Race of Scorpions

  Nicholas said, ‘I thought I was sponsored by Allah.’

  The seigneur seemed undisturbed. ‘King James,’ he said, ‘makes no demands on the conscience of those who choose to work for him. Pray to whom you please, or to no one.’

  Since the abbot was waiting, he went in. It was a small church, dimly lit, and the brethren themselves already half filled it. The scented haze round the lamps revived an unwanted memory: of the moving fog in Marian’s office, just before her daughters set their men to attack him. And if he turned his back on the lamps, there appeared something else from his past: the iconostasis: the wall of worked gold that screened the sanctuary, throwing its light into the deep coloured bowl of the dome, and illuminating the thick, painted pillars like sunlight. He had seen that, too, last year, before he left Trebizond. He had stood in the church of St Eugenios beside the Emperor David, and Amiroutzes, the chancellor who had betrayed him; beside Violante of Naxos who, out of the coolest expediency, had given him the use of her body in Venice; beside the Imperial children who now, with their parents, lived in luxury under the Ottoman Sultan – the reward the Emperor had claimed for his surrender.

  Served to Nicholas now was not the Divine Liturgy which had preceded the anguish of Trebizond; but the plain chant of compline, which echoed the same close-written, cerebral music. Hear us, O God; we beseech Thee to hear us.… Possessing Thee, O Christ, a Wall that cannot be broken … But despite the prayers, Constantinople had fallen, and Trebizond had fallen; and in the end he, Nicholas had done nothing to prevent it. It would have troubled Marian, perhaps, had she lived, and had he told her what he had done. So it was as well she was dead.

  His thoughts were far away when a touch on his arm showed him that the service had ended. Whoever touched him had gone. A monk, seeing him turn, said in Greek, ‘It was Otto: forgive. When the doors open, they enter, the little children of Christ.’ He was smiling, his arm crooked around something. The object, made of some soft material, was white as ermine and seemed to be studded with jewels. Emeralds caught the glow of the candles. Behind it, the monk’s stomach rumbled. Nicholas moved, and something silken passed by his ankles, accelerating as it went. A candle-flame bent. The monk said, ‘You do not dislike them? Apologise, Otto,’ and held out his arms.

  The emeralds were not jewels, but the eyes of a large and muscular cat which came courteously into his grasp and settled itself, its white chin on his forearm, its tail furling with graceful finality. Nicholas laughed and, to silent instruction, found and fondled a spot by one ear. Otto purred and, caressing still, Nicholas scanned the half-emptied church all about him. Between the feet of the monks, the marble floor was laid like a loom with moving skeins of fine silk in dyes he could never have dreamed of: smoke and silver and black, cream and tortoiseshell, orange and butter. But the sinuous shapes were not silk, and the hues came from God, and not man. He was looking at cats.

  Cats proud and indolent, young and playful, arched against monkish robes, sat hunched between icons and lay stretched upon ledges. Kittens played with the gold fringe of carpets; boxed with ungainly paws smooth as catkins. Through the open door he could watch them in the cloisters, slipping from pillar to garden, the same dark forms he had seen on the beach. In his arms Otto stretched with politely soft paws, gathered himself, and sprang elegantly to the ground. The monk said, ‘He is the leader. Watch. They go where he goes. It is called Cape Gata, this place. You had not heard of it?’

  ‘Why?’ said Nicholas. Outside, he could see his abductors waiting for him. He walked slowly, the monk at his side. The monk said, ‘Because of the serpents. It is an island of vipers. Then St Helen of the Cross, when the monastery was young long ago, brought a litter of cats and said, “These will serve you.” And so it has been ever since. By day the cats hunt, and by evening, they come to the bell for their food.’

  ‘They are beautiful,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘They lead us into sin,’ said the monk. ‘We love them too much.’

  They had almost reached the door. Nicholas said, ‘I thought it was an island of scorpions. There is a legend there too, is there not? The Grand Master of Rhodes at least knows it. “… hac in insula Cipri scorpionelis regie domus spurcicia surrexit?” ’

  The monk halted. His eyes, like those of the abbot, were remarkably level and clear. He said, ‘… est enim hac pestifera Jacobus de Lusignano. I know, of course, the quotation. The enemies of James of Lusignan have only to look back to myth to find the bewitched half-serpent Melusine, wife of Raymondin de Lusignan his ancestor.’

  ‘But, unlike the Knights Hospitaller, you are not his enemy?’ Nicholas asked.

