Race of Scorpions (66 page)

Later, when he had pulled her up from the gorge, and found his saddlebags, and unpacked wine and cheese, bread and melon, he could feel the silence behind him, and knew that the staved-off world had come back, and with it anxiety, if not doubt; and hesitation over the immensity of the gap which now must be bridged by words. He said, ‘Rich-crowned Cytherea, you are spent. Eat and drink, and then we shall see what has to be done. Don’t let anything worry you.’

Her hands round the wine-cup were trembling. ‘I didn’t care,’ she said. ‘They could have come in their thousands. At that moment, I didn’t care.’

He said gently, ‘They were up against the most powerful thing in the world. You may be frightened of them again, but perhaps never quite so much. Or perhaps not at all. How did it start? The fear?’ He was eating melon to prevent himself from touching her again.

She smiled, but her eyes were unseeing. ‘My dearest nurse died. The girl who came next had lovers. She let the moths beat on the lamp by my bed while she pleasured them.’

He threw the melon away and laid his arm round her, caressing. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘No. I want to tell you. Then the first time Simon touched me was in a garden. There were moths, gnats and a kiss –’ She broke off and said starkly, ‘I hated him.’

His fingers stopped. He said, ‘Don’t. I don’t. It is not what will help him.’

Then she said, ‘Is he your father?’

He laid her hand down. After a moment he drew up his knees and embraced them. He said, ‘I believe so. And so did my mother, his first wife.’

He could hear his voice, cool and quite steady. She said, ‘But he has never sired children.’

‘Oh, yes.’ he said. ‘A son, born dead before me. Between his death and my birth, Simon claimed never to have slept with my mother. My mother said she had slept with no other. I believed her.’

Katelina said, ‘You knew her?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘She lived with her father, after Simon cast her off. She died when I was seven.’

‘And?’ she said.

‘And so I was sent to take service in Geneva. I suppose Simon hoped I would stay there for ever. But my mother’s father – his wife – his wife’s sister –’

‘But Marian de Charetty gave you a home,’ Katelina said. ‘And reared you. And married you.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I asked her to marry me.’ After a bit he said, ‘Who told you? That Simon’s wife was my mother?’

‘Simon,’ she said. ‘He boasted that you plotted to destroy all your family, but had failed to harm him. He said you believed he was your father. And so, I thought, you had –’

‘Plotted to foist my child incestuously and secretly on him. Do you still think so?’ he said.

‘I haven’t been honest,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been honest with you, have I? You came to me because I wanted it. I told you it was safe. You had no way of knowing a child was coming. I don’t know why you married.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Then, you and I couldn’t have married; you couldn’t have borne it. It all came from unhappiness. I have always known that.’

‘I might have killed you,’ she said. ‘At Lindos …’

He turned and smiled at her, his hands tightly clasped. ‘You were within your rights. I came to poison the plants. You must know that by now. But hot only that. To find out if you were safe, and Diniz. And to make sure you would stay safe.’

She said, ‘But why should I not be?’ She frowned. ‘The fight at the ravine. My escort were attacked, and then left me.’ She looked up. ‘Left me to the snakes, but for you. Was that planned? How did you know?’

‘Through a cunning lady called Persefoni,’ Nicholas said. ‘She presented you with your life. She set us both under the Fontana Amorosa, and whosoever drinks from that, they are thirsty for ever.’ She moved, and he said, ‘No. Please. If I touch you again, I
shall never tell you what you have to know. Listen. Someone didn’t want you to live. They tried to kill you before, but only murdered Tristão. They lay in wait. They knew you would follow him.’

She was sitting up now, her brows straight. ‘Who?’

‘The Queen,’ he said. ‘And perhaps Primaflora.’

‘The Queen?
’ she said.

‘And Primaflora,’ Nicholas said. ‘The Lusignan fight to win, and the Queen is a Lusignan. She failed to persuade me to join her in Venice; she thought she had me at Bologna; she sent Primaflora to trap me in Bruges and later in the Abruzzi. She made me a Knight, when a refusal meant killing my company, and when she thought you might harm me, she sent out orders to stop you: to kill you, if need be. Then, when you found your way to Cyprus, she had no conscience at all about accepting what information you could send her.’

