To Lie with Lions

by Dorothy Dunnett

  The Dry Tree, however vaguely religious, was really a club for aristocrats and their friends. Tommaso Portinari was a member. They had helped with the music for the Duke of Burgundy’s marriage. Nicholas said, ‘Thank you. Yes. I am sorry she is unwell. Tell her that I think the lady Mary will decide of her own will to stay.’

  ‘I see,’ said Adorne. He stirred. ‘Here is Master Roger coming to hear our opinion. Perhaps you don’t know but, preparing this work, he and his singers have had almost no sleep for a week. It was for you. He wished you to perceive a work of perfection.’

  ‘I feared as much,’ Nicholas said.

  Adorne looked at him. ‘It is not perhaps the impertinence it appears. It is a pity to wear out one’s life solely in resistance to others, and never to pause to create something worthwhile of one’s own. Especially someone as gifted as yourself. Roger has offered you music. Give him what he asks in return.’

  He sounded earnest. Then he smiled and turned aside to stop and embrace Will Roger as he arrived. Nicholas heard their voices without listening to them. The door had opened behind him, letting in the mid-afternoon light. The singers had put out the lamp and, leaving the lectern, were beginning to drift forward. Adorne made a final remark and, gripping Roger briefly by the shoulder, smiled again at Nicholas and quietly withdrew.

  Will Roger turned to Nicholas and gazed at him. He said, ‘Your eyes are dry.’ His own were sunken and very bright.

  Nicholas said, ‘It was passable. Why should I tell you it was magnificent? You know you can do anything, now you’ve done that.’

  Roger showed no sign of having heard him. He said again, ‘Your eyes are dry.’

  It made Nicholas angry, having no answer. He gave the only answer he had. ‘I didn’t ask for it. You told me it wouldn’t touch me.’

  Roger continued to stare at him. His face, from being tired, had become heavy. ‘You couldn’t,’ he said. ‘Could you?’

  Some of his prebendaries, speeding towards them, heard the change of tone and slowed down. Exhausted, ecstatic, the others were transported still.

  Nicholas said nothing. Will Roger suddenly said, ‘You bastard! You blocked it. Did you? You blocked it with something.’

  He had blocked it. He might as well admit it. ‘I had a lot to think about. It wasn’t my idea,’ Nicholas said. Now the others were slowly gathering round. On their faces the elation of the performance was starting to ebb, leaving starkness behind.

  Roger said, ‘You didn’t hear anything? Not even the end?’

  Gaude virgo mater pura …

  Nicholas said, ‘The sound came through. I didn’t listen. I’m sorry.’

  Whistle Willie said, ‘If the sound came through, your mind heard it. Sing it.’ All the singers were close. There was a rustle. Roger said in an angry aside, ‘You don’t know,’ and turned back to Nicholas. ‘Sing it. Any part.’

  It was ludicrous. He was poised to make some joking remark; to convey soothing excuses; to leave.

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t deny, for his own peace of mind, what he had just been given. He let Whistle Willie’s fierce gaze remain locked in his own, and unwillingly opened the evil, infallible bank of his memory.

  It was a tenor part that came to the surface, from the later verses, when the weight of the music had first begun to break through. That he could recall it, with all its fluid turns and rapid ornaments, signified nothing; his musical memory was like that. He could hear the other four parts in his mind as he began to reproduce, sotto voce, the one he had chosen. It required concentration. He sang as if he and Willie Roger were face to face and alone, since that was how he felt. It was some moments before he realised that the other parts were not in his head, but were being taken up, one by one, by the other singers. Taghaza, Taghaza. The texture floated, complete: a ghostly furnishing below the high vaults.

  When the verse ended, they were all gathered close and Roger, who had never moved his gaze from his face, lifted his choir-master’s hand. ‘Do you remember the rest?’

  He did remember. This time he summoned his voice, properly placed on the reservoirs of its air; and the others did likewise. The interweaving now was not faint but firm and rushing and brilliant: glass and paint and silver and stone. It swirled through the spaces and quickened. The fierce Amen, when it came, struck the roof and dissolved in a curtain of echoes. The organ pealed and pealed and pealed, and the singers stood, flushed.

  Unobserved in the shadows, Father Moriz stole to the door and addressed the man who, arrested, had stopped there to listen.

