Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  In Timbuktu itself, whose name was currently on the lips of every banker in Europe, all time seemed to have stopped. None spoke of the day, or the month, or the season now slipping away, in case all else were to slip away with it. Death remained an everyday guest, not quite present, but not out of sight, or out of mind.

  In the quarter of the imams, the scholars, the ancient mosque of Sankore, the Timbuktu-Koy had made free a house where men of medicine could watch over the ill-advised Europeans whose arrival had promised so much – which still might mean so much – to the future of the city. Brought there so close to death that it seemed impossible that either should live, the holy man and the Venetian Fleming seized the vigorous fancy of the city.

  Gelis, leaving to visit them, would find gathering about her on the way a flock of concerned and affectionate people, bronzed and black, Negroid and aquiline, naked or veiled, tattooed, painted, hung with bucket-earrings of gold, or with lips turned down to their bosoms, their hair lush or crimped or shaved or piled on top of their heads. ‘Do they live? Poor lords, everyone knows what pagans will do when they think they are threatened.’

  Always, she went to Godscalc first for, broken, desolate, he kept some thread between himself and the living, and sometimes he talked. None of them understood how he, the elder, the unworldly, had struggled to surmount what had happened while Nicholas lay, day after day, unresponding.

  Unless it was deliberate. Umar thought so. Umar never left the chamber in which they both lay. As she did, he pieced together what had happened: the agony of the journey, where land, beast and man had been against them. Godscalc spoke again and again of the valour of Nicholas, early beaten down in Godscalc’s defence and refusing to stop. Until, in the end, Godscalc himself had begged to abandon what he had come for, and had led the way back, to be waylaid by frenzied, terrified men who thought them devils, monsters, leprous magicians who would conjure their wells to be dry, their wives barren, and who had beaten them, and left them for dead.

  They had had no means of defence. The night before, suspecting danger, their bearers had fled, taking all the little they had. Afterwards, Godscalc had waked to find himself sunk in the forest floor, his broken hand enfolded in that of Nicholas in a gesture of comfort and – he felt – friendship, but not in expectation of meeting again in this world. Then, he had thought Nicholas dead.

  Dry-eyed, Gelis listened. Godscalc began to recover. But not Nicholas.

  In October, Umar said, ‘Demoiselle. Gelis …’

  And she had stopped him. ‘I am in no mind to leave them.’

  He had looked at her gravely: this black, gentle, serious man whose attachment to Nicholas she had seen, at last, for the tremendous and terrible thing that it was. He said, ‘It is for you to decide. The gold is needed. Nicholas founded a bank, and thereby took upon himself the welfare of many people. If it does not reach the San Niccolò now, it will be too late. Whether he lives or not, this was part of his plan.’

  ‘He would want the gold to go,’ Gelis said.

  ‘He would want you and Father Godscalc to go with it,’ Umar said. ‘The padre could travel. He must go. If what has happened means anything, he must tell the world of it.’

  Gelis said, ‘You want me to leave.’

  ‘No,’ said Umar. ‘If Nicholas lives, and if you choose, from pity or friendship, to stay with him, no one would dissuade you except, perhaps, Nicholas himself, if he knew. In your own world, it might be different.’

  He paused. He said, ‘I have ascribed to you friendship and pity, but I do not know your heart. Forgive me, I am of a different race. I must also say therefore that if you wished him punished he has atoned, as few men have ever atoned, to the point of death and maybe beyond. If that was your sole aim, then I beg you to leave him.’

  ‘In our own world, it might be different?’ she repeated.

  ‘There is your dead sister,’ he said. ‘There is his father. His grandfather. The battle for money and power to keep his independence, to defy and defeat them. In all that, you are his natural antagonist. You may be so no longer, but you are still part of the war he is fighting. It does not promise peace.’

  ‘You think he should stay here?’ said Gelis.

  ‘He has no choice, for the moment,’ said Umar. ‘If he recovers, as you know, he is his own man. He will decide.’

  ‘But too late for this ship,’ Gelis said.

  ‘Take this ship. If he – if he wishes to follow,’ Umar said, ‘I shall carry him myself to the coast. I shall find some means – a Portuguese vessel – to send him home. There will be only one season lost. And if you do not know your mind now, you will know it by then.’

