Race of Scorpions

by Dorothy Dunnett

  They had been seen. Not as yet by all three of the men, but by one who already had his handgun set up, aimed fully at John, and the flare in his hand to ignite it. Without thinking, Nicholas unslung his bow. Clinging with toes and with knees, he leaned into the wall and drew an arrow, fast, from over his shoulder. He had it nocked, and the hemp half drawn back when an extra flare lit the sky, and he saw how close the man was to firing, and how ill he looked, and how young he was: a hollow-faced boy, defending the walls of Famagusta.

  Saw, then, that the hollow-faced boy was Diniz Vasquez.

  Chapter 39

  THERE WAS A moment when Nicholas could have released his arrow: he let it pass. He spoke John’s name, to make him look up. Then he tossed his bow to the foot of the wall, and unslung and threw down his quiver. From the gallery, the feverish gaze of Diniz Vasquez held no recognition; but still he hadn’t touched fire to his weapon. His two companions, readying theirs, crowded behind him. The boy said, ‘What are you doing?’

  Nicholas said, ‘We’d planted four mines, before we knew of the truce. We’ve just made them harmless. Bring us up: we’ll tell where they are; you can check them.’ His eyes on Diniz, he spoke in Italian. The boy’s sunken face changed.

  A man said, ‘Treachery! The bugle! Sound the bugle! They’re Zacco’s soldiers. The bastards! The bastards!’ He was weeping. He said, ‘You thought these turds with candles were churchmen. D’you imagine those wagons hold food? Wait till we turn the guns on them all. Watch their powder blow up. Pour lead shot into their fat, meat-stuffed bellies. And as for you …’

  It was his handgun that fired, not the boy’s. But although he aimed it at Nicholas, it fired into the air, for the boy knocked it sideways and held it. The boy said, ‘No. I’ve sent for the captain. But the men in that column are churchmen. Look. I know them. And look, too. The sides of the wagons are slatted. You can see baskets, Vito, not soldiers. And where is the ditch filled with troops? I see only two men, and a bridge too low yet to be of much use to anyone. You?’ He was speaking to Nicholas. Behind him, distantly, a bugle was sounding, followed by the clank and shuffle of armoured men running. The conference outside the gates had ceased, and the torches wavered as men turned to seek the disturbance.

  Nicholas said, ‘It is a real truce. There is no army coming. Throw us ropes. You can hold us until you have proved it.’ Above, the battlements had become crowded with men, and with the mouths of many handguns, pointing downwards. The voice of authority, heard once before, became louder and recognisable, and ceased at the battlements. It said, ‘Bring these men up as far as the penthouse, no further. I will speak with them.’ The voice of Napoleone Lomellini, last seen in the Lusignan castle of Kiti where he had lied, without pleasure, to try and prevent Nicholas from joining Zacco. And from which Zacco had freed him, on ransom, to take this post once again as his enemy.

  There was no reason for a beleaguered host to be gentle when hauling two spies into their precincts, and in their anger and disappointment and fear, the men who handled the drag-ropes would have made sure, but for Lomellini, that these climbers never climbed again. Rising to his feet on the floor of the penthouse Nicholas staggered for a moment, while his wrists were being wrenched back and lashed; and knew from the way John was standing that he had received the same treatment. Where there had been three men there were now a dozen, although he could not now see Diniz Vasquez. Instead, Napoleone Lomellini stood there, no longer furred and beringed, in a helm and cuirass dented and dull in the moonlight. There was no softening in his stare. He said, ‘Niccolò vander Poele. I am told there are bombards. Did you plant them?’

  ‘I am the engineer,’ John le Grant said. ‘They’re safe of themselves, I guarantee it; but of course, a chance shot could do for them. If you give me a torch I’ll show your pioneers where they are bedded.’

  ‘It seems fair,’ said the Genoese captain. ‘And if they blow up, you will know you have forgotten one. Take him away and get him to do as he says. Vander Poele will remain.’ His face, grotesque in the torchlight, was little but bone, dirt and gristle. He turned to Nicholas. ‘I am in no mood for anything but the truth. You will probably die, but certainly you will speak before you die. You, the head of a company, are here as Zacco’s sapper? Explain yourself.’

