He answered them pleasantly, and illustrated his points with anecdotes which made the boys laugh. He was used to covering up and could deal, with relative ease, with questions from a Tedaldi or a Zeno. He was less used to being trapped into philosophic discussion by men who had known Cardinal Bessarion as well as Pope Pius, and were familiar with the thinkers he had heard speak in Trebizond. Nor could he escape, as he usually did, by appearing ignorant. He had corresponded for a long time with Filippo Buonaccorsi, and whatever deductions Callimaco had made, he had passed to the Queen. That was why, as she said, he was here. He was unattached and potentially useful. He was being given a test, based on his knowledge of a small country whose dissection would alarm no one except, as it happened, himself. And he was performing for an audience of four princes, the future kings of this realm, who, again as it happened, were children. He knew how to make them laugh, because he knew about children. He had two.
He began to feel very tired, and was conscious of relief when the Queen, intervening, signalled that the discussion was over and conveyed to him her thanks, and those of her absent husband. She hoped that, with the help of her servants, my lord of Beltrees would continue to relish his stay in her country. Everyone stood. Nicholas kissed hands and began to retreat. Jan Olbracht, who was not in awe of his mother, caught Nicholas at the door and said, ‘I heard great tales of the Ferrara wedding. Was it true that they heaped snow under the awnings, and blew cool air into the party with bellows?’
‘So I believe,’ Nicholas said. ‘It didn’t come cheap. They filled the rooms with silk flowers from France, and there were four tablecloths to each table, one for each course, and the servitors changed costume to match. Why, my lord? Are you marrying soon?’
‘Jan Olbracht!’ said his mother.
‘Not today, at least,’ said Jan Olbracht with a wink, and slid off.
‘No, indeed,’ said the voice of Caterino Zeno, close at hand. ‘Aged fifteen, and three mistresses already, to my knowledge. If you are as thirsty as I trust you are after that heroic performance, I propose that we retire in the direction of the cloth halls, collect some amiable company and descend to the cellars to discuss nothing that is not liquid or frivolous. Do you agree?’
He agreed, since it was necessary. He had never known Caterino Zeno to be frivolous. His wife was another matter, or had been.
THE BEER CELLARS were packed with courtiers and with wealthy citizens waiting for the noon downpour to cease, but Venetian foreigners had their own table at which Zeno and his party were welcomed, and where conversation took place in that peculiar tongue, with its slovenly affectations, which might confound even Italian eavesdroppers.
Not that, to begin with, the talk strayed far from the orthodox: Cracow scandal, local women, and home news from Venice. Twice, Nicholas had to watch what he was saying: once when Gelis was mentioned; and once when the talk turned to Cyprus. Neither reference was serious. He expressed mild gratification when complimented on his wife’s brilliant work for the Banco di Niccolò in Venice, and merely nodded when Zeno referred to the failed revolt against his young niece Queen Catherine in Cyprus. Neither was news, and he thought it extraordinary that they should have expected to read something in his face.
That said, he was mildly interested to learn that the Venetian branch of the Bank was still known by his name, and wondered why. It would suit Venice, of course, to have him safely back, making money for the Republic with his brilliant wife. As for Cyprus, the bond between himself and its late King was no secret. Privately, he had rejoiced when the murderer of Zacco’s small daughter Charlotte had been killed. But the rebellion had failed, and the Queen’s legitimate son would now become a proper Venetian — a spectacle that Zacco, at least, had been spared.
Becoming tired of the subject of Cyprus, Nicholas got to his feet, lifted his newly filled humpen and offered a toast, waving his hat in the Polish fashion: ‘To the Kingdom of Cyprus, where three things are good and cheap: il sale, il zucchero e le puttane!’
Zeno drank it, wearing a smile. Then he proposed another: ‘Kochajmy się!’ — Let us love one another. Then someone thought of another toast, and another. It was harmlessly restful. And there was plenty of wine: six pots within reach for the eight of them.
That was the frivolous part. Much later, alone by his side in the privy, Caterino Zeno said, ‘You hold your drink well.’
‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said.
‘Don’t apologise. We are expected to talk, you and I.’
‘Oh? Expected by whom?’ Nicholas said.
‘By Ludovico da Bologna, for one.’ Zeno retied his cords, and watched Nicholas prepare to do the same, with no particular haste. Zeno added, ‘You enjoyed life on the rafts?’
‘Do I like the company of rough men? Yes, of course. I prefer women, but they don’t come on rafts.’
‘I heard differently,’ Zeno said. He paused. ‘You know that our precious Buonaccorsi’s mistress has married this year? Everyone is sorry. You see his influence on the young princes. Luxury in the home, in the bed, at the table.’
‘And a certain amount of learning as well,’ Nicholas said. Since Zeno didn’t move, he leaned on the wall. No one came in. The rain had stopped.
Zeno said, ‘That is why the Queen indulges him; indulges old Dlugosz, Ostrórog, all the boys’ tutors. The boys are to grow up wise and lettered, as Casimir was not. The magnates of his day saw to that.’
‘The King is said to be wise,’ Nicholas remarked.
‘He has his mother’s temper, but yes. Thirty-four years have taught him to rule. He was soldier enough to throw out our white-cloaked knightly friends, and has wit enough to know which allies to cultivate.’
‘Certainly, he has had good advice,’ Nicholas said. ‘Barbaro, Liompardo, Contarini, Ognibene. Four different sets of Venetian ambassadors passing this way in a matter of months, quite apart from yourself.’ He shifted. The smell was terrible. He supposed Zeno thought this important.
‘Naturally. Venice is at war with the Turk. She is Poland’s buckler, as the Church is her sword. There have been papal envoys as well. Barbo for one, and the sadly maligned Maestro Laetus, on his way to and from Moscow. It was necessary for both gentlemen, of course, to be kept apart from the prized Callimaco.’
Julius Pomponius Laetus had been sadly maligned for the same things as Filippo Buonaccorsi and, for that matter, King Zaceo of Cyprus. Nicholas, eyeing his immediate surroundings, said, ‘It is true. People do talk. You haven’t mentioned Adorne and the Duke of Burgundy. Are these not also allies worth keeping?’
Zeno smiled and began to walk to the door. ‘The Duke has other uses at present for his troops and his money. When he makes promises, no one believes them, and when he makes threats, Poland knows that his own merchants will quietly modify them. As for Adorne, he and his family are still Genoese by investment and instinct. They send sons to the Knights of St John, another military order. Uzum Hasan does not trust them.’
‘But you had a successful stay at the Persian Court. They received you in bed together, they say: Uzum Hasan and your aunt Theodora.’
Opening the door, Zeno smiled once again. ‘It was an assertion. Despite the superior fruitfulness of his Kurdish and other wives, Uzum Hasan (he would point out) does not deny his bed to Theodora the Christian. The death of Zacco has shaken him, naturally. Since his great success, he has suffered some reverses, and can be irritable — he sent home the envoys of Poland and Hungary. I was luckier.’ The cellar was virtually empty. The contests must have begun. Zeno stopped at a table and turned.
‘I have done what I could with Uzum. Now I have to go home and report to my princes. And you? Will you stay here, beguiled by the good Master Julius, or seek the joys of a royal appointment, and the everlasting friendship of Callimaco? I could understand it. War against the Turk might seem uncomfortable by comparison. But are you so cynical now that you are not stirred by a gamble? Yes, you could die. Yes, Uzum might lose. But if he were to win, what rewards
would he and Venice not give to those who have helped him?’
‘Such as good business opportunities, of course?’ said Nicholas thoughtfully. ‘Yet it does no harm, I notice, to be Genoese. Our friend Prosper de Camulio seems well thought of in Rome.’
‘That is true. But he has never been sent to the Levant. The wealth of the Levant is for others to exploit. I have here a … consideration.’
‘It looks like money,’ said Nicholas with interest.
