Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [88]
‘They respect that?’ said Tristão.
‘Not necessarily,’ Nicholas said. ‘But finding it, they might spare the lady.’ He felt, for the first time for a while, and despite everything, surprisingly happy.
It was dark before the round ship pulled away, and the galley, shaken, continued its course towards Rhodes. The master, his checking done, came to rehearse the tragedy with his four guests. ‘They have taken all of value. You would say they knew what we carried.’
‘I can vouch that they didn’t,’ said the older Portuguese with disgust. ‘They knew the value of nothing.’
‘They took the wine,’ the master said. ‘And the sugar.’
‘That is the least of it,’ the Portuguese said. Nicholas said,
‘The sugar? What sugar?’
‘The sugar for Rhodes,’ said the master. ‘You’re from Kolossi. You ought to know. Eight hundred quintals of sugar, less fourteen for the use of the Commander. They’re expecting it. It’s arranged for. They’ll have the skin off my back for not bringing it.’
Primaflora looked at Nicholas and Nicholas did not return the look. He said, ‘I thought the sugar harvest went to Episkopi to wait for the annual Venetian galley.’
The master shrugged. ‘Who knows? In normal times, maybe.’
‘I thought,’ Nicholas said, ‘that the Venetians had paid in advance for the right to sell the Kolossi sugar? For many years in advance?’
The master looked Nicholas up and down. ‘Are you saying Queen Carlotta should suffer because the Venetians are greedy? If we had done nothing, the sugar would have gone to Episkopi, and straight to the pockets of the Martini brothers. Of Venice. Of those who secretly promote James de Lusignan. This way, it goes where it belongs. To Rhodes, to be sold by the Knights. The Knights on whom Queen Carlotta relies for her ships and her funds.’
‘And what will the pirates do with it?’ Nicholas said.
‘Who knows? Eat it,’ said the master. ‘Drink the wine, eat the sugar and, if God is good, die of the flux. Excuse me. I have to prepare myself. I have to prepare myself to meet the Treasurer of the Order and explain.’
Later, pushing him surprised over her threshold, Primaflora confronted Nicholas in her hitherto solitary cabin. ‘What do you think the pirates will do?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Sail to Crete, probably,’ Nicholas said. He assumed the face of an owl. ‘The other Martini brother is there.’
‘So they knew the Order was going to cheat?’
‘It seems likely,’ Nicholas said. He allowed his face to unpucker. ‘Carlotta’s consort cheated last year with the royal crop. Smuggled it out from Kyrenia and tried to sell it. That belonged to the Martini brothers as well. But you know that. You were with Queen Carlotta.’
‘The sugar she took to Bologna?’
‘The sugar she tried to take to Bologna,’ he corrected musically. ‘She couldn’t sell it in Venice, because it belonged to the Martini. She found Bologna had started refining, and went to sell it there. But of course Zacco’s men tried to stop her. Did they ever find out, I wonder, that the chests in the river held snow? And what happened to all your fine candy men?’
‘She sold them to the Vatachino. Bologna refiners. They beat her down because the sugar was extremely impure. She left in the eyeballs and buttons. You went to Episkopi yesterday.’
‘Of course. I had to find John of Kinloch.’
‘Of course. And now we know that what John de Kinloch said was correct. You chose the opposite side from the Queen for personal reasons, not because you think she is wrong. Perhaps, too, you are nervous of capable women.’
‘I was married to one,’ Nicholas said.
‘Yes. But she was not twenty-four.’
‘I think,’ Nicholas said, ‘you have put your finger on it. I felt at ease with Cropnose at once. And, of course, with you; but you are incapable. On present evidence. Well, with the door open. Perhaps even now, with the door shut. Or really, it is all these garments that get in the way.’
All her grown life, she had known how to stop a conversation. She had never in all her grown life found it so hard to get one started again. And when, since he wouldn’t leave otherwise, she had