The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [328]
The King, cloaked beside him, said, ‘You forgive me, Nikko, for stealing you from your little girl and my music?’ His tone was playfully insulting. He had his Sicilian chamberlain and a Florentine agent with him.
‘Not yet, my lord,’ Nicholas said. The heavy wooden gates opened on gardens: it was an ancient palace. A fountain played, giving him a moment’s unease. They were, of course, expected. His visit had been planned from the beginning, like his other arrivals in Cyprus; and by the same people, or some of them.
He had been restrained every step of the way and further hampered by the presence of the girl: on the initiative of Brother Lorenzo, he assumed; that powerful monk of St Catherine’s who would know Ludovico da Bologna so very well. The bones of the scheme had been apparent to anyone of intelligence long before, and Nicholas could have no complaint: for various reasons he had allowed it to happen. So long as it led him where he wanted to go.
A well-dressed man emerged from the light of the villa and bowed, his steward behind him. The King called, ‘Ah, mon père.’ And to Nicholas: ‘You know Andrea Corner, Marco’s brother? To him, more than anyone, I owe my present nuptial bliss. Come.’ And he dismounted by the lanterns in a billow of silk, his smile angelic. Just before leaving, Nicholas guessed, he had started to drink. Perhaps because Nicholas had done the same.
It was unlikely that Andrea Corner would notice. He made the King a full and practised salute and turning to Nicholas, greeted him in the flattering style of an equal. He was, of course, a rich man; or had become so since crossing to the King’s side from that of his sister. He had chosen to speak French, Nicholas observed, although Zacco knew Latin and could make himself understood, if he felt like it, in the argot of the Venetian Arsenal. When he liked, his tongue could rake like his leopards.
Now, of course, he was older. They both were. They were each watching and weighing the other, to see what experience might have added, or dimmed. Zacco took the stairs with the muscular drive of an animal and stood at the top to be admired, his lip curling. Nicholas suddenly smiled in return. So let battle commence.
The great salon on the first floor was not large, but a dozen could sit there in comfort, and seven were already there, standing as the King entered. One of them was the Patriarch of Antioch. Next to him, surely, was the new Venetian Bailie, the brother of Paul Erizzo, the dead hero of Negroponte. And next to him, rising from cushions, was a group of robed men whose leader, stepping forward, Nicholas knew from an encounter in Florence, a decade ago. Hadji Mehmet, senior ambassador of the lord Uzum Hasan, ruler of Persia.
A delegation to the King of Cyprus from the third greatest Muslim prince in the world. No. Correction. A delegation, not yet official, not yet recorded, to assess the consequences of the Turkish conquest of Negroponte, and to discuss an alliance against the Sultan of Turkey between the powers whose interests were represented here. A league of defence. A league of offence was not out of the question.
He wondered, as the introductions were made, who represented the Sultan at Cairo. He wondered who represented the Knights of St John and the other Italian states. He wondered what in detail they wanted of him: his ships, his army, his debtors, his wealth. He understood absolutely what Ludovico da Bologna had done to bring him here and why. And he thought, with a lift of the heart that turned him dizzy, that this time he would get what he wanted. They could not afford to deny him.
He shook hands with the others but embraced Hadji Mehmet, dredging up the kind of Arabic he had forgotten and seeing his pleasure reflected in the other man’s face. Ten years ago, after the fall of Constantinople, Ludovico