To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [315]
‘Because you’ve seen the boy again, and don’t want to leave him,’ Tobie said. ‘Zacco has called you, I think.’
He supposed it wasn’t a very hard guess. He said, ‘Either Zacco, or David de Salmeton.’
It was quite athletic, the way Tobie sat up. ‘That little whore!’
‘That extremely able agent of the Vatachino, currently occupying a position at Zacco’s right hand, or even possibly at both Zacco’s hands.’
Tobie digested that. He said, ‘But Zacco has a queen now. I mean he’s married to Catherine Corner and she’s pregnant.’ He stopped again and said, ‘Or is all this in reality about David de Salmeton? He half drowned you in Cairo, and you propose to gratify yourself by making him pay for it?’
‘You were closer the first time,’ Nicholas said. ‘I don’t think the message was false. I think it was real. Do you want to come with me?’
‘No,’ said Tobie. ‘But I will.’
At first glance, James de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Armenia, seemed unchanged; nine years after their first meeting, the febrile beauty, the loose waving hair and measuring eyes still stopped the heart. He wore light, expensive French dress; he might equally have chosen Arab or Neapolitan or Venetian attire, or have received Nicholas in the old way, casually naked, half killing some horse. They were the same age. Today he was seated on his throne in his palace of Nicosia, and something was wrong.
The surroundings were the same. Gold had been lavished on the royal apartments in recent years. Nicholas had noticed it three years ago on the brief visit which had seemed, then, to confirm his Bank’s share in the Crusade: the promise of an alliance with Zacco and Cairo, Venice and Rhodes which would have placed him at the spearhead of this attack on the Turk.
It had not happened, because of Gelis and his son. He had assumed he had Zacco’s hatred, as he had received the vituperation of Ludovico da Bologna and Rhodes. He had mollified Venice with money and with his ships. It was as well, because Venice was here now in strength. Not the little Queen, seven months pregnant and unwelcome, he guessed, to Zacco’s fastidious eye. But all those Venetian noblemen whom Zacco had also married, his feline eyes open, his claws sheathed, because he had no alternative. He could fall to the Turk or to Venice. He had chosen Venice.
The King said, ‘My lord of Beltrees. I am told this is your title. I am sure you have earned it. To what do I owe this great honour?’
Zacco’s own language was French, or else Greek. He understood the tongue of his overlord of Egypt and Syria. He was speaking now in Venetian patois, the coarsened slur impressively accurate. Someone shifted behind him: the battle-scarred swarthy person of his Sicilian Chancellor, Rizzo di Marino. The Catalans and Sicilians of Zacco’s close inner circle had a better measure of the Venetian temper than had Zacco. For Zacco, there were seldom any half-measures: life was a stallion to be ridden bareback, kill or be killed, for the ecstasy. It was one of the reasons he and Nicholas had always understood one another.
Nicholas said, ‘Sire, last time I called, you were gracious enough to lend me a horse. Since I was passing, I brought another, to replace it. Also a white gyrfalcon from Iceland.’
‘Since you were passing?’
Nicholas said, ‘My notary has some business in Rhodes: a legal quibble which requires our attention. I merely wished to repay my debt, and congratulate your magnificence on your marriage to the lady Catherine Corner.’
‘Catherine Véneta,’ said the King. ‘The Queen has been adopted by the Republic. She is a Daughter of St Mark. The Bishop of Turin, a contemptible fool, has quipped that he never heard that St Mark had been married.’
‘A contemptible and an ignorant fool,’ Nicholas said. ‘Of course he was married. How could a man be a saint, who has fathered a child outside matrimony?’
‘We must discuss