The Spring of the Ram: The Second Book of the House of Niccolo
Page 45
He smiled at her. “I was lucky. I’ve done that. The Genoese made me their consul. I have traded for Simon, and myself. In small ways, I hindered Nicholas so that I would seem to be fulfilling my obligations; but he was your mother’s husband. You know I never did anything really harmful. I expected to establish a flourishing business, return my lord Simon his boat and his profit, and choose, with you, the life we both wanted. We can still do that.”
She said, “I thought you were rich.”
He smiled at her again. “I expect you thought your mother was rich. Would you be content, now, to live in a burgher’s brick house in Bruges? I was hardly poor, Catherine. But I wanted to give you all the gold in the world. I still do. And you will have it.”
They sat looking at one another. The girl’s eyes softened. Tobie folded his arms and looked from one to the other. He said, “It seems to me that three masters are enough for any one man, however fond he is of his wife. What with working for my lord Simon, yourself, and the Republic, you’re going to tire yourself out without having to worry over the trials of the Charetty company. Suppose you leave it in the hands of the people who run it, whom the demoiselle knows and trusts, and we’ll see when we get back to Flanders who’s going to employ whom. Apart from anything else, Astorre’s a curious fellow. He fights for the demoiselle, no one else. And the Emperor, I’m sure, wants Astorre to feel at his best.”
Catherine said, “But I am the demoiselle. You forgot that.”
Tobie said, “You are the daughter of the woman who chose Nicholas and married him. Ask yourself what your mother would want. What Nicholas would have wanted.”
“Why?” said Catherine de Charetty. She stood up. “My mother is an old, silly woman running a dyeshop. We live in quite a different world. Pagano is right. He is head of the Charetty company here in Trebizond, and you will do as he says. Now you can go.”
Godscalc had risen. He stood without speaking, then turned at last to Doria. He said, “It is as well to be formal. We do not accept this, and will seek by all means to challenge its legality. Meanwhile, the doors of our fondaco will be barred to you, and you will interfere with us and our work at your peril. I take it upon myself to say this.”
Without rising, Doria leaned his weight on the wall. He said, “Poor souls, it is your livelihood, of course, that is threatened. And no doubt you would enjoy your few weeks of petty dominion. Threats mean nothing, of course. In this land, the ear of the Emperor is all that matters. Even Astorre may find that he is not quite so necessary. Meanwhile I agree, you should go. You will forgive my not rising. I suffer from the wounds received trying to save my wife’s stepfather. Send me your guide, and I will tell him where to look for the body. If you find yourselves short, I shall be happy to pay for the burial.”
Before the girl, one could do nothing more, however one longed to. Godscalc bowed to her, and left the room, followed by Tobie. Instead of turning into the passage by which they had come, Godscalc slowed. He said, “I need air before we join the others. Let me follow you.”
Tobie said, “I’ll come with you. Over there. It leads to the balconies.”
The door he opened led to a summer gallery built on the face of the rock, its floor tiled, its pillars open to darkness. Tobie walked to the rail and stood looking over. Below, the forest sighed and rustled unseen, and the rush of the river was no more than a long exhalation. Behind him, Godscalc knelt, his back turned. After a while Tobie spoke. “Father? There are some things I can ease.”
Godscalc rose slowly. “No,” he said. “It is fatigue, which sometimes makes simple things seem suddenly difficult. You feel it too, I am sure.”
Tobie said, “You told the girl about Doria and Simon.” He couldn’t see the priest’s face.
The priest said, “And yet I forbade Nicholas to disillusion her. That is what you mean?”
Tobie said, “And you let Nicholas go, knowing that Doria might follow. It was to be Doria himself who showed her what he was. But it didn’t succeed. If he killed Nicholas, the girl has no idea of it. And there’s no proof.”
