Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [98]
‘Lopez,’ said le Grant.
‘Lopez. He had to go down to the harbour.’
‘Why?’ said the engineer. He wiped his hands on his hide coat and opened the door of the hut where his flask was.
‘I don’t know,’ said Astorre. ‘But I saw him down by the Florentine ship. The one from Constantinople. It had some alum on board.’
‘I didn’t know we’d left any,’ John le Grant said. He wiped his mouth and passed the wine to the other.
‘We didn’t leave much,’ Astorre said. ‘But it’s good, heh? He came. Now we’ll see something.’
Chapter 15
IN A SNOWY farmyard south of Bologna, the Queen of Cyprus had recommended her cause to Nicholas, and had sent Primaflora to persuade him. That had been a year ago. Now, her plight was more serious, and the Queen’s recommendations were about to become rather more forceful. This Nicholas saw, the moment he stepped from the hospice in Rhodes and witnessed the size and degree of his escort. Beneath the curled plumes of their helmets the soldiers’ manner was nothing but courteous. His negro servant on foot at his stirrup, he found himself drawn at great speed through narrow ways lined by white Levantine houses, their walls overlooked by dripping palm trees. His cavalcade trotted through markets crowded with mules and camels and people, passing between stalls of hung game, of copper, of medicines; and beside carpets of herbs and grain and trussed fowl.
It wound among forges and bread ovens, and up streets thick with the sawdust of woodcarvers, or lined with the trestles and kiln-fires of potters. It passed innumerable shrines, and many small churches. It rode through gusts of heat, and air heavy with yeast and goat dung, mutton and incense, lemons and carobs and blood. It traversed streets sloping upwards, downwards and sideways and the only streets it never climbed and never crossed were the streets of the Knights, built of marble, which, he had been told, lined the height to the Grand Master’s Castle. He wondered why.
They stopped only twice. Once, a line of horsemen in black appeared at a far-distant junction, and the Queen’s cavalcade paused until they had vanished. The second time, their way was impeded by a stationary mule at a junction. Low in its saddle, sandalled feet semaphored, rode a bulky man in a cloak. Below it, he wore the white-girdled gown of a Franciscan.
Nicholas recognised him, with a groan, as belonging to the same snowy battle at Siila. He remembered a curt conversation, during which he claimed to have escaped from Carlotta. He remembered the derision in the monk’s ferocious eyes. It was there again now. The man looked up, and the rain beat upon his blue bristled tonsure and jowls.
‘Brother Ludovico da Bologna,’ Nicholas said with resignation.
The friar turned from the captain, approached Nicholas and, as the cavalcade moved, put the mule to a trot at his instep. ‘Not precisely. You may say Father,’ he said. ‘Or Monseigneur, of course.’ His voice was earthy, and rumbled. ‘The Venetians made me a priest. You’re not surprised?’
‘That the Venetians made you a priest?’
The Franciscan hawked and spat, conveying amusement. ‘To see me here. You are addressing the Patriarch of the Latins in Antioch, and that’s Antioch over your shoulder, give or take a sea passage and a few hundred miles. The Levant is my parish. I thought you would try for the sugar. You did well by the Queen in Bologna. You won’t be sorry.’
‘You’re with Carlotta?’ Nicholas said. ‘Still? Again?’
‘I don’t discriminate,’ the Franciscan said. ‘Black or white, man or woman, dolt or traitor or zealot. I’m with anybody who’ll stop that foul dog the Sultan from snapping at Christians. But don’t let that bother you. I’ve seen boys like you, mad for land and money and titles.’
‘And women,’ said Nicholas.
‘And women. You’ll get them all. They won’t cool you in hell.’
‘That’s all right. I was going to refuse them,’ said Nicholas. ‘Anything else?’
Ludovico da Bologna examined him. He said, ‘And