  ‘The King is in Nicosia,’ said Nicholas. ‘And all his officers. This attack was my own. He knows nothing of it.’

  ‘But the churchmen did,’ Lomellini said. ‘They came to keep us in parley, while you assault us.’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘The church has come in good faith, and is innocent of any deception. I planned an attack, and have cancelled it. You will find we have lit and put out all our fuses. If you want better proof, ask the churchmen. You will learn Zacco has sent them. You will discover, I am sure, that he has forbidden me or anyone else to attack you. If you doubt me, ask yourself where is my army? If it were a ruse, they should be here to exploit it.’

  ‘Except,’ said the captain, ‘that the wall has not fallen. You show us some mines: perhaps there are others still due to explode. Perhaps you have spoken the truth, but, waiting in vain, your friends may well think you dead, and carry out an attack to avenge you. What truce can we accept on this basis?’ The skin of his face hung on its framework like the hides of the penthouse, and weariness and anger and pain scored his brow as if done by a hatchet.

  Nicholas said, ‘You have myself as hostage. Let my engineer go back and tell them so.’

  The man called Vito said, ‘My lord Napoleone. Let me have them both. They will tell me the truth.’

  Through the hubbub of agreement that followed, the captain was gazing at Nicholas. He said, ‘You would deserve it. You have given me no reason to trust you.’

  ‘We are your prisoners,’ Nicholas said. ‘Since our story is true, we cannot change it. I will tell you this also. If you take this step, you will lose the offer of truce.’

  The eyes of the captain turned dark, and if there was any emotion left in his voice, it was that of distaste. He said, ‘From what I hear, that is not impossible. Very well. We stand to arms. I myself will inform the Archbishop what has happened. You and your engineer will be fettered, and will pass the night here, in the penthouse. If there is a cannonade, an explosion, you will be the first to experience it. If the night passes without incident, I may consider the Archbishop’s offer. Meanwhile, the gates remain closed.’ He paused. He said, ‘In the event of trickery, you will know better than to hope for your life. If your story is true, you will be treated according to rank as my prisoner. Meanwhile, the penthouse must serve. I am afraid you have missed the last serving of supper.’

  Nicholas heard the grim humour. From where he stood, he could see the long procession outside the walls, motionless now, and the wagons unshackled behind it. He said, ‘At least, let the wagons come in.’

  ‘Are we animals?’ said the Genoese bitterly. ‘That we forsake prudence, right conduct and dignity for the sake of our stomachs? In the morning, should this truce be agreed, leave will be given to draw in the wagons. Until then, we wait. We are accustomed to it.’

  The night wore on. Stretched on the floor of the penthouse, Nicholas could glimpse the outside world between the battered planks. The procession from the Cathedral had not deserted the city but remained, silent now, on the land that lay before its main gate, its banners planted like wings about a central pavilion, its walls gold from the brazier within it. In front the Crucifix stood, warding tired men in sleep and in prayer. All around, torches burned; and in the centre candles guarded an altar. The carts, with their peaches and oranges, their almonds and grain, their meat and herbs and pulses and pies, their hens and walnuts and figs, their pumpkins and mutton and collops, their casks of sweet fortified wine stood unattended.

  John le Grant, his face barred with light, said, ‘Nicholas?’

  ‘The answer is yes,’ Nicholas said. John le Grant was not Tobie.

  The engineer said, ‘Someone waited three days, and told
Zacco what you were doing. Who? The Patriarch?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Nicholas said. ‘And, of course, Tobias Lomellini is Treasurer of the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes.’

  There was a silence. Then – ‘And if they hadn’t come?’ the engineer said. ‘You would have gone through with it?’

  ‘I thought I was going through with it,’ Nicholas said. He felt bewildered by the ironies of what had happened. He felt terror, and relief, and perplexity, and a consequent inability to plan anything.

  John le Grant said, ‘But the boy? You believed him safe in Portugal?’

  That was another matter. After a while, Nicholas said, ‘He left letters. He thought he was going there.’

  ‘So?’ said the engineer.

  ‘So Bartolomeo Zorzi,’ Nicholas said. ‘Diniz escaped so very easily. He would go to Famagusta, where he thought his Genoese friends would help him. He didn’t know, as Zorzi did, that the harbour was sealed. Zorzi, you see, is a Venetian. And he has an older brother who tells him, sometimes, what to do.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ said John le Grant. ‘So the lad has been in Famagusta ever since? Then I expect Diniz owes you his life. You and Zacco.’