  It should not have disturbed her. She was afraid sometimes that Bel understood her. So perhaps did this man. Then she remembered, and interpreted, the hesitation. She said, ‘You don’t think he will recover.’

  ‘They say he might,’ Umar said. ‘They say he can. Do you know who is his heir?’

  The gold. She searched his face, but it showed only fatigue and distress. She said, ‘His partners, so I suppose; apart from the claims of the Bank. He has no family. No –’ She halted.

  He said, ‘No recognised family. In death, it might be different. In death he might receive what he always wanted.’

  He said no more. For a moment, she felt too sickened to speak. Then she said, ‘Simon hates him.’

  ‘It is a great deal of gold,’ Umar said. ‘For an inheritance such as that, would Simon not proclaim Nicholas as his son, having Henry to succeed him, and being free of Nicholas for ever? If it has struck me, it must have occurred to Nicholas too.’

  ‘I think,’ Gelis said, ‘that Nicholas values life more than you think. I think he likes fighting more than you think. I think you are speaking of a weak man, and that he is not.’

  ‘I am glad you think so,’ Umar said. ‘So you will stay? Or you will go?’

  She said, ‘I will come to see him tomorrow, and decide.’

  But she had already decided. She sat beside Nicholas the following day, and left whenever the doctors came to examine the bones they had rebroken and set; renew the ointments; change the nature of the liquids with which they hoped to nourish his body; ask him soft, patient questions to which he gave no reply.

  Alone, she did not talk to him. She sat paralysed when, once, the abyss of his gaze opened, and he looked straight into her eyes.

  She expected perplexity. She saw the reverse: full awareness. Then his eyes closed abruptly again.

  Later, she called at Umar’s house, and told him that she meant to leave with Father Godscalc, and the gold. She did not tell him why.

  The city of Bruges in November was damp, cold and wet, like the rest of Flanders. Diniz Vasquez, arriving there straight from the interior of Africa, promptly fell prey to the worst cold in Europe, which he treated by wearing two shirts, a pourpoint, a doublet, a large hat and a thick velvet cloak lined with marten. He had never been happier in his life.

  He didn’t mind that his mother had insisted on coming. She was in the Vasquez house, and he saw little of her. He didn’t mind that Gregorio, having taken him there, stayed two weeks and left to go back to Lisbon. Gregorio was expecting the return of the San Niccolò with a breathtaking cargo of gold, and Gelis, and Godscalc, and Nicholas. He, Diniz, had wanted to go back to Guinea on the Niccolò, but now he was glad that he hadn’t. He had been a child when he had last been in Bruges. Bruges had changed. Bruges was full of girls.

  Bruges was a rich, civilised city with well-maintained roads and canals, and proper administration and defences. It was inhabited by gentlemen, by prosperous traders, by busy, industrious craftsmen, and was one of the three great money markets of the world. Its streets and waterways were lined by handsome stone houses, comfortably furnished, where he could sit eating eggs and collops and shred-pie and talk about millet and sweet roots and Baobab juice with a great cup of good wine in his hand. And about serpents with a hundred teeth and four legs (which was true) and about
the way gold was found in the nests of ants as big as cats (which was not strictly true, but which everyone took for gospel in any case).

  It was a pity he had not been to Ethiopia (the younger ladies were thankful he hadn’t tried) but it had been found to be too far away. He felt guilty, knowing that Nicholas and Godscalc were attempting that very journey, but he had been told not to mention it. In any case, no one seemed concerned. He had been to the end of the world. He was a hero.

  He was invited to the Princenhof, where the Duke wanted to see him and commend his service with his sons Antony and young Baudouin in Ceuta, and enquire closely about his experiences in Guinea. He met Ernoul de Lalaing again. He had a private audience, somewhat fraught, with the Duchess Isabella, sister to the late Prince Henry of Portugal, who consequently knew as much as he did about trade, and whose secretary was his uncle. Briefed beforehand by Gregorio, he said, he hoped, no more than he should.

