Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett Read Free Book Online

will offer me something. It’s more than she’ll do for the little lady you rescued this morning. The Queen of Cyprus needs your men, and your silver.’
    ‘So she has told me. Twice,’ said Nicholas.
    ‘You met her in Venice?’ said the friar.
    ‘I met everyone in Venice,’ Nicholas said. ‘I had five different offers. Six, now I think of it. That’s why I left. The Pope made you Patriarch, then?’
    The friar smiled. It was like a rat diving into a hedge. He said, ‘He nearly put me in prison. It appeared I was not meant to make use of the title so early. I reassured him. I shall enter Holy Orders the moment I travel to Venice. Why are you going to Bruges?’
    ‘To collect my belongings. To finish my business. To see my stepdaughters,’ said Nicholas.
    ‘And because,’ said the monk, ‘you can think of nothing more original to do? You look like a fellow who likes making money but has little idea what to use it for. But what am I talking about? Queen Carlotta has seen you. You are a youth who depends on feminine patrons. You will never escape.’
    ‘I have escaped,’ Nicholas said.
    He was young. He was twenty, and a widower.

Chapter 3
    M ARIAN DE CHARETTY , owner of a flourishing dyeworks in Bruges and not in the springtime of life, had died between Auxonne and Dole, on her way south to Italy. To make his pilgrimage, to use a recent, sickening phrase, her former apprentice and very young husband had to cross the Alps, pass through Geneva and, in foul winter weather, find his way north to Burgundy.
    He made the journey in silence, with Thomas sulking beside him. For once, Nicholas made no effort to please Thomas or anyone. He knew that illness had caused Marian’s death, although imprecisely the name of her malady. It had afflicted her as she travelled, but she had succumbed within reach of friends. A sister, long dead, had married in Dijon. Marian had found refuge with a family fond of her sister, and for her sake Enguerrand and Yvonnet de Damparis had given Marian shelter and nursing, and had comforted her as her illness grew mortal.
    Nicholas knew of them, and supposed they knew of him. The house when he reached it was large and turreted and supported clearly by many acres of seigneurial land. Enguerrand himself was away, but his wife’s greeting to Nicholas was of extraordinary warmth, tempered by something of diffidence and something even of anxiety which he took to represent the usual response to bereavement. He was glad she thought him bereaved since, not excluding Carlotta of Cyprus, most considered his loss to be monetary. He allowed Thomas the happiness of getting drunk with the steward, and sat with the lady of Damparis while she talked about Marian.
    He let her talk, although he did not, in fact, want to hear. He knew the death had been natural, from other sources. An infection acquired on the journey had occasioned a crisis: she had been overtired, and burdened with anxieties. He knew that as well. He had a letter Marian had written to him: he did not wish to have repeated, however well-meant, the things she might have saidabout their marriage. He doubted in fact if she had said them. What lay between them had depended on privacy, and as he kept silent about it, so would she.
    He had brought a gift with him: a Persian jug he had intended for Marian’s office. The jewels on it were less important than the engraving. The friend of Marian’s sister was touched by it; overwhelmed even, and tears came into her eyes. He rose at that point and tried to take his leave, but she insisted he eat, and asked him questions about his future, and Marian’s daughters, and how they would manage the business. She had met Tilde de Charetty, the elder, to whom the dyeworks and broker’s shop had been left. ‘A sharp-brained girl, but still very young. And Catherine, the other, is in your charge?’
    ‘Financially,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have set up a trust for her. She lives with her sister in Bruges. There