  ‘Provided,’ Nicholas said, ‘that they take in the wagons tomorrow.’

  ‘They will, now they have you,’ said the engineer. ‘They will use you to taste what they’ve been given. You may die like those men of Pesaro’s.’

  ‘Before Famagusta surrenders? No,’ said Nicholas. ‘That is why I am here. I’ll be kept alive until then. After that, you’re going to help Diniz.’

  ‘Your dying request?’ said John le Grant.

  Nicholas turned on him a look of chilly surprise. He said, ‘Are you my employee? Am I the head of a banking house? You help Diniz Vasquez or I dilute the shares and merge with the Strozzi. Until you’ve worked with Lorenzo, you don’t know what discontent is.’

  ‘I don’t know about discontent,’ said John le Grant, ‘but I know what its opposite is. And I hope you do. Because for once, I will admit, you deserve it.’

  *

  Despite the stiffness and soreness they slept towards dawn, and so missed the colloquy at the portals; the ultimatum; and the exchanges which led, soon after daylight, to the opening of the gates of Famagusta, and the entry, drawn by many weak hands, of the carts with their soft, fresh, redolent burdens. The gates closed. Outside, the pavilion was packed and placed in its wagon, and the file reassembled, creased and pallid in daylight, to make its way back to beds, warmth and comfort.

  With them walked four thin men in rich-coloured rags. The Genoese, invited by Zacco, had freed a group of their merchants to pass Christmas with James in his Palace. In exchange, Famagusta was to keep two men of Zacco’s as surety. One was the Arab Abul Ismail, who had come to offer his skill as a doctor. The other was Niccolò vander Poele, recently arrested, and at present a prisoner. No special diet (mentioned the captain of Famagusta) would be claimed for these two Lusignan hostages. The lord Bastard had provisioned the city. What had been given, being sound, would amply nourish them.

  Nicholas woke to the flash of a knife; and found his bonds being cut, and John le Grant already stretching and groaning beside him. Then Napoleone Lomellini came, and informed them succinctly of what had happened, and left. Sickness and pride, in the grey light of day, were set in his unchanging face like a mask. The soldiers who flanked them in his place looked no better.

  John was to be released: Nicholas himself was to be marched to the citadel. It was what he had hoped. He had not been prepared for John to stand on the floor of the penthouse, complaining. John said, ‘I’m not leaving. If they keep you, they might as well keep me. Unless, of course, Tzani-bey’s poisoned the food again. Don’t worry. They don’t understand Flemish.’

  ‘Some day,’ Nicholas said, ‘you’ll find yourself somewhere where someone does understand Flemish, and they’ll cut your ears off, and then all your red hair, wherever you grow it. You’ve to go back and get hold of the Patriarch and convince those four Genoese that no rescue is coming. It’s hardly three weeks to Epiphany. This truce is going to end then. And unless the city knows that it’s hopeless, they might simply pick up the whole war again. And that isn’t what I risked my skin and yours for.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said John le Grant. ‘You wouldn’t make a bad pioneer if you had a bit more time for practice. All right. You’ve persuaded me. What do I say about Diniz?’

  ‘Don’t upset the Venetians,’ Nicholas said. ‘Leave that to me, when I get back.’ He watched the engineer go, and then turned and let them take him up to the wall-walk, and down into the beleaguered city where, once, the Genoese had planned to keep him hostage while his company fought for Carlotta. Where now he was to be incarcerated as a hostage, a prisoner, an enemy. As a favourite of James, and therefore the most powerful lever for peace and for charity – did they know how to wield it – that the Genoese had ever been granted.

  A hundred years before, richest of all cities, concourse of merchants and pilgrims, haunt of courtesans, sink of unnatural vice, pride and luxury, Famagusta housed a hundred thousand citizens within its two miles of walls, and was a place of fine squares and great houses, of mills and warehouses, shops and monasteries, stables and shambles and forges, barracks and ovens, merchants’ villas and loggias. A royal palace. A cathedral. A hospice of St John. And three hundred churches.

