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

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Nicholas had asked the commander to sit and take sherbet, and had seated himself, wrapped in a loose mantle. He had deliberately left his head bare, which was an insult. He resented being awakened.

  Nicholas said, ‘I am utterly at fault. I confess the Timbuktu-Koy has failed to renew the permission his father extended during his life and I, humble as I am, have not ventured to ask it. I now see, from what you say, that it would be refused. I am not trading. I desire only the privilege of living in your great city and perhaps serving it. At my own expense. At my own expense, I must insist to you.’

  ‘The Timbuktu-Koy is not his father,’ Akil said. ‘He takes advice from his men of religion. They may suggest that it is evil to harbour a non-believer. That such a man may be here to subvert both Timbuktu and the Faith.’

  Nicholas poured, with grace, from the ewer. He said, ‘Did I harm you last night? Have I ever harmed the city with any action of mine?’

  Akil sipped. He said, ‘It is my conviction, of course, that you have not. But you have gold. You are richer than most of those who rightly live in the city. One could say that you are holding your hand; that soon you will use your gold as the other white traders do, to corrupt and delude. I feel the Timbuktu-Koy does not fully understand this.’

  ‘And it is your duty to explain it to him,’ Nicholas said. ‘Unless I set your mind at rest? What would set your mind at rest?’

  ‘I do not wish,’ Akil said, ‘to constrain you to leave, although I would say, in the privacy of this room, that it would be wiser for you to do so, and best for the city. Indeed, if you were to leave, there would be no difficulty. Failing that, I should like some earnest of your resolve not to interfere.’

  ‘Would the Timbuktu-Koy feel so strongly?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘I do not know. No doubt, in due course, you will ask him,’ Akil said. ‘In the meantime, I have asked my men to enter your storeroom and remove half of all the gold and the goods that they find there. If the Timbuktu-Koy finds me over-zealous, he will no doubt tell me. It will be between him and me.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ Nicholas said, ‘that this is entirely between you and me, my lord Akil. Suppose I say that I have no objection to your taking this tax, and that I shall not complain to the Timbuktu-Koy?’

  ‘I should commend your wisdom,’ said Akil. He said it after a moment.

  ‘Although,’ said Nicholas, ‘I am unclear on one point. If I decide to leave, will it be returned to me?’

  The black moustache moved in a smile. ‘Your soul has lived before, in the person of a sage. The tax pertains to all the days you have spent here, and cannot be rescinded. But if you leave, you may take with you freely all the goods and gold you have left.’

  ‘You are generous,’ Nicholas said.

  His first trouble, next day, was soothing the passions of the men who called on him, indignant, enraged by the news of the theft. His second trouble was Umar, who did not come. In the evening, when Nicholas knew the children would be asleep, he called on him. Zuhra met him on the threshold; seventeen, lovely, her breasts swollen with milk. She said, ‘We have heard.’ Her eyes were anxious.

  ‘I know,’ Nicholas said. ‘I blame Umar, of course. I am fiercely critical of you, and am ashamed of Muhammed, and renounce Umar Niccolò as my name-child. Zuhra, I am here to put it all right. There is nothing to fear.’

  She dropped her eyes and leading him in, drew her veil down and over her shoulders for the first time he remembered in her own house. When she had left them alone, he spoke to Umar. ‘You expected it.’

  ‘I didn’t provoke it,’ Umar said.

  ‘No. But you knew I could become the catalyst in the war between these two men. The excuse for division.’

  ‘They would find another,’ Umar said.

  ‘But in the meantime, as you did not tell me, loss and indignity, at the very least, might lie ahead of me. You thought, if you told me, I would think it just another deceit.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Umar said. ‘I shall make good your losses.’

  ‘There is no need,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am not staying. They have frightened me away.’

  Umar’s hands tightened. He did not answer.

  ‘No, you don’t believe that.’ Nicholas said. ‘I could take one side or the other, and perhaps make it successful. But it is the balance of power, isn’t it, that has brought peace to the city, and my presence which is going to disrupt it? And anything I can do will fall apart after my death, because you are right: you cannot perpetuate a civilisation ahead of its time unless those around are civilised also. I have decided to go.’

  ‘And do what?’ Umar said. His hands remained doubled.

  ‘Zuhra veiled herself just now,’ Nicholas said. ‘Perhaps I envy you. Perhaps that is the lesson I learned here, not what the doctors were teaching me.’

