‘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 vehemenc
e, 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.
They parted. He watched the gate close behind her and, turning his horse, set it at a slow, steady pace to his rendezvous. The country behind him was darkening, but ahead the sky flared with the lakes of evening and soon, topping a rise, he saw before him the sea, with the red disk of the sun sinking into it.
He had come to Lindos at dawn. It seemed a long time ago. Some way off, a donkey brayed; frogs were croaking, and the bushes around him were ghostly with moths. He picked up the reins, and rode downhill to the bay, and the boat, and the ship with Primaflora his wife waiting in it.
Chapter 33
THUS, FOR THE second time in a far from long life Nicholas, returning to Cyprus, had to devise how to ingratiate himself following an unsuitable marriage. He ought to have been in practice; but the circles he was moving in now – and their relationships to him – were both different from the first time and more dangerous. He dealt with the problem, as usual, by maintaining a vast and docile calm in the face of all provocation.
In the fishing-vessel leased by his wife, he landed at Salines. There, he ensconced Primaflora briefly while he paid a swift visit to Kouklia to check progress, and to face Loppe, the first but by no means the easiest of his forthcoming confrontations. He broke the news of his marriage in private, after a round of sugarfield inspections and meetings which had ended with a convivial company meal in the courtyard where, once, they had entertained the family Corner. After the others had left, Loppe sat on with Nicholas under the stars, his light robe glimmering in the lamplight, and listened to the concise and truncated account which was all that Nicholas was prepared to give anybody. It did not, initially, mention Katelina at all, except to say that she would by now have left the island. It stated the bald fact that the plants were destroyed, but not how or where he had done it. Loppe, a patient audience, made no comment until the end. Then he eased his position and said, ‘It’s no surprise, after the letters you left. King James was much angered with his. What did you tell him?’
‘That he was going to lose all the value of his sugar revenues if cane plants of our quality were established in Madeira. That the woman who had taken them had also been spying, and it was in Zacco’s interest to have the plants destroyed and the woman induced to leave Rhodes as quickly as possible.’
‘By now, he will know you are back,’ Loppe said. He suddenly laughed. ‘You realise, the demoiselle Katelina was sent to Episkopi by the King’s mother for your sake? If you had managed to alter her feelings for you, she would have ceased spying, or having designs on the plants, and your life would have been safe from her. Instead-’ He stopped himself. ‘Instead you bring back another woman, just as troublesome.’
It was not what he had been going to say, Nicholas recognised. Instead of making Katelina his mistress, he had performed that office for a princess of Naxos, and driven Katelina from the island. He had always suspected Loppe knew that. Loppe knew everything. Nicholas said, ‘You think Primaflora may still be serving the Queen? It hardly matters now, if the Queen is losing Kyrenia. If she is dangerous in any other way, it is for me to deal with.’
He waited. He would not get from Loppe, he knew, the kind of inquisition the others would subject him to. Direct questions, from Tobie. Indirect, from John. What, in due course, his more distant connections would make of it – Gregorio and Julius, Godscalc and Anselm Adorne and, most of all, Tilde and Catherine his step-daughters –
was something he had had to forecast from the beginning. He was used to planning.
Loppe said, ‘There is no reason to be concerned. The King will appreciate that, having helped you to destroy the plants and see the demoiselle safely out of the island, the lady Primaflora could hardly be left to face the Queen’s anger.’ He paused again, and said, ‘The demoiselle Katelina set great store by the plants.’
It was as direct a question as Loppe would ever ask. Nicholas said, ‘I have met her, and she knows of the marriage. She is sailing home to her husband: Diniz will be there already. There will be no more trouble. No more trouble even from Simon, perhaps.’
He could hear Loppe’s even breathing. The lamps guttered. A glow from the courtyard of Venus told that the copper cauldrons were simmering, adding their heat to the clinging night air. Loppe said, ‘Yet she went?’
‘There was nothing else to be done,’ Nicholas said. He began methodically to rise from the table, but Loppe was first on his feet. ‘No,’ said Loppe. ‘Stay. In the dark, it is peaceful. I shall leave you.’
The rest of his itinerary brought severe trials to the head of the Bank of Niccolò, but by then his command of himself was unimpeachable. He rode back quickly to Salines where there now awaited an escort to take himself and his bride to Nicosia. Primaflora, beautiful in the heat as she had been in the snows of Bologna, welcomed him back.
He treated her welcome as the work of art it was. In marriage as in concubinage, she studied what he wanted, and gave him something more. If she denied him, as she had done at Lindos, it was for a purpose. He had had no need to tell her, joining her in the fading sunset at Rhodes, that in denying him she had miscalculated; that what he had taken to Katelina had not been unwelcome. He had assured Primaflora the plants were destroyed. He had said no word to her or to anyone of the ravine at Kalopetra. On the first night on board out of Rhodes, she had salved the injuries from his climb and let him sleep without imposing wifely demands. Those came later, and were demanding in a way he had never experienced before, but were not wifely. He knew that in some way he pleased her beyond her expectations, and that sometimes this confused her. He thought perhaps he surprised her by seeking to serve her desires, which were not entirely bizarre and could be fathomed. He didn’t know to whom he might be playing traitor in doing all this. He only knew that there were some things that, meantime, he wanted to forget.