I found my mother sitting at her table in the counting house, with stacks of glittering coins before her: French écus, Portuguese cruzados, Genoese ducats. All these she would weigh before taking them to the Royal Mint to be changed for English crowns. She still looked young. Her hair was dark and waved, and always protruded somewhere or other from beneath her black widow’s hood. A fire burned in the small hearth, and the scent of cloves from the warehouse below mingled with the tang of burning charcoal. William Marshe was hunched on the high-backed settle with an account book open before him, his long face wearing its usual melancholic expression. It was growing dark. A number of tin lanterns stood on the floor, unlit, for the use of our watchmen at night. I sat down by the fire facing William.
My mother spoke without looking up at me. ‘And so you have something to say.’
It was harder to begin than I had expected. There was no use in trying to excite her over my ambitions, by painting for her the pomp and seduction of the Court. That would only turn her against me at the start. And so I went straight to the crux of it, the King’s device and motto, and the signification I read in it: the flames of passion ignited once more, to replace the discarded Mrs Mary. While I spoke, her eye rested on me like a jeweller’s, probing intently for the flaw in a stone.
‘A new mistress,’ said my mother, leaning back. ‘Really? Then why have you heard nothing of it, you with your long ears for Court news? The King’s lovers are commonly the very first to boast of their advancement.’
I leant forward from the fireplace. ‘I told you: Declare I dare not. He is still wooing her: he is on the chase. He is teasing her, tantalising her, just as she may be tantalising him. The motto, the heart in the press: everything indicates she has not yet surrendered.’
Miriam Dansey put her arms behind her head, yawned, and then laughed. ‘Not surrendered! Now, there is a wonder! Why should she not? I would, if King Henry came and heaped me with jewels.’
I clapped my hands and jumped up, delighted that she had played right into my hands. ‘There! You have said it. What will a king do when he is thwarted in love?’ I strode around the room, letting my long shadow dart out in the firelight. ‘He will bathe her in sapphires, he will pile her with diamonds, he will buy all Persia and the Indies and lay them at her feet. And I …’
My mother let out a shrill laugh. ‘Now I see it! You think that you will be the one to sell the King his jewels! Oh, my mad, mad boy! The King will buy from Mr Cornelius, and Mr Christian, and Morgan Wolf. The men he knows and trusts. Why should he trouble himself with you?’
I turned on her. ‘My jewels will be better.’
‘Hm!’ It was a grunt of amusement. ‘How, in the name of all the saints, will you accomplish that?’
I swung myself down on to a stool and crouched towards her table. William, I noticed, had his eye on me. He was sharp, for all his dropsical appearance, and he was measuring me up just as surely as my mother. ‘The stones that flow into London come to us from Antwerp or Bruges, and before that from Genoa or Venice. The Italians and French keep the best for themselves: Heyes and the others simply sit on Cheapside and wait for what the traders bring them. I shall not do that. I shall go to Venice, and catch the gems as they land from the East. I shall bring back such stones as have not been seen. I shall …’
‘Why not go further?’ said William, with his half-smile. ‘To Cairo, or even to Serendip or Golconda?’ He was testing me, trying out just how fantastically high my plans might soar. I shook my head.
‘There is too little time. To make my profit, I must be in with the first. When the lady succumbs to the King’s charms, the flow of gifts will slow. Henry will no longer want what is most rare and fine. A few little tokens will do. Like the New Year’s gifts he still sends to Bessie Blount.’
William sat back and nodded. ‘I see I am to lose you, Mr Richard.’ He glanced across at my mother, who tapped the table with her fingers in impatience.
‘I shall be the one to decide that.’ She turned back to me. ‘And so you are asking me for a loan. A very, very large one. That is it?’
I stood before her and nodded. The Widow of Thames Street frowned. She rapped the Dansey seal on the table and said, ‘I shall settle nothing until the Rose comes home.’
Mr William was due to set out any day, and myself along with him. I had hoped to avoid this voyage. I put my hands on the table. ‘But that will be too late: speed is everything. Surely you see that?’
My mother stood up slowly and rested her hands next to mine. She said softly, ‘I see you are running ahead a little too fast.’