“He killed him,” said Godscalc. When Tobie didn’t speak, he said, “I know what I said. I gave him the benefit of every doubt there could be. I listened. I watched. There is no proof, but before God I know that man either killed him or had him killed. That is why I told about Simon. But that failed as well. It needs more than that to break what binds the child to Doria. And breaking that, what else would one break? That is the question.” He stopped and said, “I am sorry. Tonight I don’t sound like a priest.”
“Tonight,” said Tobie, “you sound like a man who needs food and wine and rest and sleep almost as much as I do.”
Chapter 29
ON THE ELEVENTH DAY of May, a week after his wound in St Omer, the Charetty lawyer Gregorio left the Knights of the Golden Fleece to their vows and, turning his back, rode out from Bruges in the direction of Dijon and Italy. Ostensibly, his errand had to do with the expansion of the Charetty business. In private, it was the same as that of Marian de Charetty, who had set out ten weeks before to discover the fate of her daughter, and of Nicholas. It was with some perplexity that Gregorio received, at the last moment, a companion he did not want.
On the same day, far to the east, the Charetty doctor and Godscalc their priest, sparsely escorted, rode over the Pyxitis bridge and through the eastern suburb of Trebizond to their trading fondaco, leaving behind them in the Sumela monastery the same daughter and the golden Doria her husband, also wounded the previous week; but in a different cause.
To Tobie, the approach to Trebizond looked just the same. The same dilatory buffalo jammed the way from the bridge. The same geese hissed and cackled. The same women slapped their laundry beside the same fountain; the same dogs and children ran after them; the same men called a greeting from the work booths; they had the same trouble picking their way through the market. You realised then how many faces and dwellings had become familiar in just five weeks and how Nicholas had seemed to know not just a few people, but everyone. A plague of small unreeling toys seemed, of its own, about to constitute his greatest memorial. There was no sign, here, of anxiety or disruption.
The Florentine courtyard, when they turned into it, was equally tranquil. Only, because the day was dry as well as mild, the business tables with their brass inkpots and cash books and sealing-wax had been set out under the arcades. A lad from somebody’s counting-house was just rising, a minor transaction completed. On the house side of the table, instead of Julius sat Patou the senior clerk, with John le Grant silenced in mid-speech at his shoulder. The visitor left and le Grant, with a word to the clerk, walked forward and stood, hands on hips. “Well?” Loppe, somehow, was standing behind him.
Their grooms were looking up, too, and faces showed at the open windows. Godscalc said, “The story is the same. Doria saw them both die, and says there were no survivors. Astorre has gone to find what he can. Doria and his wife are coming back as soon as he can ride. We’re tired.”
The engineer said, “Come in. Loppe will bring wine and warm water. Everything is in order here.”
Even Godscalc, dismounting, looked stiff. By the time they were indoors and in privacy, Loppe had already reappeared with all they needed to clean and refresh themselves. He stayed to serve, and then stood, quietly listening. Tobie, looking at him, thought that for a big man he had lost weight in the last week. Godscalc made his report plainly and quickly. “We are none the wiser. Doria’s wounds are from Kurdish weapons. He claims he found Nicholas and Julius beset, and tried to save them. There is no proof that they died as he said and equally none that he is lying. But he is confident enough to claim this fondaco. We have three days—perhaps four—to decide what to do about it.”
“Most of it has been done,” said John le Grant. He bent and, opening a drawer, tossed before them a thick wad of paper. The sheets separated as they fell. Each page was covered with the clear rapid writing of Nicholas. Le Grant said, “I found that with the ledg
ers, after you’d gone. For us, in the event of his death. An account of what is in the storehouse, and what it is to be used for. And of what is to be bought from the caravan, with top and bottom prices for each article, the quantity, and the client it should go to. There, for example. A thousand pounds of Caspian leggi, if they’ll bring the price down to two florins, and take twelve bales of woollen cloth instead of specie.”
Tobie said, “We don’t have any wool cloth.”
John le Grant looked up. “We apparently bought some on credit from Zorzi. They came aboard off Tophane. Sixty pieces lying surplus in Pera.”
“My God,” said Tobie.
