DOROTHY DUNNETT
Caprice and Rondo
Dorothy Dunnett was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. She is the author of the Francis Crawford of Lymond novels; the House of Niccolò novels; seven mysteries; King Hereafter, an epic novel about Macbeth; and the text of The Scottish Highlands, a book of photographs by David Paterson, on which she collaborated with her husband, Sir Alastair Dunnett. In 1992, Queen Elizabeth appointed her an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Lady Dunnett died in 2001.
Books by
DOROTHY DUNNETT
THE LYMOND CHRONICLES
The Game of Kings
Queens’ Play
The Disorderly Knights
Pawn in Frankincense
The Ringed Castle
Checkmate
King Hereafter
Dolly and the Singing Bird (Rum Affair)
Dolly and the Cookie Bird (Ibiza Surprise)
Dolly and the Doctor Bird (Operation Nassau)
Dolly and the Starry Bird (Roman Nights)
Dolly and the Nanny Bird (Split Code)
Dolly and the Bird of Paradise (Tropical Issue)
Moroccan Traffic
THE HOUSE OF NICCOLÒ
Niccolò Rising
The Spring of the Ram
Race of Scorpions
Scales of Gold
The Unicorn Hunt
To Lie with Lions
Caprice and Rondo
The Scottish Highlands
(IN COLLABORATION WITH ALASTAIR DUNNETT)
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 1999
Copyright © 1997 by Dorothy Dunnett
Introduction © 1998 by Judith Wilt
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Michael Joseph, Ltd., London, 1997, and in slightly different form in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1998.
Vintage Books and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Dunnett Dorothy.
Caprice and Rondo / Dunnett. — 1st American ed.
p. cm.—(The house of Niccolò)
I. Title. II. Series: Dunnett, Dorothy. House of Niccolò.
PR6054.U56C36 1998
823′.914—dc21 97-49458
eISBN: 978-0-307-76228-3
Author photograph © Alison Dunnett
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1_r1
For Annabella Charlotte Dunnett
Contents
Cover
Map
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Characters
Introduction
Part I: Polonaise
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part II: Circassian Circle
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part III: Polovtsian Dances
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part IV: Reprise
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Acknowledgments
The House of Niccolò
PREFACE
When my chronicle of Francis Crawford of Lymond ended, it seemed to me that there was something still to be told of his heritage: about the genetic lottery, as well as the turmoil of trials and experience which, put together, could bring such a man into being.
The House of Niccolò, in all its volumes, deals with the forerunner without whom Lymond would not have existed: the unknown who fought his way to the high ground that Francis Crawford would occupy, and held it for him. It is fiction, but the setting at least is very real.
The man I have called Nicholas de Fleury lived in the mid-fifteenth century, three generations before Francis Crawford, and was reared as an artisan, his gifts and his burdens concealed beneath an artless manner and a joyous, sensuous personality. But he was also born at the cutting edge of the European Renaissance, which Lymond was to exploit at its zenith—the explosion of exploration and trade, high art and political duplicity, personal chivalry and violent warfare in which a young man with a genius for organization and numbers might find himself trusted by princes, loved by kings, and sought in marriage and out of it by clever women bent on power, or wealth, or revenge—or sometimes simply from fondness.
There are, of course, echoes of the present time. Trade and war don’t change much down through the centuries: today’s new multimillionaires had their counterparts in the entrepreneurs of few antecedents who evolved the first banking systems for the Medici; who developed the ruthless network of trade that ran from Scotland, Flanders, and Italy to the furthest reaches of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and ventured from Iceland to Persia, from Muscovy to the deserts of Africa.
Scotland is important to this chronicle, as it was to Francis Crawford. Here, the young Queen of Scots is a thirteen-year-old Scandinavian, and her husband’s family are virtually children. This, framed in glorious times, is the story of the difficult, hesitant progress of a small nation, as well as that of a singular man.
