The Spring of the Ram

by Dorothy Dunnett

  She smiled. “Rest assured,” she remarked. “You have not disturbed me, nor could.”

  He withdrew politely, and found a place to wait in the darkness, until he could smile. Then he went back to the others. When, next day, he saw her again, neither mentioned the incident.

  The round ship, with its marriage bed imposed no such restraint on its principle. Well provisioned, their vessel put in seldom to port and, being less able for battle at sea, took some pains to avoid other traffic. Once, the Euxine was notorious for its pirates because the pickings were rich—ships laden with slaves and honey and furs coming from Caffa; the archons’ tax ships with their boxes of silver; the Venetian galleys with their smell of Bactrian camel enwrapping the silk and the spices and indigo.

  But Venice had not risked her galleys so far this year; and although Doria took his precautions, there was an unusual emptiness about the Black Sea this month. The undersized dolphins wheeled in free water. The fishermen gathered busily, dragging their nets. The smaller cogs coalesced as if for reassurance, and were conned by news-gathering balingers, swift as insects, visiting group after group. But where, normally, the release of the ice brought the big ships into the sea with their freights for the West, now men were holding back. Before war, trade folded its hands and gave way. You did not send out your ships when heaven knew whether you might not need them tomorrow to fight them, or (God forfend) to escape in. The Doria and the Ciaretti, manned by men who were prepared both for trade and for war, were alone among great ships in entering the Euxine this season.

  They were not always welcome. At Sinope, the emir refused them harbour, professing to believe that they had sickness on board. The excuse hardly rang true. The coast, swift to hear every rumour, knew by now that the great galley had been joined by the Emperor’s great-niece, and the round ship by Amiroutzes, his treasurer. So they were plague-free, while Stamboul thought otherwise. To a wise man like the emir, with a foot in both camps, it was reason enough to be cautious.

  The presence of Amiroutzes (through a misunderstanding) was a source of constant affront to young Catherine. He occupied Pagano’s attention. He gave her lessons she had little wish for. Like the Ciaretti, Doria’s ship had turned into a schoolroom. Looking down on his Jasons, Zeus lord of the sacrificed Ram might have wondered what they were thinking of. What, to Hercules, was protocol? Or to the dragon?

  At Sinope, the galley was ahead. The round ship passed it three days later, and called into Samsûn to warn the harbour officials that a ship with the plague was behind them. Lying waiting for the return of his messenger, Pagano Doria was unsettled by the sight of the Ciaretti approaching him under oar at the speed of a fully manned war galley. He saw as she passed that she was fully manned, and by faces he remembered from Modon. Also that the load line was exactly the same as when she had been supposedly stripped of her soldiers. Michael Crackbene his captain seemed to know how it might have been done. He seemed also to think it amusing. The galley did not even attempt to turn into Samsûn.

  They were then within five days of Trebizond, and March was ending. On both ships, the men of God had looked at the calendar and taken their masters aside. Barring shipwreck, they would arrive at the Imperial court during Easter Week. Did they want this? Lodgings crowded, other merchants preoccupied, the Emperor and his lords deeply involved in high ceremonial? The arrival of the new Genoese consul, the new Florentine agent, would hardly be noticed. And how, after three weeks at sea, could they approach the magnificence which would be required of them?

  Nicholas said, “The Flanders galleys used to do it every year, coming to Sluys. You clean up the day before and sail in like a circus. Come on. You’re getting lazy.” Being now a unit of two hundred and fifty men with a common repository of extremely lewd songs composed for them by their patron, they made the motion of throwing things at him, including abuse, but submitted with resignation to the plans he outlined.

  Later, sharing food in the cabin, le Grant said, “Doria will arrive first, if we pause. And they’ll look spruce as well. They have the space to clean up as they sail.”

  “I thought Trebizond had a Roman harbour of sorts?” Nicholas said. “He’ll have to row into it, surely. Fifty oars?”

  “He’ll still look smart,” le Grant said.

  “Xenophon,” Nicholas said incomprehensibly. He looked at them all severely. He said, “I won’t say I admire him, but after three weeks of Diadochos, I can claim to know him like a brother. Just when Xenophon and his Hellenes were marching this way, they all got vomiting drunk on the local honey.”