“If there’s wool left over, we’re to sell for Papal ducats or Turkish gold coins: he seems to think there’ll be some about. If not, we’re to exchange it for drugs to pay for the manuscripts. He’s specific about which drugs for which monastery. He’d take seven thousand pounds of kermes from the credit notes we got for the three-pile velvet, and there’s a shopping list for other dyes that goes on for pages. We’re not to take any brazil that doesn’t come from Ceylon…Do you want all this now?” said John le Grant.
“Not the shopping list,” said Godscalc. “But other instructions?”
“Oh, plenty of those,” said their engineer and ship-master. “Things to do to safeguard all the stock, and orders about leasing premises within the Citadel, which I’ve done. An open letter, doubly witnessed, transmitting to each of us powers of attorney to act for the Charetty company in the event of his absence or death. A note, appended to that, saying that Doria will certainly try to seize the company’s local assets and negotiate in its name when the Tabriz caravan arrives. That is, acting as for Catherine’s mother, he could usurp Medici and Charetty resources to make massive purchases for himself and his employer, and make off with the goods and the profit. Nicholas suggests ways of stopping him. Quite a lot of ways, some of them fairly ingenious and most of them criminal.” His eyes, with their sandy rims, had been fixed on the floor. He raised them to Godscalc. “Your Master Nicholas was not absolutely certain, it seems, that he was coming back from that trip.”
“He chose to take it,” said Godscalc. “But you’re right. He knew it was dangerous. If you like, he waited until he thought it would be dangerous. He wanted to prove something.”
“And has he?” said the ship-master. He had flushed.
“Not in the way he wanted. In others, maybe. We may have been too ready to blame him. A man prepared to do what he has done has some character.”
“I’m prejudiced,” said John le Grant. “He got me out of impaling back at Stamboul. And Julius. And all Astorre’s men. He liked his privacy, but I never thought that a sin. I’m surprised you’re surprised he went to all this bother to prime us when he seems to have known he’d be dead. What the hell turned you against him?”
Tobie said, “Something you would condemn as much as we did. To excuse it at all, you’d have to believe it wasn’t deliberate. We thought it was.”
“So you made a mistake?”
Tobie studied him. “Maybe,” he said. “But he’d done similar things in the past. He made a wicked enemy, John. You wouldn’t know. But his friends seemed to be safe. And beside Doria, he had some…qualities. Doria thought that, with Nicholas dead, we’d want to go back to Bruges.”
The golden, bristling brows drew together. “You bloodied him, I hope, where it’ll ruin his drawers.”
“His wife was there. I’m glad you feel like that,” Tobie said. “Because it’s possible we were hard on Nicholas. It’s possible matters were maybe not quite as they seemed. I think Doria, on the other hand, made capital out of it. So I don’t mean Pagano Doria to get a dead cat belonging to the Charetty company. This business is going to be what Nicholas was hoping to make it—one of the richest and best in the Levant.”
The other two, he became aware, were looking at him. Behind, he saw Loppe’s face change. John le Grant said, “Medicine, now. The only proper calling for scientific man, for whom trade is fair walloping rubbish. What happened to yon?”
Godscalc said, “The same thing that happened to the profession of countermining, I suspect. He has made you his heirs in more ways than one.” He spoke without looking up. And well you might, Tobie thought. You, too, have had your confidence shaken. You, too, have had to look again at your toys.
John le Grant said, “You’re tired. Why not rest? We’ll be busy enough, once the news goes round that you’re back. And when you’re fresh, you can hear all the details.”
He was a good man, for a Scot and an engineer. He was better than any of them had suspected, except, of course, Nicholas. Tobie found his own bed and half undressed and knew nothing more until he woke to a dark room, and a half-open door, and Loppe saying, “Master Tobias? They’re all in the parlour with the lady Violante. She has something to ask us in private. Master le Grant says you should come.”
