Gemini

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘I know. She has three,’ Paul said, and kissed his wife, who had gone pale and then pink. He patted her waist. ‘And, do you see? A future race of Conservators for Scotland.’

  ‘The merchants of Scotland will love you all,’ said Nicholas comfortably, and gathered Catherine and kissed her properly, with all the reassurance that she could want. He thought that Marian would have been proud of her daughters.

  Later, there came the serious discussion with Wolfaert and Gruuthuse, where he learned what Diniz was not in a position to tell him, and reported what he wanted these two men to know. At the end, they asked him the same question as Diniz. ‘Will you come back?’

  He did not immediately answer. Gruuthuse said, ‘I am sorry. We did not mean to place you in a difficult position. You have not yet completed your business in France.’

  ‘It is why I hesitated,’ Nicholas said. ‘But not because of embarrassment. I have been offered a pension, and also my grandfather’s vicomté, with the house at Fleury rebuilt, and the estate and title enhanced. I have not yet given my answer.’

  ‘Then we need not discuss it. As you will know, we have each taken precautions, Wolfaert and I. It is done the world over. I should not presume to give you advice, Nicholas,’ Gruuthuse said. ‘But I should be grateful if you would tell me, when your decision is made.’

  ‘I imagine,’ Nicholas said, ‘that should I agree, the King will broadcast it before ever I could.’

  He had apparently missed Prosper de Camulio, who had touched Bruges for a few days, and gone. Returning to the Hof Charetty, Nicholas found a houseful of guests assembled to meet him, and it was late before he could ask.

  Diniz said, ‘Prosper? Did you want to meet him, now Simpson is dead? Or—Of course, he’s got a bishopric, hasn’t he? The Pope wants to reward him for rousing opinion against Milan, and Scotland was pleased to oblige, in return for one or two much-needed favours. Result, Prosper de Camulio de’ Medici, Bishop-elect of Caithness. He’ll be a credit to you. Robes a little too silky, appendages a little too heavily jewelled, and most beautifully barbered, except for the time they put him in prison. Did Simpson arrange that?’

  ‘I think he helped,’ Nicholas said. ‘So is he being successful?’

  ‘In persuading rulers to make war on Milan? Well, you know Camulio. Gregorio knows Camulio. You remember him from St Omer.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Gregorio said sleepily. Nicholas judged that Margot didn’t approve of late nights. Then he added, ‘No, that isn’t really fair. He’s a humanist, he’s an educated, quick-witted man who is truly passionate about the sovereignty of Genoa, and desperately wants to get rid of Milanese rule. But, of course, he’s been employed by Milan in the past, and tried to get work from the Medici, and turned his hand to anything, in bad times, that would make him money. All this recent prosperity has come about because he’s a favourite of the Pope’s nephew.’

  ‘So people don’t trust him, and won’t commit themselves to join the Pope and Naples?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘It’s more,’ said Gregorio, concentrating, ‘that the Milanese are less disorganised than he is. Cicco Simonetta knows just how to discredit him. Everywhere he goes, the Milanese ambassadors are there before him, calling him names. Fonticho di puzza is one of the best of them. He’s still esteemed by the Empire and Naples: Frederick appointed him consul to Genoa, and Prosper’s son (did you know he had a son?) serves King Ferrante. But France won’t listen. And he might be a mixed blessing in Scotland, referred to as in culo mundi by Milan.’

  ‘In which case, they should be pleased that Prosper is going there,’ said Diniz lazily. ‘Did I tell you Julius is joining you soon? Things are dull in Cologne, and they seem far from dull in Scotland, from all you say.’

  ‘No, you didn’t tell me,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I was thinking of seeing him anyway. What is happening tomorrow?’

  They told him. It included a feast at the White Bear, and a drinking session with the Crossbowmen. ‘And the next day—’ Diniz began.

  ‘Diniz, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to leave after tomorrow,’ said Nicholas. ‘If I’m to get to Cologne and then back.’

  They were disappointed, and he, too, felt the wrench. His company, his friends were as close to him as ever they had been. It was not there, but outside the Hof Charetty that so much had changed. Without Tommaso, without Lorenzo, without Astorre and Felix and Thomas and Jan … without Godscalc … without Marian, without Kathi, without Adorne, without Sersanders … without Gelis, it wasn’t the same. And quite soon, even the Hof Charetty would have gone, for the company was moving to Antwerp. He had advised them to do it, and Diniz, the responsible family man, shrewd and eager and attractive, grown from the distraught boy of Rhodes and Ceuta and Arguim, had set to work to bring it about.