  “Two thousand years ago,” remarked Tobie.

  “That’s Greek bees for you,” said Captain Astorre. He gave a long cackle. The nearer Astorre got to fighting, the cheerier he became. The prize spectacle of the lady Violante’s training had been Astorre’s accomplished prostration which, done on his belly like the fieldsman he was, was going to take him across the Emperor’s carpet, hardly stirring the grasses. (The other spectacle, not directly spoken of, was that of Master Julius caught within range of the lady Violante.)

  Collecting himself, Astorre addressed Nicholas: “So what’s come into your head? There’s no honey in March.”

  Tobie was also staring at Nicholas, but with a different expression He said, “Wait a moment. You’ve done it, haven’t you? Whatever it is, you’ve damned well done it without consulting us?”

  Nicholas turned his mouth down like a gargoyle. He said, “I’ve made a little arrangement, that’s all. The last night of the trip, a gift of the local black wine will be rowed out to the Doria from the Genoese settlers in Kerasous. Well, apparently from the Genoese settlers. I’m told it’s not too hard to present the patron with one thing and see that the sailors get their share of the rest in his absence. It’ll blow their heads off.”

  Captain Astorre threw back his head in a fit of collected laughter. Then he got up and made his way to the door, clapping Nicholas on the shoulder as he went. “Good lad,” he said. “Good lad. I like that. And once get us on shore, and we’ll lift the little lady out of that fellow’s clutches and kill him.” He gave a black-toothed grin round them all and strolled out.

  “Well,” said Julius, “that’s silenced the great Nicholas, hasn’t it? I wonder why? Can it possibly be that you’ve forgotten, in all your amusing plans, that young Catherine’s still with that bastard Doria? By God, you’re planning to get your own back, aren’t you? The Doria’s oarsmen will row her in drunk. That’ll show him. He steals the demoiselle’s daughter. He spreads lies about me and Bessarion. He fires your ship, he kills men at Modon. John and I all but lose our lives at Constantinople. And is this all you’re planning to do?”

  Where Astorre had addressed (as he often did) a precocious boy, Julius was speaking adult to adult to Nicholas. Nicholas, his face blank, drew breath, but Julius went on before he could utter. He said, “Since that woman came on board, Catherine and the rest of us could go hang. I wouldn’t mind, except that you’re supposed to be leading us.”

  Fortunately, they were where they would not be overheard. Fractiousness from Julius was not new, these days. Nicholas, suddenly running short of soft answers, said, “She’s my stepdaughter. Of course I’ve forgotten her.”

  Before the silence could develop, Father Godscalc said, “The child’s well-being may well depend on cultivating the lady Violante, Julius. Once Doria has vanished into the Genoese compound, she may be the only ambassadress we shall have. I doubt, from what I have seen of the gentleman, that he will bring his little lady much to court, if at all.”

  Nicholas said, with some brevity, “They don’t have wives with them, the merchants. They didn’t in Pera, with very few exceptions. They live with local girls, or their permanent mistresses. Catherine wouldn’t know the difference, so long as she saw some apparent high life. I don’t know which side the lady Violante is on, Julius. But it would be unwise to warn or offend her.”

  “That’s your opinion. I’m going to ask her,” said Ju
lius. “If she’s Doria’s whore, and a spy, we ought to know. If she’s merely his whore, she should be as glad as we are to get Catherine away from him.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Tobie said. “If Nicholas can’t tell what she’s up to after three weeks of platonic instruction, she’s damned likely to open her mouth when you walk in and jump on her. That’s what you’re planning, I take it?”

  “Platonic instruction?” said Julius.

  “Well, Aristotelian and Homeric as well, with a touch of the Livys,” said Nicholas quickly. “When I tell you that the Archimandrite is there for every session, you can imagine the complexity. Or if not, I can draw diagrams for you. Julius, if she’s on Doria’s side it’s best she doesn’t think we suspect her. Don’t you think so?”

  Julius, who had also tasted the black Trapezuntine wine, said, “If you say so. I’ve lists to see to,” and got up and went.