  The monk smiled. ‘We have our cats to defend us,’ he said. ‘That and Our Lord. It seems sufficient.’

  Led away by his captors, Nicholas looked back once and saw the monk had remained at the church door. The white cat Otto had returned to his feet and smiling, the man swept it into his arms by one leg, addressing it softly in Greek. Then a door closed between them.

  The room to which Nicholas was conducted was stone-walled and cool, with a board laid to one side with melons and plain meats, bread and a pitcher of wine. There were no servants, and none of the brethren. He counted four seats. His two silent abductors preceded him. The senior, closing the door, walked to the centre of the room and addressed Nicholas neither in French nor in Greek, but in perfect Italian. ‘We begged the abbot’s indulgence to dine with you privately here, since time may be short. Your escort for Nicosia may come at any moment.’

  ‘I am to learn who you are,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘While you eat. Sit. You too, Luigi. Vanni, will you oblige me by serving?’

  The youngest of the three had already moved to the board and was filling platters. Nicholas did not take the seat he was offered. He said, ‘Luigi? Giovanni? Good Cypriot names.’ The lean man with the grizzled hair and the grim manner gave vent to a grunt, but the younger one smiled.

  The man in the velvet hat said, ‘And mine is Paul. You have probably guessed which state we come from: let us proceed without quibbling over it. The elder of the signori beside you is Luigi Martini who, with his brother, has long handled the sugar crops at Kouklia and at Kolossi here in Cyprus. Vanni, who wishes to give you some food, is surnamed Loredano, and is factor to the lord Marco Corner at Episkopi, as well as being my deputy. And I am Paul Erizzo, with no post as yet, because I come to take my first appointment in Cyprus.’

  ‘As?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘As Venetian Bailie. We are all Venetians. You have realised. You are wanted by James. You will be taken by James’s men to meet James at Nicosia. We shall receive some approbration for bringing you, but James would have seized you, whether we had helped him or not. We have no power here,’ said Paul Erizzo. ‘We are here on sufferance, as traders and growers. Without us, James would find it hard to get the returns or the produce he needs, but if we push him too far, he could massacre us freely tomorrow. However, we are skilled at learning just how far to push him, and how to nurse all that we have developed so that we may thrive as he thrives, and even should he cease thriving. Although, of course, Queen Carlotta must never return. Or the Genoese would overrun Cyprus.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Nicholas. He thought with quiet fury of Modon. Small chance that the Bailie of Modon would have rushed to his aid, or that the Signory – the grateful Signory – would have thrown in their cohorts to rescue him. The Signory had condoned his abduction.

  Paul Erizzo said, ‘So sit down, and eat. Of course you dislike what has happened. If we had told you on shipboard, you might have found violent means to escape without giving the matter the thought it deserves. We are here to talk, and to answer your questions. You left Venice for some reason that seemed good to you, but a year has gone by. You are a gifted young man, clever, vigorous, with the world to win if you rouse yourself. The moment has come to take your biggest step forward. We have chosen you to work for yourself and for Venice. We are giving you a chance you would never have had
. You will emerge a great man from this venture.’

  ‘I prefer not to sit,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or to be in your debt, even for food. I left Venice for precisely this reason. I had been used as a tool. But not a second time.’

  Paul Erizzo said, ‘You don’t know, as yet, what we are offering. Knowing what you do, how can you be anyone’s instrument? The King desires to employ you. You will answer to him. You will be paid by him, royally. You will do what we cannot do, and secure Cyprus for James and for Venice. You and your Bank will have no cause to regret it.’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas again. His hands had steadied, and his face had ceased to feel like pigskin. He detached a stool with his foot from the companionable circle that had been drawn, and kicking it to the wall, sat down with his arms folded and his shoulders against the plaster. He said, ‘Well: let us look at the realities. The Bastard James is actually expecting me: this is not a gambit of your own? Yes. And he is sending someone to collect me – could that be the noise that we hear?’

  ‘It could be,’ said Erizzo. He glanced at the others. ‘But they will wait.’

  Giovanni Loredano got up. ‘I’ll see to it.’ The door closed behind him.

  ‘But you are not going to Nicosia? Because King James doesn’t know you are here?’

  ‘Because it is better for you to go alone. We shall come later,’ said Erizzo.

  ‘And the lady Primaflora?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘She may go with you,’ said Erizzo.