“Ask us?” said Tobie. “Here? In private?” He sat up. None of that conformed to what he knew of the princess of Trebizond. From the time of the voyage from Tophane, he had been sharply wary of the lady Violante, who had befriended Doria in Florence. Who had got Julius out of trouble outside the Chrysokephalos. Who had shown inalienable contempt, ever since, for the lot of them. He knew Julius had been smitten. He couldn’t believe that she was in mourning for either Julius or Nicholas. So why was she here, except to pull the wool over the eyes of Godscalc or le Grant or Loppe? But not over him. Tobie got up and dressed.
Tobie Beventini had been right in his conjecture. It was not the habit of Violante of Naxos to traverse her own city, hooded, alone, to pay secret calls on the fondaco of a foreign company. She had, at first, intended to send a servant. She had concluded, at last, that there was no one she could sufficiently trust. There was no one, either, who could size up the situation as she could.
At the gateway, she was obstructed because she would not give her name. It was only when she insisted on having John le Grant summoned that the porter gave way. Then the red-headed man arrived; the engineer and ship-master she had interviewed at the Palace, and at once she was inside, and being handled with swift efficiency.
A woman of small patience, Violante of Naxos had been unimpressed by her initial experience of the officers of the Charetty company. The priest, who should have been a wrestler, was no doubt as inconvenient as the man Diadochos she was forced to take everywhere with her. The doctor had certainly learned no manners from a lifetime of staring at festering feet, and went both hairless and hatless, which she happened to believe was obscene. The man they had made steward was a freed slave, which said all there was to say. Only the master engineer was visibly competent in all but the social arts, in which area she had thought him a boor.
Since then, she had changed her mind about some things, for the blood of Lombardy as well as Trebizond had gone to her making. She had a respect for John le Grant’s wits. To him she said only, “Have you a parlour? I have something to ask of you all.” And in five minutes there was a room, warmed and lit; and a chair for her, and a cup of warm wine. In ten, all the men she knew had entered, bowed, and were sitting in silence about her. Then she began.
She said, “I have questions to ask you, and then you may question me. First: what action have you decided upon, following this unfortunate loss? Will you close the venture and return home forthwith?”
It was the priest who answered. He said, “The company came here to trade, Despoina, and we are remaining to trade.”
“I see,” she said. “All of you?”
“All of us,” said the doctor. “Were you afraid the army would leave?”
She ignored it. She said, “Then we have matters to talk of for the good of the company. Messer Niccolò left you some letters?”
“He did leave letters,” said John le Grant. “Highness.”
“And you have begun to act on them. I thought so. He warned you that Messer Doria would immediately claim to represent your station in the name of his wife?”
It was no surprise that they were wary of her. Their young Nicholas had severed her connection with Doria somewhat unattractively himself. She again wondered, briefly, how he had known of it. And if he had known, why he had allowed John le Grant to come and see her. She watched John le Grant. She said, “When a Venetian associates with a Genoese, it is not for the sake of amusement, I assure you. Nevertheless, for your own peace of mind, tell me nothing you wouldn’t wish Doria to hear. I shall begin by telling you something. I assume Messer Niccolò has stressed that your ledgers are precious. Those and any letter of authority he has left must be put in a safe place, unknown to your servants and me. If you have goods still for sale, then conceal them. You should put a guard on your gates and give an escort to those who go to market or on errands. Remember, men can be bribed. Take care not to change servants, and watch your food and your water. You have an informer already: the Greek Paraskeuas serves Doria as well as you. Tell him only what you want Doria to know.”
“Paraskeuas!” said the priest sharply.
The black slave said, “Paraskeuas was here, on an errand, the day Master Julius left.”
The priest said, “We assumed Julius decided to go to keep Nicholas company. But suppose he was tricked into following? Told that Nicholas needed him?”
The doctor said, “I feel we could make Paraskeuas tell us.”
She said, “His wife and son are in that household. I don’t think you would get the truth. In any case, isn’t he worth more where he is? I told you only to warn you. I have news that is not for his ears. First, the town of Amastris has fallen to the Turk.”