  Godscalc said, “I think—”

  “I know,” said Tobie grimly. “If we don’t watch Master Julius he’s going to do something awkward in Trebizond. Such as walk into the Genoese castle with the good Captain Astorre and try to remove that child bodily. Or involve the Emperor.” He thought. “Perhaps that’s what Doria is hoping for. We’d look fools. He’s in the right. It’s a marriage. And you say the girl is besotted.”

  Godscalc said, “When Julius has calmed down, I’ll speak to him. It’s true that the girl is fond of her husband, and he seems to be treating her well. We know he is an adventurer and a charlatan, but would she be the better or worse off for knowing it? And meanwhile she wouldn’t believe it. Nicholas is quite correct. You can’t do anything about the young lady until she herself asks you. Keep open what channels you have—and the princess Violante is one of them. I should like, however, to ask: Nicholas, what do you think Pagano Doria will do? He owes you something already, after the plague. The black wine will demand a riposte.”

  “You still think it’s a game?” Tobie said.

  “I still think everything he does is a game,” Godscalc said. “Including murder.”

  “You said you were sorry for him,” Nicholas said. He had gathered his nose and upper lip in a long, thoughtful pinch. Now he pulled his hand away. “No. A little polite persecution here and there, but nothing serious yet, unless I’m quite wrong. He didn’t burn the ship to destruction. He didn’t betray Astorre’s men, although he was willing to get rid of you, John and Julius. He didn’t kill me in Modon.”

  “You sound as if you regret it,” said Godscalc.

  “Well, no,” Nicholas said. “Except for all the time I wasted working out possible traps and ways of eluding them. Some of it would have been rather fun. But he didn’t do anything at all that would stop us. He wanted us with our ship in Trebizond because, after all, he’s heir to half the business through Catherine. He can’t touch the business at Bruges while Catherine’s mother is there, but he could take control here without being stopped for a long time. So my guess is that we’ll be allowed to establish our agency and make our profit and stock our warehouse before he does anything. And even then, he won’t do anything that discredits the company or the merchandise.”

  Tobie said, “Well, that’s obvious. You’re the one he’s playing against. You’re the one he needs to show up for a dangerous fool.”

  “Or cause to have an accident,” said Father Godscalc.

  “Maybe,” Nicholas said. “But he’ll discredit me first.”

  Tobie’s eyes gleamed, and Nicholas grinned at him. “Go on. How would you set about it?”

  Tobie’s pupils became points of conjecture, and his small pink mouth curled. “Exactly what has the lady Violante been teaching you?” he said. His tone was one of the most dulcet enquiry.

  “I thought of that,” Nicholas said. “It was when she said I had to crawl away from the throne with my drawers down that I began to suspect her.” He had recovered his placidity. He said, “I’ll check over all I’ve been told with the Florentines, but I’ll be surprised if there’s anything in the least misleading. And from beginning to end she’s been chaperoned. A good sign, on the whole.”

  Godscalc said, “Yes. I’d have seen to that, if I were Doria.”

  “He may still do. Circassian slaves in my bedroom. Yours, too.”

  Tobie’s expression lightened. “We’ll all be corrupted? Proofs of inconceivable depravity? Girls and buggery? Drink and hashish and opium?”

  “That’s right. Try it all, but don’t sign anything,” Nicholas said. “Father, your services are held in the Latin style. Could he cause mischief there?”

  “If he wants to. We have leave to follow our own practices in the church of our compound. So have Doria and the Venetians. But not elsewhere. We should not discuss or dispute or invite to attend any member of the native Orthodox Church. Of course, if we hold no service at all, we are godless.” He saw Tobie’s eyes were fixed on him. Tobie wanted to know whether Nicholas had ever used the chaplain to make his confession. Once, he had asked him outright. Godscalc had not thought it was his place to answer him.

  Nicholas himself was still conning the possible dangers; presumably not for the first time. This exercise, one understood, was for the sake of his colleagues. What he himself was going to do, about Doria and about Catherine, was very likely, Godscalc reflected, already clear and set in his mind. Nicholas said, “And of course, our book-keeping. Our figures must be impeccable, the receipts beyond dispute. The goods in our safe-keeping must be secure. Our servants must be well treated and paid. Even behind our own walls, we must speak only with admiration and respect of the Emperor and all his household. What else?”