Dorothy Dunnett
Edinburgh, 1998
Characters
November 1473 – January 1477
(Those marked are recorded in history)
Rulers
England: King Edward IV, House of York
Scotland: King James III, House of Stewart
France: King Louis XI
Burgundy: Charles, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders
Pope: Sixtus IV (della Rovere)
Venice: Doges Nicolò Marcello, Pietro Mocenigo, Andrea Vendramin
German Emperor and King of the Romans: Frederick III
Portugal: King Alphonse V, nephew of Henry the Navigator
Muscovy: Grand Duke Ivan III Vasilievich, Autocrat of All Russia
Scandinavia: Christian I
Poland and Lithuania: King Casimir IV Jagiello
Bohemia: King Wladyslaw, son of Casimir
Hungary: King Mathias Corvinus
Moldavia: Stephen III The Great
Ottoman Empire (Istanbul): Sultan Mehmet II
Mameluke Empire (Cairo): Sultan Qayt Bey
House of Niccolò
Nicholas de Fleury, former governor of the Banco di Niccolò Szalec Jelita, his servant
VENICE BANCO DI NICCOLÒ:
Gregorio of Asti, lawyer and director
Margot, his wife
Jaçon, their son
Egidia (Gelis) van Borselen, wife of Nicholas de Fleury
Jordan (J
odi), their son
Clémence de Coulanges, his nurse
Pasque, his former nursemaid
Captain Cuthbert, his Scottish master-at-arms
Raffo, his ‘groom’
Manoli, ‘servant’ to Clémence
Tobias Beventini of Grado, physician
LOW COUNTRIES: HOF CHARETTY—NICCOLÒ, BRUGES:
Diniz Vasquez, director, nephew of Simon de St Pol
Mathilde (Tilde) de Charetty, his wife, step-daughter of Nicholas
Marian, their daughter
Catherine de Charetty, Tilde’s unmarried younger sister
Father Moriz of Augsburg, chaplain and co-manager
Govaerts of Brussels, management, Bruges and Cologne
Jooris, agent in Antwerp
GERMAN COMPANY:
Julius of Bologna, notary and director
Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck, his wife
Bonne, her daughter
Brygidy, her maid
Petru, her guide
Friczo Straube, company agent in Thorn
Sinbaldo di Manfredo, company agent, Black Sea
MERCENARY COMPANY:
Astorre (Syrus de Astariis), mercenary commander
Thomas, deputy to Astorre
John le Grant, engineer, gunner, sailing-master
PERIPATETIC:
Michael Crackbene, shipmaster
Ochoa de Marchena, former sailing-master on African voyage
Duchy of Burgundy
DUCAL HOUSEHOLD AND ARMY:
Charles, Duke of Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, etc.
Margaret of York, his wife and sister of King Edward IV
Marie, daughter of Duke Charles by previous wife
Bastard Anthony of Bourbon, natural brother of Duke Charles
Baudouin, bastard and half-brother of Anthony
William Hugonet, lord of Saillant, Chancellor of the Duchy
Jean de Rubempré, sire de Bièvres, governor of Lorraine
Niccolò de Montfort/Gambatesta, Count of Campobasso, Italian mercenary leader
Jacopo Galeotto, Italian mercenary leader
Philip de Croy, comte de Chimay, company commander
Josse and Jean de Lalaing, Burgundian captains
Matteo Lope de la Garde, Portuguese physician to the Duke
BRUGES AND GHENT:
Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, Conservator of Scots Privileges in Bruges
Jan Adorne, his oldest son, a lawyer in Rome
Katelijne (Kathi) Sersanders, Adorne’s niece
Robin of Berecrofts, Scotland, her husband
Mistress Cristen, her nurse
Anselm Sersanders, her brother, Adorne’s nephew
Arnaud Adorne, Adorne’s second youngest son
Agnes von Nieuenhove, his wife
Dr Andreas of Vesalia, physician and astrologer
Louis de Bruges, seigneur de Gruuthuse, Earl of Winchester, Governor of Holland
Marguerite van Borselen, his wife
Tommaso Portinari, Medici manager in Bruges
Hans (Henne) Memling, Rhineland artist settled in Bruges
Jehan Metteneye, host to Scots merchants in Bruges
Stephen Angus, Scots agent in Bruges
VEERE AND MIDDLEBURG:
Wolfaert van Borselen of Veere, Count of Grandpré, ‘cousin’ of Gelis van Borselen
Wolfaert van Borselen, his son
Charlotte de Bourbon, Wolfaert’s second wife
Anna van Borselen, their daughter
Paul van Borselen, bastard son of Wolfaert
DIJON/FLEURY:
Enguerrand de Damparis, friend of Marian de Charetty’s sister
Thibault, vicomte de Fleury, maternal grandfather to Nicholas, and brother of late Jaak de Fleury of Geneva
Brother Huon, his nurse
Ysabeau, younger sister of Josine, first wife of Thibault
The Vatachino Company
Martin, broker, merchant and agent
David de Salmeton, former agent
Rome (including Papal Legates)
Father Ludovico de Severi da Bologna, Patriarch of Antioch and Papal Legate to Persia
Brother Orazio, his clerk
Marco Barbo, Cardinal of San Marco and Papal Legate to Germany, Poland and Bohemia
Prosper Schiaffino de Camulio de’ Medici, Collector for the Apostolic Camera in England, Ireland and Scotland
