Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [46]
Godscalc said, ‘I didn’t mean to belittle your friendship. I am concerned for him, too.’
Loppe turned. He said, ‘He will go, no matter what.’
‘I realise that,’ the priest said. He paused. He said, ‘In the boat, his answers – half his answers – were meant to mislead. I wish I knew the truth of the other half.’
In the dark, he could see nothing of the other man’s face. Then Loppe said, ‘The man Tristão Vasquez died as he said. He had stolen vine cuttings for Madeira. The plan was that the lady Katelina should also die, as in the outcome she did. Those who arranged it were the Queen and the lady Primaflora.’
‘His wife?’ the priest said.
‘Nicholas didn’t know. He thought he had purchased the demoiselle’s safety. Instead, both she and Diniz ended in Famagusta, where she died.’
‘Which Nicholas was besieging,’ Godscalc said. Loppe was silent. Godscalc said, ‘And the boy Diniz. Nicholas had freed him, but his grandfather went to extraordinary lengths to take him away?’
Loppe said, ‘You don’t understand, do you? The family may never admit it, but Nicholas and Diniz are cousins. Nicholas knows it. Diniz, I think, knows it is possible. On Cyprus, Nicholas and the boy built a friendship. After years of hatred, the demoiselle Katelina also learned to know him, and understand. Nicholas stayed with the demoiselle till her death. He saw Jordan de Ribérac denounce the boy’s trust as unnatural and snatch him away. That is why Nicholas couldn’t race after him. It would only have made matters worse.’
Nothing stirred. ‘Oh, Lord of Mercy,’ Godscalc said. Then: ‘She died in the siege?’
‘Of wounds and starvation. Diniz starved with her, but lived. Nicholas shared their last weeks in the city. He will never speak of it. Many things happened on Cyprus,’ said Loppe. ‘Tobie, John, all of us know them, or guess them. But that was the most terrible.’
A boat rocking, in darkness. And something unsaid which even Loppe knew nothing about. ‘He will have to speak about Cyprus,’ the priest said, ‘if he goes where I think he is going. He wants to make his peace with Simon, with Jordan, with Tristão’s widow? He will never do it. And there is the sister.’
‘The sister?’ Loppe said.
‘Don’t you remember, the only sister of Katelina van Borselen? Her mother is dead, her father ailing, her sister killed, she thinks, in the feud between Simon and Nicholas, and Katelina’s child left a half-orphan far from Flanders. There is a family crushed, and no one but Gelis to speak for it. She left for the south as we came here. She will be in Portugal now, with the Vasquez. And there is tragedy brewing, for Gelis van Borselen holds only one man to blame.’
Loppe said, ‘You speak as if Nicholas didn’t know it. Do you think he planned all this without planning that too? He will deal with his family, and the Vatachino, and finding the gold that he needs for the Bank and the Charetty.’
‘He will try. He may succeed,’ Godscalc said. ‘Intrigue is his life, as we saw today, as you saw on Cyprus. Intrigue, and danger, and a taste for what he transforms, often enough, into high adventure. But whether he means it or not, people die.’
‘It is a hazard,’ said Loppe, and gave a wry smile. ‘He told me, long ago, not to trust him. It is good advice. One does not leave him, however.’
Even where they stood, it was now light. Godscalc said, ‘I remember. I remember what was said in the boat. And yes, I shall go with you.’
He went to his room then, and prayed, and realised that all through his prayers he had been thinking of a tap on the door which had come, once, in Trebizond. But of course men grew, and changed, and tonight the tap did not come.
Chapter 8
AS ACCURATELY REPORTED by Godscalc, the demoiselle Gelis van Borselen, accompanied by a small but cowed bodyguard, had left Flanders for Portugal and had arrived, full of purpose, at the Algarve home of her dead sister’s husband. The demoiselle Gelis had found Simon absent, his child and father invisible, and her sister’s killer hourly expected to descend on a household of twittering women of whom the