  Tobie said, “That’s already more than any human being can guarantee. If he thinks like you do, he’s going to catch us out in something. Collapse of the Charetty leadership; and Pagano Doria takes over the goods, the credit, the contacts, the staff, the goodwill of the Emperor and the Medici. I don’t think you want to get that girl away. So long as she’s there, she might help protect us.”

  He was watching Nicholas once again. Nicholas stirred. He said, “She has no idea what he’s up to. And of course he’s not going to ruin us. We’re going to ruin him. Father…”

  He was frowning. Godscalc said, “Yes?”

  Nicholas said, “Catherine doesn’t know, you said, that he’s a charlatan. And might be better not knowing.”

  Godscalc said, “Well, you saw that for yourself. And he can’t afford, remember, to disillusion her. All his claims derive from his marriage. What were you planning to do? Put Circassian slaves into his bed? Beat his seamen until they confess that he committed murder and arson at Modon? Ask the lady Violante to boast of her conquest? Persuade the girl herself that your life depends on her giving up her husband and lover?”

  He was looking at Nicholas as if, Tobie thought, there was no one else in the cabin. John le Grant, present throughout, had not spoken. Nicholas said, “You mean he is the sort who can stay true to his wife, and will honestly manage the demoiselle’s business, or indeed any other? Report says he has never shown such integrity before in his life. He has always run through the money, and left. Do we have to wait until then to part them?”

  Godscalc said, “You know what I am saying. Give him a chance. And the child. If, despite all he hopes to gain, he deceives her, then give her your help. But to encourage him to be false to her would be ignoble.”

  “No Circassians in his bed,” Nicholas said. He spoke a little blankly.

  “Nor those other ruses which can remove a man from his pedestal. I’m sure you follow me.”

  Nicholas said, “You’re tying my hands.”

  The priest gazed at him calmly. “His also are tied. He cannot, remember, spoil your goods or your credit. He wishes to inherit a flourishing company. On the other hand, you are free to interfere with his trade. The girl will not suffer from that.”

  Nicholas was staring into space. He said, “I need a friend in the Genoese castle. But we can’t get in.”

  “
We don’t need to,” said Godscalc. “They’ll all come out. Merchants, servants and everybody, for the Easter processions. Captain Astorre might see a soldier he knows, or John a Genoese who might be bribed. You’ll like the Easter music. It’s all done in acrostics.”

  That there was a duel of some sort going on was quite clear to Tobie, but he could not make out what the grounds for it were. After a moment, Nicholas removed his eyes from the chaplain and said, “Well. It shouldn’t be beyond us to solve them. Our tongues aren’t tied, except in the presence of godliness.”

  “That wasn’t godliness. That was just common sense,” said the priest in a friendly way. You remembered that he was used to armies, and had been the first to make the acquaintance of Pagano Doria. Recognising as much perhaps, Nicholas made no response, other than a wry tilt of the head and the production, highly suspect, of one dimple.

  A percipient fellow, for a clergyman, and able to manage Nicholas to some small extent. On the other hand, the chaplain had been in the Italian wars virtually through all his association with the Charetty. He barely knew the demoiselle his employer, to whom, exactly one year before, Nicholas had been formally married. More important than that, he didn’t know what Tobie and Julius and Gregorio knew about Nicholas. Or he might have realised, Tobie thought with some irritation, that he was probably wasting his breath.

  The night before they entered the harbour of Trebizond, Nicholas asked to be received by the lady Violante.

  They were at anchor, so he had used his razor again, to remove the fair bristling growth of the sailing nights. All over the ship, men sported the harbour-badge of fresh cuts as they turned barber for one another, and decent clothing was shaken from boxes and pennants and hangings unwrapped. The ship reeked of paint and tar and damp wood and jangled with the noise of sawing and hammer blows, clanking buckets and stampeding feet, and the calls and conversation of men disagreeably employed who yet saw at the end of it a prospect of warmth and fresh food and an unmoving bed and dry clothes and women.