Cardinal Philibert Hugonet, brother of Chancellor Hugonet of Burgundy, and employer of Anselm Adorne’s eldest son Jan
Poland
Paúel Benecke, Danzig privateer, captain of the Peter von Danzig
Malgorzaty, his wife
Elzbiete, his daughter
Gerta his mistress, tavern-keeper in Thorn
Filippo Buonaccorsi (Callimachus), royal secretary, exiled Italian poet and scholar
Nicolao Lipnicki, his servant
Filip Bischoff, Danzig merchant
Elzbiete Gerber, his wife
Barbara, one of his daughters
Jerzy Bock, Elder of the Confrérie of St George; Bischoff’s brother-in-law
Johann Sidinghusen, Danzig merchant, part-owner of the Peter von Danzig; father-in-law of Bock
Tidemann Valandt, Danzig merchant, part-owner of the Peter von Danzig
Heinrich Niederhof, Danzig merchant, part-owner of the Peter von Danzig
Elizabeth Habsburg of Austria, Queen of Poland, second cousin of the Emperor Frederick
Wladyslaw, King of Bohemia, her eldest son
Kazimierz, Jan Olbracht, Aleksander and Zygmunt, other sons
Jan Dłlugosz, royal tutor, national historian, canon of Cracow
Jan Ostrórog, royal tutor, political writer, Castellan of Poznan
Archbishop Gregory of Sanok, Primate of Poland
Thomas Halkerston, Scots merchant in Danzig
Stephen Lawson of Haddington, the same
William Simpson, the same
James Lauder, the same
Germany and other Hanseatic League
Emperor Frederick III of the House of Habsburg
Archduke Maximilian, his son
Heinrich Castorp, merchant of Lübeck
France and Lorraine
René, Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence and titular King of Naples and Sicily; father of former Queen Margaret of England
René II, Duke of Lorraine, grandson of King René
Bernard de Moncourt, seigneur de Chouzy, kinsman of Clémence de Coulanges
Scotland
ROYAL HOUSEHOLD AND NOBLES:
James Stewart (Third of the Name), King of Scotland
Margaret, daughter of Christian I of Denmark, his Queen
Mary Stewart, the King’s elder sister
James, ist Lord Hamilton of Kinneil, her second husband
Robert, Lord Boyd, father of her first husband
Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, the King’s brother
Margaret Stewart, the King’s younger sister
James Stewart of Auchterhouse, Earl of Buchan (Hearty James), half-uncle of King James
IN EXILE:
Jordan de St Pol, vicomte de Ribérac, lord of Kilmirren, formerly royal adviser and merchant in France
Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren, his son
Henry de St Pol, son of Simon’s late wife Katelina van Borselen, sister of Gelis
MERCHANTS AND OTHERS:
Archibald of Berecrofts (Archie), Canongate merchant
Robin, his son, husband of Katelijne Sersanders
Isobella (Bel) of Cuthilgurdy, neighbour to the St Pols of Kilmirren
Andro Wodman, merchant; former Scots Archer in France
Euphemia (Phemie) Dunbar of Haddington Priory, daughter of George, Earl of March
William Roger (Whistle Willie), Court musician
Thomas Cochrane, master mason
Thomas (Thorn) Swift, Edinburgh merchant
Andrew Crawford, Edinburgh merchant
Richard, his son
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John Bonkle, merchant
Andrew Haliburton, merchant
The Duchy of the Tyrol
Sigismond, Duke of Austria and Styria and Count of the Tyrol
Eleanor Stewart, his wife, aunt to King James of Scotland
Venice: Colonials and Diplomats
Caterino Zeno, envoy to Uzum Hasan of Persia
Martin, his clerk
Violante of Naxos, his wife, niece of Uzum Hasan’s Christian wife
Pietro, her legitimate son
Nerio, exile from Trebizond, her unacknowledged son
Catherine, widowed Queen of Cyprus
Marco Corner, sugar-grower in Cyprus, her father
Fiorenza of Naxos, his wife, mother of Queen Catherine and sister of Violante and Valenza
Josaphat Barbaro, Venetian envoy to Persia; former consul at Tana
Ambrogio Contarini, Venetian envoy to Persia
Father Stephano Testa, his chaplain and secretary
Augostino Contarini, his brother, sopracomito to Barbaro in Cyprus
Francesco Contarini, Venetian governor of Albania
Paolo Ognibene, Venetian envoy to Persia
Bartolomeo Liompardo, Venetian envoy to Persia
Genoa: Colonials and Diplomats
Antoniotto della Gabella, Genoese consul at Caffa
Oberto Squarciafico, Treasurer for Genoa at Caffa
Christoforo, Governor of Soldaia
Florence & Bologna: Colonials and Travelling Professionals
Arnolfo Tedaldi, Medici agent in Poland
Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli, Greek-Florentine nobleman
Rudolfo Fioravanti degli Alberti (’Aristotele’), engineer
Andreas, his son
Pietro, his pupil
Gothia and Black Sea Circassians
Isáac, prince of Mánkup and Gothia
Aleksandre, his brother and successor
Abdan Khan, Circassian leader of Gothian armies