I looked back at her, angry. ‘Very well,’ I told her. ‘Let the Rose sail first. But I am not going with her. My place is here, where I can watch the Court.’
My mother drew in her breath and lowered her brows for a fight. But then she appeared to change her mind, and smiled. ‘As you prefer.’
I turned and walked out of the room. It was two weeks before the Rose at last dropped downstream from the Tower with the tide and vanished out to sea, carrying her usual outward cargo of dank-smelling English woollens. It might be months before her return. I waited with impatience. I tried to believe that my mother intended to use some of the profits of the Rose’s venture to fund my own; but more likely she hoped to weaken my purpose through delay. I spent the time moodily patrolling the town for news. I had to know I was right: and I had to know the lady’s name. I needed to have a face, a form, a mode of beauty in my mind before I began to buy: for stones are as varied and fickle as women themselves. But my Uncle Bennet could tell me nothing of any new royal mistress. All the news from Court was of the ambassadors from France, and the new Holy Catholic League that the Pope was forming to fight the overreaching ambition of the Empire and fling the Spanish and German armies out of Italy. His Holiness had been joined in this alliance by Florence and Venice, and then by France, and these states were busily employed in raising armies. But our own King, after swift deliberation, had decided on strict neutrality. That way, said Bennet, Henry could be the peace-maker, the one all the other powers came to, begging for help and offering favours in return. With this pleasant thought, King Henry had left London to spend the summer hunting. The Court vanished into the deep country, and news dried up completely.
I might almost have thought Henry’s new love was a chimera conjured only from my own fancy but for the flow of jewels out of Goldsmiths’ Row. In April there was a gold brooch in the figure of a heart, black enamelled and set with five rubies and five diamonds, supplied by Morgan Wolf; the next month a rope of sixty pearls, and the month after that a gold frame for a portrait miniature, garnished with a falcon with eyes of emerald. All these objects disappeared into the King’s hands. Each time I brought the news to my mother, as fresh proof. I was convinced that I was right. But who was she? No one could tell me of a woman who had received these jewels, or been seen wearing them.
In July the Rose returned at last and anchored below London Bridge. I stood on the wharf, watching the boat come in with Mr William in the bow. He took my hand briefly and went straight up to the counting house. I paced the wharf anxiously, glancing repeatedly up at the window, while the men unloaded the goods from the lighters, nutmegs and pepper and casks of sack. Dusk was gathering, and mists rose from the river. Then I saw William peer from behind the diamond panes and beckon me up. I walked quickly through the dim aisles of the warehouse, climbed the wooden stairs to the counting house and stepped inside.
Still my mother made me wait. In one hand she held a paper covered in figures, which she was checking rapidly, her lips working, while the sands ran through the narrow waist of an hourglass framed in ebony. She grudged time spent checking her underlings’ accounts, and used the glass’s discipline to make herself read fast. Her other hand rested on the respected Dansey seal, a broad disc of brass with a polished wooden knob, which she toyed with as she read. I sat down in a chair facing her. My heart was beating hard.
Suddenly she put down h
er figures, took hold of the hourglass and laid it on its side, halting the flow of time. She looked at me a moment with her head tilted, still playing with the seal. Then she tapped it on the table three times, and pushed towards me a sheet of paper. I snatched it up and ran my eyes greedily down it. At sight of this bill I request that you pay to the said Richard Dansey, merchant, of Thames Street in the City of London, for value received, the sum of one thousand marks in Venetian ducats or bonds as shall be agreed, on or before Michaelmas in this year of Grace 1526. It was a bill of exchange addressed to the Venice branch of the great Nuremberg banking house of Anton Fugger, signed at the bottom, Miriam Dansey, next to a large red disc of wax pressed with the rearing wyvern of the firm. Finally I had it: the thing I had longed to hold in my hands for all those months. And the sum was ample, more than I had dared hope for. I let out a whoop of delight. ‘So you are really funding my venture.’
My mother nodded, but did not smile.
