The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [324]
He had been well rewarded, for a time. He had been given or promised land, villas, estates, appointments. Given also, something even approaching deep friendship.
It had fallen apart, and he had left. When he lost his possessions, after that, it was no more than befell most of Zacco’s beneficiaries. The island was becoming impoverished; the Mameluke Sultan at Cairo was greedier than before. In Cairo just now, Nicholas had encouraged him to be greedier still. In Naples, he had promoted a bold, a different marriage alliance that might seem, on the surface, only to the King’s greater benefit. Nicholas was not the mortal enemy of Zacco, although some might think he had cause to be. There were, however, some scores to settle, which in a leisurely way he was doing. He had passed too much of his life playing the victim.
Anyone who knew about Cyprus would know some of that and, of course, recent events. How Venice, afraid to find the Turks entrenched on the island, had married Marco Corner’s daughter to Zacco the young lion, helpless and raging to find himself torn between masters. However much Nicholas had made life difficult lately for Zacco, he did not expect Zacco to retaliate. Not unless he lost control more than usual. And that, too, Nicholas could deal with nowadays.
The rest of the matter of Cyprus only Tobie knew, of his present companions. He did not speak of it, and neither did Nicholas. Even when the island appeared, violet, green, scented, feathered with palm trees, no one remarked when their course took them to Famagusta. Most ships used the great harbour. The chapel of St Catherine was nearby, and the lodge of the Knights Hospitaller, and the Convent of St Francis. It was right that present good should be allowed to drive out past tragedy.
Nicholas looked for the girl and found her in the bows, learning how to drop a bob line. She had, at least, changed into one of the gowns he had contrived for her in Gaza. It had the same failings as the doublet he wore: she looked like a Chinaman going to Mecca. She looked cheerful.
His thoughts drifted again, and he put himself out of the way and watched the island coming closer. The landing didn’t concern him: he had no goods to declare; no employment to seek. He knew where to find suitable lodgings; the pendulum would tell him, to an inch, where to go next. And then, quickly, he would leave.
Afterwards, sane, he wondered how he could ever have been so naïve.
Tobie, who was frightened, had tried to prepare the girl a little, since Nicholas seemed to be on another planet. He couldn’t believe, yet, that he was on a ship sailing into this harbour with Nicholas, who had never felt moved to talk about what had happened six years ago at Famagusta, or what had happened at the fort of St Hilarion, where his brilliant attack on an enemy had turned to desperate tragedy. As his attacks so often did.
Of course, there had been lighter moments. Tobie had described some of them to the girl. The Arthurian joust, for example, with himself as the Loathly Damsel and John le Grant as the Lion, and Nicholas in two yellow plaits got up as Guinevere. And then he had come to a halt, remembering how it had ended, with the death of Lucia’s husband. Lucia, whose own death Katelijne had seen.
He had talked, a little, of the siege of Famagusta, and the last starving days of the city, but had not explained that Nicholas had shared in that agony, or that this was where the mother of Henry had died. Kathi did not even know that Katelina and Nicholas had been lovers.
He had hinted at the youth and beauty of Zacco, but had said nothing else. He knew that she sensed something imminent of more importance to