He stretched, and smiled at her. ‘But by then, I had tricked her by taking service with Zacco, and she wanted me dead. You were supposed to arrange that. You or Diniz. When you didn’t, she used you to trap me. And to get rid of the plants. She still thinks to regain Cyprus: she doesn’t want sugar plants sent to Madeira. And I, to be truthful, didn’t want Simon to have them. He has done his best to spoil my trade. It is legitimate to defend myself. I have never done more than that.’

‘And Primaflora?’ she said. ‘All along, she has acted for Carlotta?’

‘All along, she has acted for Primaflora,’ Nicholas said. ‘She has no money, no protector. She lives by her wits and a certain … love of style. She has been waiting to see who will win.’ He paused. ‘We have been lovers. You know that. And there have been others. You probably know of them. This is not the place for explanations, but if I’m being used for a purpose not my own, it seems only fair to return the compliment. I’m not presuming to say that the exercise is distasteful; just that it’s only an exercise.’

She turned with a sudden, generous gesture, stretching her hand to his arm, and smoothing it down to his knuckles. She said, ‘Your palms are hurt already. You think that is how Primaflora feels. I think she is not with you from duty.’

He loosened his hands. ‘She is with me for many reasons,’ he said. He hesitated and said, ‘The plants were part of her fee.’

‘For what?’ she said. She turned fully towards him.

‘For your safety,’ he said. ‘As you see, she has cheated.’ He waited and said, ‘She is jealous. She won’t try again. She will leave the island before you do.’

Her eyes had grown dark. ‘With you?’ said Katelina.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am the rest of her fee.’

Silence stretched. She looked down, holding his hands without seeing them. She said, ‘I can’t go back to Simon.’

Nicholas said, ‘You must; because of his son.’

Her grip loosened, and her gaze came up, agonized. She said, ‘You have never seen him.’

He had recovered the cool voice, and kept it. ‘You and I made him,’ Nicholas said. ‘With you, he will have a name, and be happy. With me, he will be the bastard of a bastard. And if you leave Simon and don’t come to me, who will care for your son?’

She said, ‘I wondered, when I was carrying him …’ She stopped.

‘What?’ he said. He rose quietly and stood looking down at her.

‘If you would want him. If you were fond of children. If you had others. If you would be a kind father. If you would marry me.’

He said, ‘I have no others. Servants know how to protect themselves. Katelina, we can’t marry. You will have to be father and mother. But as he grows … I should like to know something about him.’

‘I don’t know him,’ she said. ‘He has your nature, and beauty. I couldn’t give my heart to him, as well.’

‘Now you can,’ Nicholas said.

Her eyes were filled. ‘But is that all? Is that all I am to have? I thought in Bruges it was like this because it was the first time.’

‘I could have told you it wasn’t,’ Nicholas said.

‘But you didn’t tell me,’ she said. ‘If you had, none of this would have happened.’ He made no reply. She said with sudden violence, ‘Simon – he is a weak man who has never grown up. He is like Diniz. He is no older than Diniz.’

Nicholas said, ‘What do you think Zacco is like? I had to choose between Carlotta and her brother, and chose Zacco because he appeared a strong ruler. But he’s also immature, and he’s spoiled, so he has to be led, and tempted and coaxed, or he loses his way. I don’t sleep with him. You have that advantage with Simon. I have said to you before: help him. You know a lot about trade. Has he built refineries, or has he fallen into the error I have, of finding myself held to ransom by others who got there before me? I shall make a good profit this year, but not the profit I should have made. Warn him.’

Katelina looked up at him thoughtfully. ‘You mean it? But you ruined his plants?’

Nicholas said, ‘I’ll return an attack. But I won’t stop him developing his own, legitimate trade. He needs that. He needs you.’

‘And the name, then, of the predator?’ said Katelina.

He said, ‘There is only one firm. You have named it.’

She was sitting so still that he was afraid he had been wrong to
speak of it. But her thoughts, it seemed, were on something different. She said, ‘How can I advise him? I should need help. I should need to write to you, or see you. I could come to Bruges. You would have reason to pay visits to Bruges. We could meet.’

‘And Simon?’ Nicholas said. ‘He would find out. We couldn’t meet without coming together like this. Or I couldn’t.’

She rose and kissed him in the way he had just taught her, which was brutally unfair. ‘No?’ She left her arms round his shoulders, and all her body fitted into his. She said, ‘Then come to me. We would take the child. We would marry, eventually. Or does it frighten you, owning a family?’