  ‘It was not – it was not my purpose,’ Umar said. His face, puzzled, had lost some of its strain.

  ‘No, you had another purpose,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am aware of that, too. But you are happy? Not just from duty?’

  ‘Not just from duty. Here, it is not difficult to be happy in marriage. Zuhra is young. There are no great requirements laid on her. We cannot disappoint each other.’

  ‘A warning,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘I should not presume,’ Umar said. ‘You mean to leave? When will you leave? It is March. The May azalai is largest and safest, and should protect you from the ill-will of – anyone.’

  ‘You think I should go through the Sahara?’ Nicholas said. He smiled, and Umar smiled a little in return.

  ‘Yes. it is never safe; but for one man, it is better than the long trip to the Gambia and then, perhaps, the wait of six months for a ship. A caravan leaves, and in two or three months, you would be in Barbary; in Bruges or Venice before the end of the year. We shall ask ibn Said. His brother might come to Taghaza to meet us.’

  ‘Taghaza? Us?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘The city of salt. The desert post where the salt you see comes from. Of course, I shall go with you,’ said Umar. ‘To Taghaza, but not beyond. It is my terminus, Nicholas, but not yours.’

  Chapter 36

  IN JANUARY OF THE same year, 1467, the Albanian patriot Skanderbeg died, and much of his army and many of those attached to him were dispersed. In May, the personable manager of the most aristocratic bank in Venice returned from a profitable evening at some ship-owner’s supper to find his private parlour pre-empted by a squat, balding man he had not seen for over five years.

  He had been warned as he entered the house. ‘What?’ had said Julius. ‘Who?’

  ‘Tobias Beventini of Grado,’ said Margot, in the forbearing way that most annoyed him. ‘Niccolò’s physician. He’s finished his work in Albania. He heard he was wanted to testify. He thought Niccolò would be here.’

  ‘Tobie!’ said Julius. He dropped off his cloak, which had gold-work all down the edges. ‘I haven’t seen Tobie since we came home from Trebizond. Girls. Piss, drink and girls, Tobie used to be interested in. I thought he’d given up Niccolò.’

  ‘Hasn’t everyone?’ Margot said. They rubbed along well enough, he and Margot, but at times, he wished Gregorio had come and collected her.

  ‘He’ll come home,’ Julius said. He didn’t entirely believe it. Despite all the curious dispatches from Bruges, he sometimes found it hard to imagine how the former Claes was surviving in Guinea. At other times, he was inclined to the view that, surrounded by nubile natives and heat, no healthy young man of that history would ever want to see Europe again.

  Meanwhile his gold had arrived, and Julius was dispensing it. Rather successfully, too, if somewhat hampered by strictures from Bruges. Julius had run the Banco di Niccolò in Venice for almost three years: longer than Gregorio had. Now that they were all rich, he didn’t need Gregorio to keep writing from Bruges. He had the instructions Niccolò had written down, and was obeying them. It did no harm to add a little style to the Bank and its manager. It gave the Serenissima confid
ence.

  The impact on Tobias Beventini, physician, was different. ‘Holy Mary Mother of God!’ he exclaimed when Julius walked in ‘Grass time has come, and the silly sheep with it. I thought I’d come to a whorehouse, till Margot corrected me. So have you spent all the money?’

  Julius had never allowed himself to be greatly ruffled by Tobie. He said, ‘The money you made for us with Skanderbeg? Yes. I bought a button with it. Where’s Astorre?’

  ‘Coming later. Margot says Nicholas has solved the world bullion problem single-handed, but is probably dead.’

  ‘She keeps saying that,’ Julius said. ‘She knows perfectly well we’ve had word of him.’

  ‘But not from him. And Father Godscalc is crippled?’ When Tobie felt indignant, the bald part of his cranium turned pink. Now he had reached thirty-seven, the halo of fine, colourless hair had receded and there were purses under his round, pale blue eyes. His face, with its rosebud mouth and small nose, was otherwise sensationally smooth.

  ‘He’s all right,’ Julius said. ‘Living with Gregorio and the others in Spangnaerts Street. Wouldn’t give a Jacques de Lalaing much of a run in the lists, but he can do all a chaplain usually does. The Pope has praised him and fixed him up with a benefice.’