  Others were anxious to hear of his experiences. He was invited to all the clubs: the White Bear gave him a feast; and Anselm Adorne arranged a gathering of friends at the Hôtel Jerusalem from which the Lomellini alone begged to excuse themselves. Louis de Bruges, seigneur de Gruuthuse, entertained him, and so did the Hanse merchants and the English, led by their Master and Governor William.

  Diniz Vasquez was not an innocent: he knew very well that every man in Bruges – in all trading Europe – would be affected in one way or another by what Nicholas had done. He was being invited for his own sake, but also because he was young, and might let fall something that Gregorio wouldn’t.

  The serious work in Bruges was being done by Gregorio who, during the two weeks of his stay, was invited out even more than was Diniz, but who chose very carefully where he went. The Duke, the Duke’s controller, the Scots at the Metteneye hostel, Adorne himself, and the Spanish merchants all received his attention, and he spent perhaps longest of all with Tommaso Portinari. Sometimes he took Diniz with him.

  Always, Gregorio spent some time each day with Diniz, explaining what he was doing. In some ways, it was the most exciting part of the homecoming: those sessions with Gregorio and Jannekin Bonkle, the friend of Nicholas who, appointed by Gregorio, ran the Bruges bureau of the Banco di Niccolò.

  Gregorio lived on the office premises, as did Bonkle, and sometimes Diniz made a bed for himself beside them so that, whatever the argument was, he could stay and engage in it. The bureau was hardly palatial: two rooms leased from the Charetty mansion and warehouse in Spangnaerts Street which Gregorio ought to know well, having worked there for Marian de Charetty.

  Venetian merchants called there, from the families of the Corner or the Bembo. Sometimes Cristoffels, the Charetty manager, would slip in of an evening and join them, and once or twice the older Charetty girl came with him, and took a cup of wine, and asked questions.

  One of the first things Diniz had had to do, along with Gregorio, was to have a formal supper with the Charetty girls, and answer their queries about Nicholas. It was what you would expect, since Nicholas had been husband to their late mother – although from what Diniz had heard, neither girl had approved of the marriage.

  It astonished Diniz, all the same, to find that their very pertinent questions were directed to the intentions of Nicholas vis-à-vis trade, rather than to the adventures he wished to relate to them. Tilde, the elder, put him through an inquisition as thorough as the one he had faced at the White Bear, and made one or two points he found hard to parry.

  Emerging, he found himself unexpectedly sorry for Tilde and Catherine. They were astute enough, for young girls, but the business wasn’t what it should be for its size. He hoped, if the gold came, and if Nicholas was giving them any, that he would devote some thought to the Charetty company. Cristoffels was excellent, as a notary. But he hadn’t personally worked among dyes.

  By November, they had taken the straps from his limbs, and Nicholas was presuming to walk. His progress was slow, but quite measurable. He had excellent physicians.

  He knew, of course, that Gelis and Godscalc had gone, and the gold with them. He had not been in his senses at the time, although he could recall their faces in short, vivid flashes which seemed to indicate that he had not been wholly unconscious. Once they were out of reach, he had found himself awake most of the time. It had been a doubtful blessing. The one constant, for so long as he could remember, was pain.

  He had no other complaints. His bed was soft. Day and night, the sweat was smoothed from his skin; the torrid air was perpetually stirred by black, solemn children with fans. When he began to awake, and experience the full, awful weight of what had happened, there had appeared a sequence of quiet, respectful youths bearing books, who had bowed, seated themselves on the ground, and proceeded to read.

  The early days of his recovery were shaped, distorted, made hectically lyrical by sweet voices reading in Arabic. The words, flowing on, drew him into no deep current of thought, but described light romances, heroic adventures, mystical Odysseys. He found them soporific.

  Then, expecting them one day, he had opened his eyes to the dry voice of the imam Katib Musa. ‘It pleases my lord, to listen to stories for children?’

  By then he could move his head, and his arms. Nicholas said, ‘I cannot praise them sufficiently. They have been charmingly, tirelessly read.’

  ‘They are our youngest scholars,’ said Katib Musa. ‘Unfortunately, it is no longer safe to send them. Here are some books, perhaps more suitable for a grown man.’