  Now Diniz Vasquez was his own man, cut off in every particular from his mother’s family; disowning Kilmirren as Kilmirren had disowned him. And yet, earlier that day, he had taken Nicholas aside and asked him to come back. ‘You established the office in Antwerp. Yours has been the vision that made the business what it now is. It is yours. I only ask to be your partner.’

  Diniz was more than that. He was a St Pol, however he might deny it. He was part of the past: the past that contained Umar and Zacco, Gelis and Bel, and the deaths of his parents. Nicholas had refused, shaken, as gently as he knew how. It was not a rejection of Diniz, or Marian’s daughters: it was the opposite. This was their life. If he came back, he would not interfere with it.

  He left a day later, and they talked of him.

  Gregorio said, ‘I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten what he was like.’ He sounded angry, and resentful, and even afraid.

  ‘But he is different,’ said Tilde. ‘I remember him joking all the time. Now the good humour’s still there, but it’s more a solid contentment, inside. And he makes time for the laughter, but there are other things that mean as much to him, or more.’

  ‘He is needed. That’s the difference,’ Diniz said. ‘He made a mistake, he went back to make reparation. He found a purpose perhaps.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gregorio said. ‘But he isn’t sure yet. And which Nicholas should we hope for? Not Claes: he has gone. But there is a place short of hegemony, surely, for the considerate nature, the gift for happiness which made him such a good friend, such an easy business partner? Or would constraint be a sin, now his arts have developed, so that even rulers begin to depend on him?’

  ‘A life of duty?’ said Diniz. ‘He obeys his conscience, when brought to it. It is one of the things that I love him for. But a life of duty?’

  ‘It depends,’ Gregorio said, ‘on what you think life is for.’

  Chapter 24

  Off gret corage he is that has no dreid

  And dowtis nocht his fais multitud

  Bot starkly fechtis for his querell gud.

  JULIUS OF BOLOGNA was in no doubt about what life was for, although others frequently disagreed with him.

  At his school for indigenous orphans, it had been for rebellion. In Paris, at the Bologna college of notaries, it had been for drinking and gambling and other forms of light entertainment, which had got him into trouble with his subsequent master, the Cardinal Bessarion. Later, with reasonable qualifications and no money, he had traded briefly on his good looks (briefly, because he was not a particularly sensual man) and obtained this post and that until, one day, he had taken himself in hand, looked at his life, and decided what he was going to do about it.

  He had been to Geneva before, during his training, and had been intrigued by Jaak de Fleury’s cloth business. They had no vacancies then, and he wasn’t yet qualified, but that was where he saw Nicholas for the first time, although they called him Claes, and he was young. Cheeky, and nine years younger than Julius was. By the time Julius came back, aged twenty-four, and became Jaak’s poorly paid company lawyer, Nicholas had gone to the Charetty at Bruges, and it hadn’t taken Julius long to decide that he wanted to follow him. He had met few people as unp
leasant as Jaak, and not many who made him as uncomfortable as did Jaak’s wife Esota.

  Marian de Charetty, the widowed head of the firm, after some typical female delay, had appointed Julius as notary and also as bear-leader and tutor for Felix her son, who went to the University of Louvain, and was to be killed not long afterwards. Nicholas went to Louvain also, as Felix’s servant, which was where he picked up the education he had. Being not only illegitimate but disowned, he would have had little chance otherwise. Then, of course, Nicholas, aged nineteen, had married Marian de Charetty, the little whelp, and was on his way to becoming wealthy and powerful.

  It was what Julius had always tried to hammer into him, when they were being serious about anything, Julius and Felix and Claes. If Nicholas had discovered ambition, he could thank Julius for it.

  And then, after the golden years, Julius had made a disastrous marriage to a woman he thought he knew all about, and found that his money had gone and he hardly knew her at all. Adelina had been related to Nicholas, and when she died, she had been in custody for trying to kill him. It made Julius feel ill even to think of her. He kept remembering that there was a daughter of hers, subsisting at Nicholas’s expense in a convent here in Cologne. The girl’s name was Bonne, and she was said to be between sixteen and eighteen years old. But then Adelina, who called herself Anna, sometimes said she wasn’t her daughter at all.

