Queen. They thought the lady Primaflora one of the most modest and devout of young women. Nicholas agreed. They promised he should meet her at dinner. Nicholas declared himself gratified.
That, at least was genuine. As the worst of his ordeal receded, so he had recovered the dismantled memories of what they had shared, in which coercion had played no part. He was conscious now that his anticipation ran beyond merely a willingness to think of her. He fished out, for her entertainment, his fur-edged Venetian doublet to wear at the dinner he had been promised, and presented himself in due course in the big chamber, below the vast painted Crucifixion with the coat of arms of the absent Louis de Magnac in its corner.
She was there already. Another time he would have