  ‘Master Roger will get his Play now. Perfect as that was perfect, whatever it costs.’ He mopped his face, which was moist. ‘I am disturbed. I may have been wrong.’

  ‘No,’ said Anselm Adorne. ‘No. Your instincts were right. There is the proof.’ His lashes were wet; he made no effort to dry them.

  The priest said, ‘There is also the root of my concern. To divert a brook is one thing; to divert a river is quite another. You will still compete against Nicholas?’

  ‘I must,’ Adorne said. ‘And with my whole heart. My house depends on me.’

  ‘Good,’ said the priest. ‘And for his sake, I might hope that you’d win, were I not paid by the Bank, and bound to try to outguess you, as he will. I should leave the church now, and so should you. It will permit them to float to some inn and get drunk. The Most High, I feel sure, will absolve them.’

  Chapter 15

  GREGORIO OF ASTI left Rome in October in order to await the birth of Margot’s first child in Venice. He was aware that Julius, daily expecting to welcome his Gräfin, was disappointed by his departure; but his wife, his darling, vivid and firm as a nut in the hedgerow, naturally came first.

  Her pregnancy had been untroubled from the start. They were not foolish enough to view this as an omen. Margot’s bloodline bred aberrations. Because of it, she and her first husband had had no children, and after he died, she and Gregorio had lived without marriage or children because of it. The turning point had been Gelis’s son. Aghast for Nicholas, revolted by Gelis’s tale of betrayal, Gregorio had given no thought to the coming child of that betrayal. It had been Margot, no less upset, who had steeled herself to go to Gelis and offer to share her self-imposed exile and stay to look after the child when it was born. Later, sickened by what Nicholas had been made to endure, Margot had changed her allegiance, and helped to bring together father and son.

  It had been, for her, a series of long and difficult trials. She had learned that a bond with a child will overcome anything. She had learned from the steadfastness of Nicholas, who had shown no doubts about accepting his son, however malformed. She had realised with horror that Nicholas, knowing her history, had assumed that the care of his invisible child had required her special acquaintance with deformity. And that Gelis had allowed him to think it, even when the child had been born without fault.

  Margot had found it hard to forgive Gelis van Borselen, but now she was ready for children, Gregorio’s children. And if they were less than perfect, they would be born into a love which would compensate. Gregorio felt as she did. He had already sent for old Tasse.

  In Rome, alight with Pope fever, the thick insect-ridden heat of the summer moved hardly observed into autumn as the stately delegations followed their harbingers into the city and every bank struggled over its ledgers to keep afloat in the torrents of ducats, the snowfalls of bills of exchange that arrived with their masters.

  Handsomely quartered in the Canale del Ponte close to Hadrian’s Bridge, the financial sector of Rome was inhabited by astute men of many nations who knew each other well. Success in a new papal era depended on a supernatural adroitness in identifying new trends; in finding a path through the smokescreen of hints and rumours and misinformation that swirled daily through the community; and above all in plucking what information could be had from the incoming embassies, from the highest officials to the lowest page-boy or groom.

  Lazzarino of the Casa Niccolò had been se
lected as factor in Rome because of his skill in this respect. The most inoffensive and obliging of men, he took his listening ears to all occasions of note and said nothing; his reports told what he had learned. His wife, more naturally opinionative, had the sense to appear gentle also. Their aptitudes fitted in well enough with the more flamboyant personality of Julius, who was happy to leave the dull work to the agent and buff up the Bank’s social relationships in his own style.

  By the time Gregorio left, the English embassy was already over: a constipated group under Gold well, dispatched to bring the obedience from a King newly back on his throne, who desired the fact to be noticed. Florence followed: not on the prodigious scale of Milan, but rich enough to make the eyes water. It was led by Lorenzo de’ Medici, and included a column of wains requiring thirty-five horses to pull them, and loaded with, among other things, four hundred pounds’ weight of table silver.

  For lodging they had the hospitality of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s two uncles who ran the Rome Bank and, more grandly, the extravagant palace of Cardinal Orsini, whose eighteen-year-old niece was the wife of Lorenzo. With the party rode five other envoys, the orator Donato Acciajuoli and a Martelli among them, and an assortment of Levantine exiles including a girlish young half-Greek called Nerio. There came also a crippled kinsman of Acciajuoli’s whose presence would have turned Nicholas cold, had his thoughts not been directed elsewhere.