He took her hands and held her off, without releasing her. ‘You know as well as I do,’ Nicholas said, ‘that Simon will kill to keep his son; and would kill Arigho himself if he thought he was mine.’

In his vehemence, he had used the Italian form. Katelina said, ‘Is that what you call him in your mind?’

He squeezed her hands lightly and dropped them, turning. ‘I know, of course, you named him after your uncle. Jordan must have been very displeased.’ He knelt to pack his small possessions.

‘The Heart as Love’s Captive,’ she said with dislike. ‘He was helping King René to paint it, and mocking Simon with every breath. Why doesn’t Simon kill Father Jordan?’

Nicholas stood with the packages. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘Father Jordan is probably waiting for Simon to kill you, and me, and the child. He plays games.’

‘Like you,’ she said. Now they were ready she had turned very pale.

Nicholas said, ‘No. I invent puzzles, and their solutions. The solution to this one says that you go straight to the monastery of Kalopetra – I’ll take you there – and describe how you fled after the ambush. You will be amazed when the escort turn up, much dishevelled. You will obtain some respectable clothing – how?’

‘My servant,’ Katelina said. ‘She’s already there with my baggage.’

‘I wondered,’ Nicholas said. ‘So then you set off, well protected, for the City where, I am told, you will find a ship for the west already awaiting you. Get on board. Get on board, and delay for nothing.’ He had no more instructions to give, but he went on rambling as he laid the stole over her loosened hair and folded it over her chemise. ‘For she was clad in a robe out-shining the brightness of fire, enriched with all manner of needlework, which shimmered like the moon over her tender breasts, a marvel to see.’ He stopped rambling and said, ‘No … We mustn’t …’

The silk cord had gone, so he plaited rushes quickly together and set the band round her brow, over the linen. He stood, admiring what he had done. ‘And poor broidered zone; but not much the worse. Was it made for you?’

‘It was sent me,’ said Katelina. ‘A gift from the Queen, sent to Lindos. And after I sail for Portugal?’ With his help, she mounted, and he vaulted up behind her and, reaching round her, collected the reins.

‘And then? Be happy, Katelina,’ he said. ‘If you think, now, that you know what happiness is. It can be found without me.’

There were tears on her cheeks. She said, ‘I know. I know what you’ve said. But Simon may die. What if Simon should die? I could marry you then.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But I have tied myself too, as I told you. I have to pay the rest of my fee to Primaflora. Here, she has all she wants. To persuade her to leave, I couldn’t suggest less than marriage.’

He made to shake the reins, but her hand on his held the horse still. Her face had filled with incredulity, with alarm, with dismay. ‘A courtesan!’ Katelina said. ‘When the Queen suggested it, that was an insult. We can escape, you and I, without your having to wed Primaflora.’ She hesitated in a way that once she would never have done. ‘Unless you want it. I have no right. I am married, and you are not.’

‘I am married,’ he said. ‘Whether I want it or not is irrelevant. It was the price of my life, as well as yours.’

For a long time, she sat motionless within his embrace. He freed the reins and motioned the horse to a walk, then a trot. After a while he heard her say, ‘You are married. When did you marry her?’

‘At Lindos, before I came to the castle. Without her, I should never have reached you.’

‘So you were in no danger?’ she said slowly. ‘Even though I raised the alarm?’

In his turn, he took a long time to answer. Then he said, ‘I shall never know. I hope I shall never know.’

She looked round at him then with pain in her face. She said, ‘But one day, you may have a son. Another son.’

He smiled at the fierceness in her voice, and shook his head, and said, ‘Primaflora is not my family, only my escort. I have the only son I need, and he is in good hands. Rear him well for me.’ After that, there was only a short way to go, and she didn’t speak.

He helped Katelina to dismount just out of sight of the monastery, but it took much longer to persuade her to free him.

At the last, they stood, their hands still engaged, and faced one another in silence. It was then, resting his eyes on her face, that he saw how it had altered. The resentful anger had gone, and the desperation; and the beauty that had always been there had come to full flower. Her eyes shone like the pool of the waterfall, and her lips were tender with kissing. He recognised the radiance of love
given as well as love received, and felt abashed, and thankful, and anguished. She had made the crossing for him. She had opened her heart, and delight should reward her.