The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [266]
In their own tent, Tobie said, “Keep your voice down. We knew he would probably do this. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“Anna!” Nicholas said; and Tobie realised, yet again, that the issue was not Pagano Doria.
Tobie said, “I don’t believe what Doria was saying. I don’t believe the Emperor would talk about total surrender, even with Amiroutzes beside him. Don’t you think Doria would tell any tale to ingratiate himself with the Sultan? He can’t fetch the armour himself, but he can tell the Sultan where the Spahis can dig for it. They won’t pay him, perhaps, but he’ll get what he wants. Exclusive trading rights under the Sultan.”
“Or fur-lined small clothes,” said Nicholas. He was beginning to get hold of himself, although his hat still lay where he had thrown it, and his face was drawn and tight.
Tobie said encouragingly, “He’ll probably die anyway. We’ll probably all die together.” He broke off quickly. There was a trampling at the mouth of the tent. He had, however, been whispering. All the same, Nicholas bent and slipped a hand into and out of his saddlebag. The tent flap opened and the handsome black page held a pose in the entrance, keeping the tent flap apart. Below the pristine folds of the turban, his eyes were large and white-ringed and knowing. He said, “There they are.”
So Doria’s servant had recognised them. Tobie felt tired. After all they had attempted, it seemed a pity that it should end by pure accident. The page had told Mahmud Pasha his master and Mahmud Pasha, too great a man to trouble himself, had probably sent Tursun Beg to deal with the impostors. Tursun Beg, who would recall very well his loss of face at Constantinople. And the ways to die in Islam were many and varied. You were flayed alive; or pulled up on a pulley and dropped on a ganching hook, or beaten to pulp in a mortar. When the tide changed, the Golden Horn was sometimes covered with mats, a floating corpse under each. Someone bent his neck—not very far—and walked into the tent, leaving the page at the door. It was Pagano Doria.
“Messer Doria,” said Nicholas politely. His anger had vanished. Indeed, standing at his full and quite considerable height, he was smiling. Tobie was aware of a strong inclination to back from them both. He waited for the Janissaries.
Doria said, “Master Tobias! I have no quarrel with you. A few words with the Florentine consul here: that is all I should like. You remember Noah, of course.”
The page had walked forward. Taller, but still little more than a child. Tobie waited, measuring the space for his jump. Doria said, “My knife says you won’t do it, Messer Tobias. Or Niccolò dies.”
He had Nicholas by the arm, and a blade pressed to his throat. He wondered how Doria could have moved so swiftly; and how Nicholas could have failed to stop him. Doria said, “I fear, dear doctor, that you must allow Noah to bind you. There is rope.”
It didn’t take long. The little bastard knew how to tie knots, and how to make them hurt. He wasn’t gagged. Of course, if he shouted, he would only bring Turks down upon them, to whom Doria would expose them as spies. Tobie wondered why he hadn’t brought soldiers with him. He wasn’t going to let Nicholas escape, or himself; that was certain.
Before Noah had completed his job, Doria had found the knife in Nicholas’s sash, and slotted it, far out of reach, in the door flap. Then, keeping his own, he stepped back. He was smiling. He said, “It had my name on it, after all. I hope you don’t mind. And this, as you will have noticed, is its companion.” He turned his head. “Noah?”
Tobie, remorselessly bound, lay on the floor and watched Noah nod and go out. Doria, standing himself just inside the door, said to Nicholas, “Sit. On the ground. Or your doctor is dead. As you both will be, presently. And Sara Khatun, I make no doubt. Noah tells me she has passed you off as her camel doctor.”
Nicholas sat, crosslegged as the Sultan had done. He said,