  He was strong enough, now, to hold another man’s gaze. ‘Why is it no longer safe?’ Nicholas said.

  The imam made a small gesture. He was of middle years, and not imposing, but possessed a cold, still authority. ‘You know this city. When the power of the Timbuktu-Koy is low, then that of Akil ag Malwal shows itself. The commander is at the gates, with his army. He knows you have paid your tax to the Koy, and will try to wrest most of it from him.’

  Nicholas said, ‘But the Timbuktu-Koy, also, has a bodyguard.’

  ‘He had one,’ said the imam. ‘But, alas, it is on the Gambia at this moment, protecting your friends and your gold. Forgive me. There is nothing you can do. But it seemed to me that the time had come to distance yourself from children’s stories.’

  Umar had tried to smooth it away. ‘It is Akil’s way. It is no fault of yours. There is always some excuse to enter the city and claim more of its wealth than he merits. It is how the city is run.’

  ‘It should not be so,’ Nicholas said, and read the books, thinking. When he could walk, he went to the imam, and to the Timbuktu-Koy, and to the house of And-Agh-Muhammed, and asked questions. And because he could not walk far, very often the scholars who heard of his questions came to visit him, and talked, and brought books from which they read portions. And these were not children’s books.

  By then, he had confronted the central problem of his present life, and obtained from Umar an account of the departure of Gelis and Godscalc. He knew why Godscalc had gone, and was glad. He ought to have been able to guess – he, who was so good at guessing – why Gelis had not stayed, but there were too many imponderables. He asked Umar.

  Umar said, ‘She did not give her reasons. I can only tell you that she took long thought before she decided to go. She may have thought it best to part. She may have wanted to draw you after her. She may have thought you would not survive, and she could serve you best by completing your task. I could not read her mind.’

  He had paused. ‘All that is sure is that your task is complete. Father Godscalc has returned with the maps and news of Ethiopia which will save others from dying. And your Bank is preserved, and the Charetty company, and the Vasquez. You are free to do as you please.’

  ‘Tell that to my body,’ Nicholas had answered, smiling. His face, nearly healed, still felt stiff, and the blond beard, left to grow, hid his dimples. It didn’t matter. Here, he had no need of guile.

  Umar said, ‘I could hardly make my way to your house, there have been so many meeti
ngs today. They wish to sink a well, and make some proper storage for millet, but no one can decide how it should be done.’

  In February of the year 1466, the caravel San Niccolò completed her voyage to Lisbon and handed to King Alfonso of Portugal his due fee of one quarter of the largest cargo of gold ever to come on a Portuguese vessel from Guinea. For another sum, already agreed, the caravel herself passed into the ownership of the Bank of Niccolò. The caravel then proceeded, with the remains of her cargo, to Bruges.

  Gregorio was on board. Leaving Diniz in Bruges, he had made the long winter journey to Lisbon and had arrived there exhausted, but in time to see her arrive, the ship he had seen off from Lagos. It was apparent from the way she came in – the salvos of cannon, the drumming, the cries of trumpet and flute, the brilliant clothes and shouts of the seamen, the garlands of flowers and flags – that here came victory, and a joyous success. He had been first up the companionway.

  At the top was the master, duly triumphant. They had found their way to the Gambia – with what adventures! They had made their way up the river – against what dangers! They had lain at Cantor – for far too long: wiser men would have left long before he did. But the cavalcade from the interior had arrived: he had unloaded his cargo; he had taken aboard – it was inconceivable the amount he had taken aboard. He had taken aboard four thousand pounds of pure gold.

  ‘And my lord Niccolò?’ Gregorio had said.

  ‘He is in Timbuktu,’ had said Gelis’s voice. ‘Gregorio? Father Godscalc would like to see you. We shall need a little help to take him ashore.’ And so, in the midst of all the euphoria, he was seized with alarm.

  The worn, helpless man he found lying in the great cabin was only recognisable as Godscalc by the wild, greying hair and the steadfast eyes. He had smiled at Gregorio’s horror, and stirred a hand, crooked like a claw, towards Gelis. ‘That is the heroine. She and Umar led us all to the Gambia, and she has cared for me ever since. You know the gold is here? The Bank’s troubles are over.’