  So now there were no nightly feasts on the lagoon, or music, or dancing, or archery contests with one’s clients, and packed baskets of fine wines and dates in comfits and veal-garnished cygnets. There was German food and German beer, and a modest, uninteresting business with Father Moriz and that assiduous man Govaerts, lent by the Charetty to help him run it.

  When he heard Nicholas was coming from Scotland, Julius said at once, ‘Good. I’m going to join him.’

  ‘Well, it’s an idea,’ Father Moriz had said. Father Moriz was a short, bow-legged, truculent metallurgy expert who had worked with Nicholas and John in the Tyrol and Scotland. He was German, and didn’t mind terrible food. ‘It’s an idea. Certainly we should discuss it. And consider who would then run the business, and look after the interests of Bonne.’

  That was Moriz. No sense of humour, and a fanatic about piddling details. Julius said, ‘All right. We can talk about it. But I’m going to ask Diniz to send Nicholas, anyway.’

  PICKING HIS WAY through the streets of Cologne, Nicholas had no trouble in finding Julius’s office and warehouse, smaller than the one in which Gelis had stayed in the affluent days, but still close to the river. It felt strange to be here, after Nancy.

  Julius and Govaerts were at home, but not Father Moriz. Nicholas had a strong feeling that Julius wasn’t going to send out to find Moriz, or at least not immediately. As soon as Govaerts showed him in, grinning, Julius had remarked, ‘Ah, Nicholas. Come to visit the poor?’

  He was smiling, too; but there was a snap to it that you might have thought unwise, in Julius’s position. Whether about to ask a favour or not, what was in Julius’s mind at the moment was the fact that Nicholas was enjoying friends, esteem, security and a rejuvenated marriage in Scotland while he was not. Nicholas extended his fingers and fondled one of Julius’s buttons. ‘You don’t seem to be doing so badly.’

  ‘It’s old. I haven’t had to sell off my clothes, or not yet. Will you have some wine? We can still afford wine,’ Julius said. He was recovering.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ Govaerts said. ‘The business is doing very nicely, Ser Nicholas. And are you well? It’s a pleasure to see you.’

  He looked the same. Govaerts had been a good manager in Scotland, and was being a good manager here, which was not so far, after all, from his home in Brussels. Julius looked fit, and his smooth, symmetrical face with its slanting eyes and Roman nose were burned by the sun, as if he had been out of doors a great deal. The last time they had met had been in Ghent, in the violence that attended the unmasking and death of Adelina. Julius must have been glad of a respite after that. But more than two years had elapsed since then, and he was announcing now his intention of returning to Scotland with Nicholas.

  ‘Just when your business is doing so well?’ Nicholas said sarcastically. He could tell what Govaerts thought by his face.

  So could Julius. Julius said, ‘I could sell it. Or Govaerts could run it. Everyone trusts him. He wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘And Father Moriz?’ Nicholas said. ‘He was supposed to be in Cologne to help you. So was Govaerts.’

  ‘Well, they could help each other,’ Julius said. ‘Or, as I said, I could sell it.’

  ‘Well, why not,’ Nicholas said. ‘Let’s talk about it when Moriz comes in. You couldn’t return with me anyway. I’m leaving for Paris, then Scotland, at once.’

  For a moment, he thought that Julius was going to claim that he could settle his affairs, do his packing and leave with him too, but even he had to acknowledge it couldn’t be done. Which would give Nicholas time to see Moriz. When Adelina died, the rest of the Bank had shored up the Cologne business for Julius. He owed money. He couldn’t sell, although he had conveniently forgotten.

  Then Julius began to ask about Scotland, and France, and Diniz and Gregorio, and presently fall into recollections of their shared past. There had been good times, there was no doubt about it. In setting out to remind Nicholas, Julius himself gradually warmed to the telling until, before long, the petulance had gone, and they were roaring together as they had always done over some irreverent incident. You couldn’t hate Julius. You could never hate Julius for long, he was so innocent. Someone else had said that.

  Govaerts went early to bed; Moriz didn’t come; and Julius and Claes, the ex-company notary and the former apprentice he sometimes felt he brought up, drank until nearly daylight.