  Julius had no qualms when this particular gentleman stalked into his house, the wooden leg perfectly managed underneath the long skirts of plum velvet. Gazing at the smooth bearded face and dark eyes, Julius noted the silvery hairs, the sharper bones, but conceded that the man had worn well since the day that Claes had snapped his leg off by accident. By what passed for an accident, in those light-hearted years when men perceived only Claes, and not Nicholas. Acciajuoli hadn’t borne him a grudge; had indeed passed him a few business tips well worth having, even if there had been a sting, now and then, in the tail. Nicholas seemed to find the fellow lowering, which was natural. Acciajuoli was a man who had seen Nicholas, his back buttered, in jail. Nicholas hadn’t been anyone’s padrone then.

  Julius thought the Florentine sly – his Greek blood – but would hardly call him malignant. They said he had approached Gelis in Florence two years ago. No one knew whether he had offered her anything, or asked her to do something, or had been merely obeying a whim. He was an inquisitive man. At this very moment, goblet in hand, he was enquiring about the arrival of Anna. It was a dull, clammy day, and they were sitting in the loggia in the garden, not far from where Ludovico da Bologna had once placed himself.

  ‘The Gräfin?’ Julius said. ‘Many of our clients, as you might expect, are coming to Rome. I believe she is one of them.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the Florentine soothingly. ‘I forgot. She is a shareholder in the Bank’s newest ship. I am told your splendid merchantman is sadly delayed? Some dispute in the boat-yard at Danzig?’

  ‘One expects it,’ said Julius. ‘There are others.’

  ‘Skiffs and doggers and balingers, in little boat-yards in Scotland, so rumour says. Not very palatable news for your Hanse friends in Cologne. Unless, that is, you mean to recover your fleet from the Doge? The old Ciaretti, the pirated Ghost, the battered San Niccolò? Venice would have a right to complain. But who could blame Nicholas, retired to his love nest in Scotland, if he lost interest in fighting the Turk on the Euxine, or in Persia, or the Khanates?’ He smiled, and laid down his cup. ‘I hear his wife is pregnant again.’

  Despite himself, Julius could not resist it. ‘Not unless miracles have happened. The best news we have received is that he has refrained from breaking her other arm. He is where he is, on the affairs of the company. After that, he is committed to Burgundy. He will come back to the Somme when the spring land campaigns open. He couldn’t sail for the East if he wanted to.’

  ‘Even for gold?’ the Florentine said. ‘Or perhaps he thinks he will divine all the gold he requires in little Scotland, as he thinks he has identified all the alum in the Tyrol? I have to tell you that the Vatachino think he has allowed personal matters to stifle his genius. The gold in Scotland is trifling. The sale of other alum will be prohibited so long as the papal mines have the monopoly.’

  Julius admired his own beautiful hose. They were of knitted silk, with three pearls down each side. He said, ‘Run by the Medici.’

  The Florentine tilted his head. He, too, was admiring the pearls. He said, ‘Operated by the Bank of the Medici. Also the newly opened magnificent mines in Volterra, a commune under the influence of Florence.’

  ‘Another source of rightful pride to Messer Lorenzo,’ Julius said. ‘One has only to hope that the rumours of unrest in Volterra are baseless. Also the tales of useless stockpiles of alum, over-produced and offered at too high a price. After all, the profits are to finance the Crusade you mentioned. The spring sailing to Persia. The peregrinations of Father Ludovico, the Patriarch of Antioch. The marriage of Zoe. I believe Messer Prosper de Camulio has been seen in the city. One might imagine that even the Genoese think that papal alum may not, sadly, achieve all that it might.’

  There was a silence during which Julius, smiling, studied the toe of his slipper. Whatever one might think of him, sometimes Nicholas got it just right. Then the Florentine said, ‘I have a message for your Master Niccolò. The Medici have lost none of their power. And this is a different Pope, with different policies. You may have fewer friends now, and those you have, may be dispersed very soon. The Vatachino must watch out for themselves.’ He paused. ‘In this new world, it pays to be Greek.’