  With the wars of this century, it had shrunk by a third. That meant that one would expect, close by the walls, dilapidated streets and ruinous houses, robbed out for their stone. A piazza made into a drying-field. A warehouse turned into stables. A mill housing poultry. A marketplace harrowed for beans and melons and cucumbers, and vine-covered shacks and sheep pens and orchards among the stumps of great houses.

  One would expect to pass those kind of suburbs while lifting the eyes to what still lay in the centre, busy, well kept, and profitable. What could still be seen, in the splendid roof-tops and towers of magnificent buildings. A Genoese city, run on good, efficient, prosperous Genoese lines.

  Flanked by his guards, Nicholas stepped down from the wide, crumbling wall-alley into a dark arena of rubble, of stench and of silence. Of the weeds of dilapidation there were none: they had been eaten. Where they had been was raw earth, smothered with the rubbish and dust of bombardment, and pitted with curious mounds and recesses which Nicholas recognised only slowly as rank upon rank of recent, random, haphazard graves. The houses here were ruined and roofless and unoccupied.

  Because he had slowed, the man behind struck him a blow. ‘Heartburn, is it?’ he said. ‘A congestion after yesterday’s eating? That was the Armenian church. Them that died of typhoid, that’s where they were put. There’s St Anna’s. The women liked to go there, but the priests were the first to die. These last months, the women have taken it over, giving birth in the annexe and taking and bricking the babe up as soon as it breathed, and before it got found and eaten. Do you think God punishes men who eat their own children, Zacco’s pageboy? Do we not only die, but go to hell for what we have suffered?’

  ‘Raffo,’ said the other man. ‘He is hostage. We have to escort him safely.’

  ‘I will. I will,’ said Raffo. ‘St Francis’ monastery, do you see it? Beautiful, isn’t it? A bridge joins it to the old Lusignan palace. The Lusignans called it their own royal chapel. There are how many monks? Four, perhaps. They keep the infirmary for those who die clean of infection, from a falling gable, perhaps, when your serpentines find the right range. And there is the covered market. Not covered: the flying stone ripped the awnings. And not a market unless someone finds a birthed dog, or a bird. The roofs are covered with lime to bring in the birds, but the birds are intelligent: they know when there is nothing to feed them. Only the worms from the graveyard, but we are there before them, aren’t we?’

  ‘Raffo,’ said the other man.

  ‘And the Cathedral,’ said the man. ‘Do you like our Cathedral of St Nicholas? The Lusignan used to crown th
emselves there. King Peter – was it King Peter? – who used to stamp his feet weeping if the cook had no oil for his asparagus. We bury our noblemen there, except that they have to lie at present without coffins. I would take you in, but for the smell. And there is the Citadel. You will find people in the yard of the Citadel. Didn’t you wonder why all the streets were empty? All the hearty citizens of this city who can walk are at the Citadel, because that is where they have locked up the food, and are distributing it. Otherwise they are afraid we will kill one another. As if we would so dishonour our mother republic!’

  Nicholas said, ‘You had the choice of surrendering.’

  ‘There is a ship coming,’ said Raffo. ‘We will never surrender.’

  Diniz Vasquez was not visible in the shouting throng of people with sacks, boxes and baskets that crowded the inner yard of the fort of Famagusta, although Nicholas scanned them all as he was led across it. He didn’t see where their baskets were filled, but he observed that soldiers had been appointed to escort each laden man to his house, and that the man’s chin would already be glistening, from the raw food that he chewed as he hastened.

  Some were unable to chew, or to hurry. Some carried enough for a family. Or for those, he supposed, who were too weak or too sickly to walk here. There were monks moving slowly in pairs, bearing great crates of foodstuffs between them, with a soldier on guard at their shoulders. The soldiers stared at the food, and kept swallowing. He learned, when he asked, that they had eaten already, from stores given out in the barracks. It explained, he thought, the absence of Diniz. Nicholas followed where he was led, and climbed the stairs to the captain’s own quarters. Once there, his escort opened a door, saluted, and left. After a moment, Lomellini rose and came forward.

  He had the look of someone felled by sleep, and just wakened. Nicholas said, ‘You have enough to do. Tell me where to stay, and I will go there. The food is clean, but I will taste if you want it.’