To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [318]
‘I hoped you’d say that,’ he said, and came to her, lifting her fingers. She wore little rings on each one, and long earrings, which mixed with the screws of gilt hair that lay against her tinted cheeks. In Cyprus, she painted her lips, her eyes, her fingertips as if she felt close to home – to Byzantium, to the Trapezuntine empire of her grandfather which now belonged to the Turks. But she had married a Venetian nobleman, Caterino Zeno, who even now was with Uzum Hasan, and who had founded the fortunes of Nicholas and his Bank with an alum deal.
She also painted the tips of her breasts. Or so it now seemed.
Twelve years ago he had returned from Trebizond to find his wife dead, and this woman had offered herself as a vehicle for his pain, his mourning, his remorse, his self-hatred, his oblivion. He had no illusions about her, but he did not and never would forget that.
Then, aged twenty, he had known no mean between a caring love, merry or tender, and the violence which had to be its opposite. Now he had experienced a thousand variants, and could choose. He could offer no genuine love, but would not insult her by taking her lightly. He guessed that, no longer young, she could still have what or whom she desired. She would demand respect, but in her heart longed for excitement.
He made sure that she had what she wanted, and at a pace that suited the voracious girl she had been rather than what she was now. And although he never for a moment forgot the pious saint high on the wall, he acted as if it were not there. He had obtained from Tobie, without explanation, the potion that would put her to sleep, but she hardly needed it, although he lifted her at length from the floor, and laid her on the bed, her breath slowing, and helped her to drink. Then he put the candle out and waited until he heard the click of a door and soft footsteps retreating. He knew where her chamber was, and carried her there without incident, covering her in her bed. He had cut off a doublet button, a ruby, and left her fingers curled round it.
Half an hour later, dressed, he slipped out of the villa and found the door left unlocked in the garden. Very soon after, he stopped at another gate, and spoke a password, and was admitted into a building whose door closed behind him in darkness. He felt someone standing beside him. Then two arms closed round his shoulders: different arms, in a different way. They tightened, then dropped. A lamp glowed.
‘Oh mon Dieu,’ Zacco said. ‘You reek of her. See, I am weeping. See, you whore, you turd, you Flemish cow-sucker, how I am weeping, because you did this for me. Did you finish her? She deserved it.’
He was weeping, his face screwed with manic laughter. An old cap bulged with his hair, and his clothes were ill-fitting and smelled. He said, ‘See: Zacco, King of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Armenia. My lady mother said I could not escape from the Palace, but I did. It was she who said you would come back if I sent for you. And the Patriarch, when he was here. My mother said you would come for love of me and hatred of David de Salmeton. The Patriarch said you might come, but would only stay if we put Caterino Zeno’s wife into your bed. Without, of course, allowing her to know that we wished her to go there. She thought she was fornicating for Venice. You know there is a spyhole in that room?’
‘Nerio was watching,’ Nicholas said. ‘So I made my best efforts. I am supposed to be a whore and a turd?’ He found he was following Zacco into a lit room containing two people. One was the black-eyed veiled person of Marietta of Patras, the King’s mother. The other was the man he had just had supper with, Hadji Mehmet, the Persian envoy.
Nicholas knelt at the lady’s feet and kissed her hand, meeting the considering gaze. He rose and spoke to the envoy in resigned Greek. ‘What did they expect you to do?’
The man was smiling. ‘Fortunately, I am not required to live in the villa, my entourage is too large.