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By Root 2961 0

civilly smiling, while the gangplank was lowered and Tristão Vasquez walked, surprised, towards her, the boy following. She allowed Vasquez to kiss each hand in turn and, smiling again, permitted the boy to plant his lips on her cheek. From the shelter of the deck, it was possible to see her brows rise in animation as questions were asked and answered. In Portugal and Madeira, she and Simon shared a family business with Tristão Vasquez. She must be well acquainted with Simon’s sister and her family. Perhaps, when staying there, they used the same fondaco. It looked as if the acquaintance were cool rather than intimate. The boy burst into speech and her face altered, politely. She was listening, no doubt, to an account of the pirate ship’s interception.

It could only be a moment before she learned of the boy’s hurt, and then of how it had been tended. Too far to lip-read, Nicholas could guess how her questions then sharpened and changed, as her face did. Sooner than he expected, she turned deliberately and looked up to the deck, and along it, and found him. Across all the noisy space that lay between them, he met her eyes.

Primaflora said, ‘Your Simon is not there.’

‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘That is the lady Katelina his wife. His second wife. Come and let me present you to her.’

Chapter 14

FOR TWO YEARS, since their last meeting in Bruges, Katelina van Borselen had been in no doubt that one day, in a place of her choice, she would confront the cold, whoring servant who had used her to impose an incestuous child on her husband. For part of that time, Nicholas – Claes – had been out of her reach, first in Trebizond, and then wandering no one knew where. Once, in Venice, her husband had caught him, but nothing had come of it, and Simon had been embroiled in his own affairs since, while always expecting and planning to compete with Nicholas, and to outwit him in whatever he did. Believing the child to be his, Simon didn’t know that Nicholas had already overmatched him, now and for all time to come. Simon despised Nicholas, and could be driven by temper to attack him. Simon didn’t have the reason she had to pursue Nicholas, and punish him, and make him forfeit his life.

She had learned in Anjou that Nicholas – Claes – might be fighting in Italy, and hoped that the Angevins, instructed by Jordan, would kill him. They did not. She had been told that Nicholas – Claes – had been invited to join the Queen of Cyprus, and hearing that he had vanished from Italy, concluded that Cyprus was where he had gone. Then she had learned that Carlotta of Cyprus, returned from begging, was to launch her renewed bid for her kingdom from Rhodes.

The company of St Pol & Vasquez had business in the Levant. It also produced wine and sugar, and had reason to interest itself in its competitors. It was easy to suggest to Tristão, who knew nothing of Nicholas, that he should visit Rhodes, making an excuse on the way to see Cyprus. He had required a little persuading, but had agreed. When he left, taking his son, he had expected to meet Simon on Rhodes.

Once, Katelina would have let Simon go, to finish the business between himself and Nicholas, Now, she was determined to do so herself. Simon didn’t know, she discovered, that Nicholas had been invited to fight for Carlotta, and she saw no reason to tell him. After Tristão had gone and Simon, without his wise guidance, had begun as usual to see more of his mistresses than his desk, Katelina had suggested that she, and not he, should travel to Rhodes to meet his partner. Knowing her dislike of heat and travel, he had been surprised, but after a very short time, had agreed. For him, it meant freedom. He felt hampered by her, and irritated by Lucia’s silent censure. Katelina had left him with relief, and no sense of maternal anxiety. The spurious heir to Kilmirren and Ribérac was twenty-two months and an infant. Far off in Scotland, he was unlikely to miss her.

For all the times she had travelled by sea, the voyage always upset her, and the journey to Rhodes had been terrible. Then, arrived there,