  Next morning, Nicholas found Julius already out, fulfilling his business commitments. He would be free and home, Govaerts said, at midday. Father Moriz had been detained overnight, but hearing that Nicholas had come, had sent a note for him early that morning.

  ‘You know what is in it?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘The superscription invited me to read it. As you see, Fra Moriz hopes you will join him. You would be back before noon.’

  ‘Then I shall go. But first, perhaps you and I should have a talk also?’ Nicholas said; and was glad he had, when he saw the man flush. It had been difficult, here in Cologne. He had not realised how difficult.

  COLONIA, THAT GREAT Roman city, was a place for fine churches. Besides its Cathedral, church after church, monastery after monastery had brought its grace here, and had been nurtured by many nations. The Irish monks of Cologne were known the world over.

  So were the Franciscans, and especially that severe sect called the Observatines, the particular favourites of Mary of Guelders, who had sailed to Scotland with Louis de Gruuthuse and Henry van Borselen, and married its King, and given birth to five living children, among whom were James, the present King, and the Duke of Albany, his rebellious brother. It was Sandy’s royal mother who had brought the Observatine Franciscans from Cologne to Edinburgh, from where they had now spread to Aberdeen, under the devoted sponsorship of Bishop Spens. It was to the house of the Observatines in Cologne that Nicholas walked now, to be admitted and shown to a guest-room in which were two men. One, springing up on his horseman’s legs, short and plain as a dwarf, was Father Moriz. The other he had last seen in Moscow.

  ‘Father Ludovico,’ he said.

  ‘Deference!’ said Ludovico da Bologna, Patriarch of Antioch. ‘Is one of us dying? There is nothing wrong with me, so far as I know, but a few bruises and a surfeit of Prosper de Camulio. Did you see him?’

  ‘No. He’d gone before I came,’ Nicholas said. He smiled at Father Moriz, who had risen from beside the Patriarch’s bed.

  ‘Didn’t want to talk about the late David his Procurator. Did he really try to kill the King and his brothers?’

  ‘He was careless with poison,’ Nicholas said. ‘And deserved all he got. So, h
ow bruised? By the Empress Zoe, when you told her you were leaving Moscow? By the toe of her shoe?’ He sat down where Moriz had been.

  ‘He was set upon,’ Moriz said. ‘Nothing sinister, just ordinary robbers.’

  ‘You don’t look rich,’ said Nicholas critically. He eyed the Patriarch, who looked as hairy, as unkempt and as poverty-stricken on the pillows as he had ever been from the first time they had met and quarrelled with each other nearly twenty years earlier in Florence.

  ‘They wanted the mule. So you have given up Burgundy in favour of Bordeaux, my fine Nicholas?’

  ‘Well, not at least in favour of Porretta,’ Nicholas said. He hadn’t meant to talk about Milan. Faced with the most single-minded man he had ever known, he couldn’t help it. Uzum Hasan was dead, Cyprus was in Venetian hands, Caffa had been overrun by the Turks and the Tartars, Muscovy remained resolutely Greek in its faith and—the final blow—Venice had made peace with Turkey, thereby wrecking Ludovico da Bologna’s life’s mission: to remove the Muslim menace from the Latin communities of the East. And what was the Patriarch doing but quartering Europe in the name of a petty feud by the head of the Latin Christian church against Latin Christian Milan. It was to be expected of Camulio. But the Patriarch?

  Except, of course, that in the Patriarch’s case there would be labyrinthine plotting below the apparent compliance. The Pope would pay for it, and so would the Emperor. Nicholas knew the Patriarch’s methods. To fund his objectives, he would make any promise. To command a man whom he wanted, he would employ any lure. None of it was for himself, and he wasted no thought at all upon the men whom he used; an attribute that Nicholas found harshly liberating.

  Father Ludovico had been watching him. ‘Ah, you are wondering if I have reached the age of confessions, excuses. Am I a Bessarion, about to enfold you to my bosom and whisper advice? No, I am not, although I do not say ignore what he told you. I have little to say to you, except this. If you wish, as I see you do, the mindless life of a comfortable paterfamilias, you could not do better than return to banking in Venice. You will die rich, and you might be of some service to me in the meantime. And your man Julius, so dismissive of Germany, might enjoy living in Scotland in your place.’