Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [83]
‘He isn’t here?’ Nicholas said. Then, as she shook her head, ‘He set off to come back. I’ve overshot him. We’ll have to go back and hunt.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Primaflora. ‘Your problem is solved. A ship of the Order is coming to load the Commanderie’s wine. It’s sailing to Rhodes. It will take you and me and both the Portuguese Vasquez, and you will be away from Kolossi before John de Kinloch can meet you.’
Her voice, ending, sounded annoyed because he was looking over her shoulder. ‘What do you wager?’ said Nicholas. ‘There is John of Kinloch, riding up to the drawbridge this moment. And coming in. And dismounting. He’s seen me. Where are the Portuguese? Indoors? Go and talk to them. Have congress with them individually, if you like, on the floor of the Hall, but keep them indoors and happy. You, come with me.’
With Martini’s man following, he began to walk over the yard. He turned. ‘The ship is coming in when and where?’
Primaflora said, ‘Tomorrow evening at Limassol. You can’t –’
‘Yes, I can,’ Nicholas said. He watched her move to the steps. If the priest had seen them together at all, it must have looked the most superficial of encounters. He turned again and advanced. ‘Master John! Do you remember me?’ He spoke in Flemish. No one employed by the Martini brothers would know Flemish.
The chaplain stopped. The lean face and spare body were muffled against the chill weather: the cuffs of his cassock showed under those of his gown, and over all he was wrapped in a black fustian cloak that reached to the ground. On top of his hood he wore a wide-brimmed black hat with a broken cord. His mouth opened, revealing crossed teeth and a lot of gum. He said, ‘Claes. It is indeed the varlet called Claes, from the dyeshop. Well, well!’ He grinned, showing where the teeth ended. ‘It’s well seen you’ve come into money!’
The tongue he used was not Flemish, but the Scots spoken in Fife. Twenty-four years before, John of Kinloch had been chaplain to the Hospitallers’ Master in Scotland. In more recent years, he had served the merchants’ Scots altar in Bruges, and had found no reason to be fond of a high-handed Scots lord, or an upstart dyeworks apprentice. In the hateful war between Simon and Nicholas, Father John would add fuel to both sides. Without knowing, of course, the real issue.
He was not a quick-witted man. At first, the implications escaped him. Nicholas said, ‘And what brings you here? Hospitallers’ business?’
The crooked teeth glittered. ‘Oh, you might say. The canon of Aberdeen had some annates for Rome. Young Scougal’s made Knight, and needed someone to come to Rhodes with him. I took the chance. And yourself?’ The frame of his face ceased to move. He said, ‘By my dear Christ. The lord Simon’s on Rhodes. It’s his Portuguese kinsmen you’re after.’
Nicholas said, ‘You are mistaken. We met here by chance.’ He hardly bothered to say it. No one, knowing his past, would believe it. He trapped the eye of his helper, and looked away again. He said, ‘I mean Tristão Vasquez no harm: what do you suppose I could do? They needn’t even be told who I am.’
The priest’s face became hollow. ‘They don’t know? You haven’t told them? What devilment are you planning? Of course, you’re going to undercut what they grow in Madeira. Cyprus sugar, that’s what you’re investing in!’
‘Perhaps,’ Nicholas said. ‘I haven’t even decided. In any case, what could you tell Tristão Vasquez? He’s never heard of Nicholas vander Poele, or of Claes for that matter. He would think you eccentric. In fact, I should have to tell him you were.’
‘Tell away,’ said the priest. ‘I can tell them you tried to stab Simon at Sluys. I can tell them you ruined his business at Trebizond and fought him in Venice – I heard about that. If they want to know what sort of man you are, I can tell which of your mother’s kinsmen you ruined or murdered, and how you just failed to get the Charetty business when your wife suddenly died, and you found she’d willed everything to her older daughter.