‘You may not be so thankful soon. You have not seen what else I have written for you.’ She pulled the bill back and slid towards me a second paper, which I took and quickly read. It was a bill of sale: one of those crafty instruments by which usury was conducted without sin, so that the business of the City could go on, while keeping itself free from the Church courts. By this bill, I acknowledged the receipt of a thousand marks, and sold to her in return a twelve hundred mark chunk of my business. At the bottom was the space for me to sign. Twenty per cent interest to my mother, that was the meaning of it: only after that would I make a profit. It was a steep rate. She had made not a single concession to the fact I was her son. She was investing in a venture, that was all: and a venture in which she had very little trust. Anger rose up in me as I set the paper down. I had prepared myself for her refusal, but not this. In a single move she was both helping me and throwing up another barrier in my way.
‘You are right,’ I told her. ‘I am feeling a good deal less thankful already.’
She sat back in her chair, stroking the polished wooden knob of the seal, her face wearing a faint smile.
‘Having second thoughts?’ she said.
I reached for one of the goosefeather pens that stood in the pewter inkpot, and tapped off the excess ink.
‘By God, no.’
‘Wait!’ She put the seal down and leant towards me. ‘Dear Richard. You are taking a very great risk. And you are asking me to share in that risk too. Would it not be far, far better to stay with me? Work for the family business? Go where I advise, with our dear, trusted old Mr William to look after you? Build yourself up little by little: that is the best way in trade. You cannot swallow the whole world in one bite, my Richard. Why do you want to strike out fresh paths of your own, when there is so much for you here?’
Her voice was soft and seductive. Before her on the table lay the two documents: one threatening me with its brutal terms of repayment; the other, I suspected, intended to daunt me with the sheer size of the loan. I saw plainly what she was up to. If I embarked on my venture and succeeded, she made a handsome profit; the thought of those two hundred marks doubtless attracted her. If I failed, I would be in her debt, and entirely in her power. I would have to work for years to pay off what I owed her, travelling where she sent me, and buying what she told me to buy. She would be able to remind me forever after that she had been right and I had been wrong. I would become her creature, a humble minion of the house of Dansey. Even if she never saw her money again, power like that was cheaply bought at a thousand marks. There would be no question of my ever affording another venture on my own.
That was if I failed. But to succeed: to be my own man, to escape the Thameswater stink, the murky family world that had become a prison to me, and rise into a sphere my mother could not guess at, that was worth any risk.
The ink on the pen tip had gone dry. I forced myself not to show my rage. I said, ‘Do you have any other conditions to add before I sign?’
She rapped the seal on the table, suddenly irritated.
‘Only that you take along a family servant, whom I shall pick for you. I would not like to think of you entirely alone on your wild errand. That is acceptable?’
‘Very well.’
I dipped the pen once more in the pot, angrily splashing ink on its pewter rim. ‘You will have your twelve hundred marks,’ I told her. ‘And I shall make my profit, I promise you.’
I signed the document with a quick flourish, R. Dansey. It was done. I had mortgaged myself: there was no going back. My mother pulled the paper towards her and handed me the bill of exchange. She looked at me, thoughtful, and a little surprised, as if she had not expected me to accept her bargain. I stood up.
‘Listen to me, my Richard,’ she said. ‘You have a sharp eye for gems, I will grant you that. But, by God, you have the heart of a child. See that you do not go the way of your father.’
I looked back at her levelly. ‘I am following in no one’s footsteps. Not his, and certainly not yours.’
She looked back up at me with a faint frown. ‘I am very much aware of that.’
I folded the bill of exchange crisply in three, and stooped to kiss her on the cheek. Then I walked quickly out of the room, down the stairs and through the warehouse. I was fuming. That second document seemed to drag at me like a stone about my neck; a bargain with the Devil that one day I would be forced to pay. But as I emerged into the moist air of the riverside, my anger and fears left me, and I felt only exhilaration. That night, as I lay in my bedchamber, unsleeping, I worked out the various conversions and began to conceive all that that money might mean. A mark is a measure of silver, worth two-thirds of a pound, and so a thousand marks are six hundred and sixty-six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence sterling. At the current rate that made two hundred and ninety-six ounces of gold, or a little over three thousand Venetian ducats. Sufficient, I reckoned, for some fifteen good diamonds, or else maybe twenty diamonds of poorer water, and twenty of the finest opals. Or a hundred Oriental amethysts. Perhaps I might even stretch further, if I bought wisely. How to choose? A dozen different schemes for a collection of jewels of intoxicating wonder presented themselves to me.