  ‘I thought the Pope was a Venetian?’ Tobie said. He scratched under his cuirass, which was dented. The matted wool he wore underneath smelled strongly of ointment and horse. ‘And Nicholas was financed by Portugal?’

  ‘Not now,’ Julius said. ‘He bought the caravel from the Portuguese, and he’s paid all that was due them. By the time he comes back, no one will know as much about the African trade as Nicholas will. And he’ll have Loppe there, his very own agent. You know the blacks think Loppe is a lawyer? I don’t know why I spent all those years in Bologna. I’ve wasted my chances.’

  ‘From the sound of it,’ the doctor said, ’you need all the lawyers you can get. A shipload of gold disappears and you can’t even trace the ship’s master? The ownership of the Ribérac herself is still in dispute three years after Jordan stole her? The claim against – at’s her name? – the Fortado is still unsettled and the Genoese and the Vatachino are getting away with murder, because no one can find Michael Crackbene?

  ‘By God,’ said Tobias Beventini, getting angrier. ‘I don’t know what golden cloud you think you’re sitting on, but I tell you, it wouldn’t have stopped me hunting down all those bastards and making them pay for it all. Godscalc broken. Nicholas stuck somewhere sick on this river. What has it done to that stupid girl? And what about Diniz? Has old man Jordan got him again?’

  Margot had come in while they were speaking. Julius gave her a cool look, which she returned with a half-lifted eyebrow. He would have preferred to tell Tobie all that news himself. In time. And not all at once. And not from Gregorio’s point of view.

  Margot sat down beside Tobie. She said, ‘You’d quite like Gelis van Borselen. They all had a bad time, but she’s well enough. Lucia de St Pol took her with her to Scotland, and I suspect she’ll end up at Court like her sister.’

  ‘Why Scotland?’ said Tobie. His nose twitched. Julius remembered how his nose twitched.

  ‘Not for any of the reasons you’re thinking of,’ Margot said. ‘The van Borselens are related by marriage to the monarchs of Scotland. Gelis didn’t have any money. And David de Salmeton was taking a very great interest in her.’

  ‘What?’ said Tobie. He sat up, and a belch of horse emerged from three different gaps in his cuirass.

  ‘Really, Tobie,’ said Margot. ‘You must go off and get yourself clean. I know all about David de Salmeton, and I’ve seen what Martin his partner can do. I gather Gelis knows even more. The interest wasn’t reciprocated.’

  ‘De Salmeton goes to Scotland?’ Julius said. He hadn’t heard that item of gossip. Because, obviously, Gregorio hadn’t told him. Gregorio had been to Venice once, briefly, and had divided his time between the business and Margot, which suited Julius. He had left Margot because he was coming back.

  Margot said, ‘He’s not in Scotland at the moment, with Tommaso Portinari throwing his weight about in Bruges.’ She turned to Tobie. ‘Remember Tommaso?’ Julius wondered if she had a soft spot for Tobie.

  Tobie’s short pink mouth widened, as if he had a soft spot for Margot. ‘Finger-rings. I always said he would kill to get control of the Bruges Medici. How’s he enjoying it?’

  Margot laughed. She was a handsome woman, if over-opinionated. ‘Remember Controller Bladelin’s palace in the Naalden Straate? Tommaso’s bought it. For the Medici. For visiting officials. For himself to entertain in. He’s one of the Duke’s counsellors now, did you know that? And a diplomat. He’s one of the envoys arranging the English marriage for the Duke’s heir. If it happens, there’ll be enough velvet on order to keep the Medici in profit for years. And the rest of Bruges. Diniz is ecstatic at the mere thought of it.’

  ‘You mean Gregorio,’ Tobie said. ‘But tell me first. What happened to Diniz?’

  Margot laughed again. She said, ‘How do you remember him? A frightened boy, swept from Cyprus by the hated Jordan? You will be surprised. He works for the Charetty company.’

  ‘The …?’ said Tobie. He stopped.

  ‘As their deputy manager. In Spangnaerts Street, but with special reference to the dyeshop. Why are you laughing?’

  ‘At Nicholas,’ Tobie said. ‘Nicholas the glorious, the devious bastard. Oh, where in God’s name is he? It’s a feast, it’s meat and drink, it’s the greatest game in the world, but it isn’t the same without Nicholas.’