  Nicholas had said that as well. Nicholas, in the closely written pages ciphered for Julius alone, had suggested paying particular attention to the quandary of Zoe, tender unmarried heiress to the brilliant lost throne of Byzantium. Failing her brothers, who were too young to lead armies, the husband of Zoe would have the right and the duty to drive the Turk from his Empire. Once, with the blessing of Cardinal Bessarion, it had seemed that Zacco of Cyprus would make Zoe his bride, and Cyprus an outpost of Byzantium. It had not suited Venice. Cyprus was to be a Venetian arsenal, a floating war-machine against the Grand Turk. Zacco, discontentedly rattling his chains, had instead married Catherine Corner, half Venetian, wholly the daughter of a princess of the lesser Greek Empire of Trebizond.

  Catherine’s uncle was in Persia now, urging her great-uncle Uzum Hasan to lead his armies against the Sublime Porte. It would embarrass the Turk to have the White Sheep attack from the south. It would embarrass them more to be attacked at the same time from Moscow. As would occur, one might hope, if Zoe, daughter of Caesars, gave her hand to the Grand Duke of Muscovy. The widower Ivan the Third, the lord of White Russia; and the fated successor, perhaps, to Constantine Palaeologus, the last lord of Byzantium.

  Julius said, ‘How right you are. Greece! Fount of all civilisation. Although, in my days serving Cardinal Bessarion, I never found him less than complimentary to us Latins. I take it that you are attending his ritual welcome to the Florentine embassy? If anything has gone amiss with your invitation, I should be happy to write you another. I have the Cardinal’s confidence.’

  ‘I should have expected no less,’ said Acciajuoli. ‘He reposes the same confidence in the Latin Patriarch, your much-travelled Father Ludovico. The Cardinal has even found, in his wisdom, a willing partner to finance his new printing schemes. The Vatachino have his confidence too.’

  ‘Really? A little more wine?’ Julius said. ‘So Anselm Adorne made some investments in Rome?’

  ‘As to that,’ said the Florentine, ‘you must ask his son Jan. I believe he is hourly expected at the Flaminian Gate – that is, the Porta del Popolo. The Scots bishop called Graham is with him. But why speak of business? I prefer to give myself completely to pleasure. Indeed, I look forward to the Cardinal of Nicaea’s reception to which – I believe – I have been invited. Nerio will know.’ He laid down his cup with a smile. ‘No, I thank you. It is a fine vintage, bu
t I must leave.’

  ‘Nerio?’ Julius repeated. Seeing the other man rise, he remained standing. He put down the flask with a certain care.

  ‘The young lad who was exiled from Trebizond. Duke Charles made him welcome at Bruges; Alighieri knows him, of course, as does the Cardinal. Perhaps you remember; you met him in Venice.’

  Julius remembered. He said, ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Outside. He hesitated to intrude.’

  ‘But bring him in!’ Julius exclaimed. He knew he had flushed. He saw it reflected in the boy’s face as Nerio entered; in the lustrous dark eyes fixed on his, above the delicate chin, the curling lips, the exquisite nose. In Venice, Nerio of Trebizond had caused a great deal of mischief by ceasing to dress like a man. Now, the long lashes flickered once; then, smiling, Nerio touched the one-legged man on the shoulder, his white fingers smoothing the velvet.

  ‘Sit, sir,’ he said. ‘I am sure Master Julius does not expect you to stand.’ And turning: ‘Monsignore, I am happy to see you.’

  ‘And I, you,’ Julius said. ‘You are with the embassy? Are you enjoying it?’

  ‘He is with me,’ said the Florentine calmly. ‘I thought it was obvious.’ And, indeed, as the bearded man resumed his seat smoothly, the youth sank to a stool at his knee. After a moment, the man’s hand touched his neck, and then rested there. Feeling it, the boy smiled; but the dark eyes were still fixed on Julius.

  Julius poured a full cup. ‘You will drink with me, Nerio, I hope.’ Carrying over the wine, he brought to mind something about Tilde in Bruges. Tilde complaining of Catherine her sister, and how she filled the Charetty-Niccolò house with her ardent young followers. And the rumour he had heard more than once: that they were not there from love of Catherine, these charming young men. Of whom Nerio had been one. And Diniz, Tilde’s husband, another.

  He gave Nerio the cup, and said, ‘I am glad to have caught you. I expect you will be on your travels quite soon.’ Their fingers touched, by no volition of his.