  ‘Why?’ said Nicholas. ‘She has no value now. Queen Carlotta can’t stop me coming: I’m here. Send the girl on to Rhodes on the next ship.’

  The door opened. The young man Vanni said, ‘They won’t wait.’ He spoke in anger, with something held down behind it.

  Erizzo said, ‘Nonsense. Tell them.’ Then he broke off and said, ‘Luigi. Try.’ The older man Martini rose, looking at him, and then left with Loredano. The door closed. The Venetian Bailie said, ‘Yes, the lady. You don’t want her in Nicosia? Well, she is a free agent. If the convent will have her, no doubt she could stay until she has the means to leave.’

  He spoke with his eyes on the door, behind which an amazing noise was developing, compounded of shouting, and the crashing of timber and something that sounded like, but could not be, the clashing of steel. Nicholas said, to get it quite clear, ‘The lady Primaflora may leave Cyprus?’ He could not, yet, believe that Erizzo was making no use of his most powerful lever. With three-quarters of his mind, he was listening. The door opened again, and Loredano stood on the threshold.

  This time the Bailie stood up. The sound of shouting came clearly now from the cloisters, and the thud of blows, and of running feet, and of screaming. Erizzo said, ‘Christ Jesus. I have no sword here.’

  The man in the doorway had blood on his face. He said, ‘I asked for five minutes. They say the time has expired. The servants have gone. The monks are in the church. They are fetching the lady.’

  ‘Who?’ said Nicholas. ‘Who are fetching her?’ He had got to the door but Loredano held it against him, his fissured cheek welling. Loredano said, ‘The Mamelukes. The King has sent the Mamelukes for you. You can’t do anything now. No one can.’

  ‘Of course they can,’ Nicholas said, and wrenched open the door and came face to face with Primaflora half-naked, in the grip of a fully-armed Mameluke.

  Nicholas saw he was alone in his shock. The delightful bare breasts of Primaflora were not those of a housewife. In Venice, he had heard, the courtesans looked not unlike this, with their plucked brows and their dyed golden hair and the gowns cut as nearly to cradle the breasts as to conceal them. And Primaflora herself contributed the disdain of the courtesan, her dishevelled head high, her arms hanging loose over the brown fingers grasping her ribs.

  The man behind her held her thus for a moment and then, forcing down with his wrists, compelled her to sink to her knees. Grasping her long loosened hair he twisted it, to hold in his fist as a leash. He said in Arabic, ‘Whose is the chattel?’

  He was not, Nicholas thought, of pure blood. Broad, and of medium height, this Mameluke was still taller than an Egyptian should be. Beneath his conical helmet with its burst of short feathers his face could hardly be judged: little showed between the tongues of his face-guard but the red of his lips and the glossy black of his untrimmed moustache. Below that, the man wore a brigandine, covered with bright brocade studded with metal. His curved sword, sheathed in shagreen, had a handgrip inscribed in fine gold, and the heavy band at his waist was set thick with it.

  It was the costume of an emir, and an emir of forty or even a hundred. His use of Arabic, a language foreign to most, was quite deliberate. He said, ‘Whose is she?’ and Nicholas responded immediately, in the same tongue. ‘She belongs to King James. Who are you who comes, like the ass bearing books, and dare touch her?’

  He thought then he had lost his arm. The other’s sword blurred in the air, and he felt the steel bite in his shoulder. Erizzo shouted. Primaflora lay thrust to one side. The emir spoke in a voice of calmest contempt. ‘Conduct yourself, log, or I shall bring you a brass bowl to look upon, that will shrivel your eyes and your arrogance. What renegade taught you the tongue of the Prophet?’

  ‘Sultan Mehmet, lord of the Ottomans,’ Nicholas said. The sword pressed and pressed, and he felt the blood begin to run, drenching.

  ‘Liar,’ said the emir, his lips stretching.

  ‘Whom your lord the King James hopes will help him,’ Nicholas said. ‘King James, who is expecting me.’

  The blood ran, but the sword had ceased to cut. ‘You are the man Niccolò,’ said the emir. ‘Friend of the Sultan, I do not think. But friend of the Genoese, I am told. You have a ship called the Doria?’

  ‘That is the name of its former owner. A man who I caused to be killed,’ Nicholas said. ‘Are you here to debate trifles, or is there one who gives you orders and will be displeased if you disobey them? Your lord James expects me in Nicosia. He wishes the woman to wait for him.’