  The message came two days later, on a Barbary ship. Nothing for the Banco di Niccolò was ever delayed in Venice now. Handed ashore, it was taken by runner direct to the Bank, where Julius seized it. He flung open the doors to the chamber (the painted, the tapestried, the elegant chamber) where Tobie was talking to Margot.

  Julius said, ‘He’s coming. Nicholas. He’s crossing the Sahara next month. He should be on the coast by September at the latest. We have to send the Ciaretti to Oran.’

  He couldn’t see himself, his face flushed, his eyes shining, but he saw the reflection of it, had he known, in Tobie’s face, and in that of Margot. Margot cried out, and ran forward. Somehow, he found himself hugging her. She kissed him, and they both turned to Tobie. Tobie, his face scarlet, said, ‘I want to be kissed,’ and she hugged him as well. She was crying.

  Tobie said, ‘Let me see it. Not you, woman, men first; you get the wine and the cups. Let me see. What does he say?’

  ‘It isn’t from him,’ Julius said. ‘Or at least, it isn’t his writing. There. Just the instruction, the bastard, as if it will be easy. September. She’ll have to sail in July. Where is the Ciaretti?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Margot said, jug in hand. ‘My heavens, you’ve got enough ships. The Adorno, the Niccolò – you can get one of them ready.’

  ‘And I shall sail with her,’ said Julius. He emptied his cup, tossed and caught it.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Margot said. ‘You’ll be in Scotland with Bonkle by then, and Gregorio will be here. And over my dead body is Gregorio going to Barbary. No, my sweet men. This ship may have to wait in Oran a long time, and if she has to stay all autumn and winter, then she’ll do so. The ship herself will be his welcome. The rest can wait.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Tobie.

  *

  The May azalai did not come. The sun burned; the temperature began to rise daily. After waiting all month, Nicholas began to assemble a caravan of his own.

  It wasn’t easy. Now the worst of the summer heat was upon them, and no camel-trains would arrive until autumn. He spent some time talking to agents; persuading those with heavy stocks or a willingness to run into debt to add their camels and drovers to his. It need not be too expensive, he explained. There were always caravans going north from Arawan, and he would join his force to theirs, and share costs. He only realised afterwards that when they agreed, it was because Umar also had spoken to them.

&n
bsp; All the same, he had to use most of his reserves to hire his own camels and six men to drive and defend them: eight hundred ducats to take himself and his provisions and the few objects he had selected on the long journey north. It was two thousand miles to Oran. It was five hundred miles to the salt mines at Taghaza, where Umar would leave him.

  The eventual caravan, it began to appear, would amount to some two hundred and fifty loaded camels, of which six would be his. There would be rather more than that number of people.

  So small a company demanded experienced men. The dealers, drovers and guard who made up its larger part were mostly veterans of the double trans-Saharan journey. There were not many of them. No one tried the two-way crossing more than once in twelve months, or, indeed, more than five times in a lifetime. But Umar was only going to Taghaza and back, and Nicholas was crossing once only. The camel-station at Arawan was four days away, and a guide had been selected to take them there.

  Nicholas had, in the end, only formal farewells to make, since it had long been known he was leaving. He was given a feast in the Ma’ Dughu, which the commander Akil also attended. The Koy made his gratitude known, but also made it known, behind his hand, that Europeans belonged on the coast, and it was time that this man returned there. The sultan Akil was amiability itself, in his regard for what the lord Niccolò had done, for the benefits he had initiated, for the wisdom of his decision to leave. The evening was long, and exhausting.

  The farewells of the scholars had been different. He possessed already a cargo of books; it was his main burden. Every teacher had a parcel for him: of some exquisite original, or of a manuscript carefully copied. The imams, the judges, the Qadi reminded him in grave, exquisite Arabic, of his mistakes and of his achievements in that order, and of all they had spoken of doing together. The talk developed, as of habit; each visit extended far beyond the time he had planned. He conversed unsleeping with his friends in all those last days, as a man facing the desert drinks water. But it was not water he drank.

  He took his leave of his servants, and of those many men and women of every kind who had become friends, and he distributed gifts to the utmost of his means, and received them in turn. One of the many graces of this strange society was its attention to gifts; his own had been made for the most part by his own hands, and were mainly for children. For the scholars he had prepared works of another kind. Last of all, he went to make his peace with Zuhra.