In the days that followed I counted out my own modest savings and changed them into bills, while Christian Breakespere and even William Marshe volunteered small loans of their own. I made a last effort to discover the mistress’s name, going round all my trade connections and pressing Uncle Bennet to use his wiles at Court. But to no purpose. It was galling: without that knowledge my whole venture was at risk. I considered putting off my departure. But I had waited far too long already; if I was to have any chance of success I must sail now, even in my ignorance. I was convinced the mistress’s name would not stay secret long. I begged Uncle Bennet to discover it, and write to me as soon as possible. He nodded his bald head in assent.
‘Well, well, I will do all I can. And in return you must promise to send me news of Italy: her politics and the progress of the wars. Send me rumours, send me secrets. I have a particular reason for asking this of you, my Richard. See that you do not fail me, and I shall do my best for you in return.’
On the night before I was due to sail I folded my various bills of exchange inside my casket and nestled it down next to my skin. My great venture was about to begin.
PART 2
Scythian Emerald: a Courtesan among Stones
My enterprise is slow and late in coming,
My hope unsure, while my desire mounts and grows;
To abandon or pursue, alike I grudge.
PETRARCH, CANZONIERE
6
A month later I stepped up on to the great wooden bridge that spans the Grand Canal in Venice. I was swelling with pride and excitement. Crowds pressed round me, noblemen with their servants, girls selling nuts and oranges, and merchants of every nation, Venetians and Turks, Jews and Greeks. Beside me trudged my servant, burly Martin Deller. He was the last person I would have chosen to accompany me. Many was the time in my childhood
he had caught me in the forbidden depths of the warehouse, and dragged me out by one ear. But, ‘No servant, no thousand marks’: those were the Widow’s terms, and she insisted on the right to choose. He called me ‘master’ now, he wore a dagger at his side as well as an oak cudgel nine inches long, with a leather wrist strap at one end and some lead shot hammered into the other for weight. He was here to serve me and guard my goods: or so I was supposed to believe.
‘Master,’ he whispered, ‘do you think this is wise? Carrying so much coin?’
I paused at the highest point of the bridge and glanced at him in irritation. We had just come from the Fontego dei Tedeschi, the Exchange House of the Germans, a vast building of white stone with jagged crenellations like some Saracen fortress that rose five storeys high out of the water of the Grand Canal. Here, in the office of the agent of Anton Fugger, banker to emperors and popes, I had presented my mother’s bill and asked for a quarter of my sum in gold, and the rest in smaller bills of exchange. The agent unlocked one of the chests that stood against the wall and lifted out a large canvas bag. From this he scooped out gold, and gold, and more gold. It thrilled me to see those shimmering stacks of ducats, which the clerk marshalled into ranks, counted and then counted again: thirty stacks and more, of twenty ducats apiece, like the towers of a golden city. Seven hundred and seventeen coins in all, stamped on one side with Saint Mark and the Doge, and Christ seated in His glory on the other. I had the coins gathered into a leather purse, which I fastened to my belt beside my dagger. It was a fair burden: nearly four pounds’ weight of gold.
‘We shall not be carrying this for long, my Martin. We are about to begin to spend.’ Before us lay the Rialto: the richest two hundred yards of ground in the world. It formed an island, with the Grand Canal wrapping itself round it, north, east and south, while lesser canals cut it off to the west. All along its waterfronts vessels were constantly landing, a fresh one putting in just as soon as the last had discharged its cargo. Behind the canal, the Rialto’s lanes and squares were filled with myriad warehouses and shops, the fonteghi and botteghe, where you could buy anything that grows or is fashioned under the sun. I saw rich tapestries and carpets, ostrich eggs garnished in gold and coral, and backgammon tables inlaid with jasper and chalcedony and ivory, carved with heads and heraldic shields. There were painted playing cards crusted with gold leaf, and the most wondrous printed books with woodcuts on almost every page, for the best books in the world are Venetian; and of course all manner of marvels woven out of the gold thread which goes by the name of Venice gold. I could have filled the Rose seven times over with treasures.
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