To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [328]
Crackbene said, ‘The King’s mother is here. She came in a covered coach, with the children.’
And that was touching, as well as surprising. Famagusta was a Venetian fortress these days, guarded by Venetian ships. All the King’s friends, all the disaffected lived in Nicosia, the capital. Famagusta was a dangerous place for the King’s mother, as it had been for the King.
Crackbene said, ‘They will ask you to stay on the island.’
‘They will ask anyone to stay, who has money and arms. I want you to go to Julius at Rhodes, and bring him back here with a ship provisioned for a voyage to Venice.’
‘The gold?’ Crackbene said.
‘Tell him to bring it, of course, if he has it; but there is little chance that he will. This is going to change everything.’
‘And you are not staying?’
‘Bring the ship,’ Nicholas said.
The following day, in the presence of the court, the King made his will: ‘Si Dieu fait sa volonté de moi, et si je meurs, je laisse ma femme, maîtresse et reine de Chypre, laquelle se trouve enceinte. Et, en outre, si elle met au monde un héritier, mon enfant aura la royaume.’ … ‘If God hath his will of me, and if I die, I leave my wife Queen and Mistress of Cyprus: she who carries my child. And if she gives day to an heir, my child shall inherit my kingdom.’
He directed that, failing this, his heir should be chosen from his other three living children. He asked that on his death, all those imprisoned for rising against him should be released; and all his galley-slaves freed.
Those who left the chamber were weeping. There remained, now, only the nominal doctors whose task was to make his death easy, and the priests who filled the chamber with incense, and the murmurs of intercessory prayer.
Nicholas saw him once more, in a slow procession of men who entered the room and knelt to kiss the King’s hand. He did not think that Zacco recognised him.
Late at night on Tuesday, the sixth of July, 1473, James of Lusignan died.
Earlier that evening, in a quiet rumble of wheels, a wagon set out, carrying three sleeping children back to Nicosia, escorted by the King’s personal guards. After the death, no bells were rung. Only the lights remained burning all night in the tall windows of the King’s marble palace; and in the Latin Cathedral of St Nicholas the painted glass glimmered, and the divine chant of ritual music, hoarse and low, hung on the warm scented air. In the stables, a lévrier whimpered.
Freed at last, Tobie went to the room of his partner and said, ‘I have to take you somewhere.’
Marietta of Patras was not weeping. She had been making preparations to leave: servants ran to her command, struggling with painted chests and stiff leather boxes. Dismissed, they closed the door, leaving Tobie to usher in Nicholas, as she had asked.
She had come from her son’s death-bed, but the kohl round her eyes was untouched. Only she had torn off her veil, so that they looked at the obscene crimson stump of her mutilation, and no illusion remained of the looks she once had.
She said, ‘You will, of course, forsake us at once.’
Nicholas said, ‘I am sorry, nobildonna.’ Tobie didn’t look at him.
The lady said, ‘Quite. Pour loïauté maintenir. If the King failed to win you, who else could? Doubtless you will also abscond with the treasure.’
There was a pause. Nicholas said, ‘Honoured lady, I know of no treasure.’
‘Indeed?’ said the King’s mother. ‘Yet my son referred to it in his will. A great treasure, gathered with pains and kept secret. But he did not say where it was.’
‘I cannot help you,’ Nicholas said.
She looked at him. ‘You think not. Well, perhaps we shall see. Come with me. I have something to show you.’
In a locked room, his hands bound, sat a man.
David de Salmeton of the Vatachino was not now, Tobie was gratified to see, the superb miniature beauty of Cairo and Cyprus: the curling dark hair was tangled; the pure jaw bruised; the long fingernails broken. His eyes, darker than Zacco’s, were sunken.
His voice, none the less, was successfully sardonic. ‘You, too! Come and join me. Now the goose is dead, all will