  ‘It is not so. I will take the woman to him,’ said the emir. ‘I, Tzani-bey al-Ablak, lord of the Mamelukes of Cyprus.’

  ‘And I say you will not,’ Nicholas said. He struck up as he spoke, deflecting the sword from his arm and dragging the girl to her feet and behind him. At her back was the wall. The emir’s blade swept up and glittered above him.

  Vanni Loredano said, ‘No!’ and threw his weight on the Mameluke’s sword-arm. Martini and Erizzo both started forward. What they meant to do was never known, for in a blaze of steel, the doorway became crowded with soldiers. Loredano dropped his grasp. Nicholas stayed where he was. The emir, withdrawing his stare from Loredano, lifted his arm once again. Paul Erizzo spoke in clear Greek. ‘This is the man King Zacco has sent you to bring. Punish him if you will. But if you kill him, you will answer for it to Zacco.’

  The emir turned. He said, also in Greek, ‘Tell him to release the woman.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I will release her to the monks, not to you. Send the monks, or strike through me, and learn how King James will reward you.’

  There was a silence. Behind the open door, the soldiers grinned and muttered and moved; further off came the sounds of other men moving about, mixed with low cries and sobbing and a high-pitched continuous stabbing of sound, like the shrieking of night-hunting owls. The emir laughed and said, ‘On the road, I can do what I like?’

  ‘You must not kill him,’ said Erizzo. From flushed with heat, the Bailie’s face was now pale with anger.

  ‘I will not kill him. Fetch the monks,’ Tzani-bey said.

  The monk who came first had been crying. The abbot followed and stood in the doorway, intoning Greek in a high nasal voice until Tzani-bey, losing patience, thrust him out of the way. Then others came. As soon as he judged it safe, Nicholas said, ‘My lord Bailie. You have no hope of me unless you take care for the lady.’

  Erizzo said, ‘She will be safe now. I am appalled. The emir has power. I can do nothing for you. I am sorry.’


  ‘You have done enough,’ Nicholas said. He thrust the girl between the robed figures and stood. The emir jerked his head. A pair of armed men came forward, both carrying sacks. They set them aside and laid hands on Nicholas. Other sacks stood outside the door, leaking blood and rammed full of objects.

  Mutilation and theft. Nicholas, his wrists twisted together, wondered what the girl’s chances were, or the monks’, if the tyranny of King James was of this order. James, or Zacco, they called him. Zacco the Bastard. One of the monks sobbed aloud. Tzani-bey, his grasp on Nicholas, turned at the sound. He smiled, and spoke to the monk. ‘Which was yours? You can have it.’ He nodded, and one of the soldiers gripped and upended a sack, and began shaking it empty.

  Smoke and silver and black, cream and tortoiseshell, orange and butter, the children of St Nicholas lay, a carpet of silk on the marble. On the top, still the leader, lay the powerful cat, white as ermine, called Otto. ‘Skins for the winter,’ the Mameluke said. ‘Pets are for women, and catamites. Your saint gave you cats to divert you from mounting each other. Everyone knows this is true. There are no vipers so vicious on Cyprus. It is the Christians; it is the serpent of Melusine; it is the Lusignan’s sting you must fear.’

  He pulled Nicholas through the door and whipped him idly before him with the flat of his sword. Behind him in the room there was horror on the girl’s face, and calculation in Erizzo’s, and doubt in the look of Loredano. And tears, shamed, uncontrollable tears in the eyes of the monk.

  It is the Lusignan’s sting you must fear.

  Chapter 10

  THE ABSENCES of Zacco their King were not entirely mourned by the folk of his capital. Within the seven crumbling miles of its walls, the Greeks and Franks who lived and worked in Nicosia were reasonably pleased to be allowed to continue making shoes, beating silver, working copper, weaving linen and operating the markets which, as an inland capital, the town employed to disperse its wares. The husbandmen tended the fig and olive and mulberry trees, the oranges, the lemons, the pomegranates that grew in the thousand walled gardens, and in the flat lands round the city; and saw to the vines and the barley and the herds of heavy-rumped sheep. The irrigation wheels turned; the smiths hammered; the cooks and butchers attended to their ovens and work-blocks. Those churchmen who had not fled to the Queen continued their rounds unmolested, and under their new lords, the great households continued to demand food and service and pay for it, even if the old barons were all off to Kyrenia to huddle there with the Queen and her consort.