‘It is money. The purse comes from the Senate. It is to fund any journey you may make through the Tartar khanates to the court at Tabriz. I am empowered to give it you now, even before you make your decision.’
The purse was heavy. Nicholas weighed it in his hand. He said, ‘I may not be too cynical as yet for a challenge, but Tabriz seems to have saviours enough. Perhaps I should wait until Anselm Adorne and the Patriarch have finished there.’
The eyes in the button face glanced about and returned with a considering look. Zeno said, weighing his words, ‘I should like to think that Adorne might not succeed in reaching Tabriz. The lord Uzum Hasan is uneasy. A Genoese voice at this delicate stage might, in my view, endanger the whole Venetian alliance. I am not alone, I am sure, in that view.’
It was like the old days: plan and counter-plan, filament crossing filament. Nicholas said, ‘Perhaps you are right, but it is too late to stop Adorne now. He is presenting his letters. He is ready to leave.’
‘He has not presented his letters. The King set out from Thorn this morning, and the Queen left the building when you did. The princes will appear, for form’s sake, at the games, and then they, too, will leave.’
‘Adorne will follow,’ Nicholas said.
Zeno shook his head. ‘Not without a safe conduct which, sadly, the King has not thought to provide. And no one knows when the King may return: perhaps not even this year.’
‘And the San Matteo?’ Nicholas said. ‘Has the King made any ruling?’
But, of course, the answer was no.
Zeno talked. Nicholas watched what he could see of the house over the street where, for twelve days, Anselm Adorne had attempted in vain to see a King who did not wish to be seen. There was no sign of activity. Adorne might not give up; he might set out for Tabriz despite everything. Or he might respond to the rebuff by returning to Danzig at once, to the merchants who might cede, in time, to his claims and give him some small success to report back to the Duke. Nicholas had known Adorne for most of his life, and had fought him for part of it. In business, the older man had given no quarter, and had treated him, seven months ago, with freezing contempt. He did not care what Adorne did, but he found that he did not wish Kathi to leave before he had seen her. He would send her a note.
He thought of something else. ‘The Patriarch? Where is the Patriarch in all this?’
Zeno broke off what he was saying. He said, ‘Physically, he is, or was, with the King. Whether he continued with him, or called back to Thorn, I do not know. And in every other sense he stands as he did: as the legate of the Pope and the Emperor, on his way to Tabriz by way of the Black Sea and Caffa. He is, of course, well known to the King and is acceptable to Uzum Hasan, as you are. In his case, there are no complications.’ He made an agreeable pause. ‘You may find he has left you a message.’
‘Then I should probably return and look for it,’ Nicholas said. ‘You are going to the games?’
‘To entertain. The Confrérie have invited me to conclude the day with a display. It is nothing: a little mounted archery in the Persian style. You would not care to join me? I have a short bow you could use.’
‘Today, you will have to forgive me,’ said Nicholas. ‘But Julius is the man you should ask. Go and speak to Julius, if you have spare bows.’
They parted outside. He had been asked for no promises. He had been given money. He took the chance, politely, to send his regrets to Violante, and Caterino Zeno assured him that he would convey her husband’s affectionate greetings to the lady Gelis in Venice. Nicholas assumed that Gelis could deal with that, if he could. The sun was shining as he crossed the square, and the vendors were unwrapping their stalls. He made his way, thinking, past baskets of berries and mobs of lacquerred radishes big as plums. The painted houses stood upside down in wide puddles, and pigeons drank from their windows. Beside the steps to Straube’s house, a man stood awaiting him.
‘Now it is my turn,’ said Callimaco. ‘Pray come in. I shall not keep you long and, as you see, you do not have far to go. I am living here, between the house of Copernicus and yours.’
Chapter 10
A MEETING WITH Callimaco had been inevitable, and Nicholas saw no point in avoiding it. As his host pointed out, he had no distance to go. Only, before he climbed the parallel steps, Nicholas took a moment to check that no message from Father Ludovico had come, and to dispatch Jelita with a message for Kathi. Then he went next door, to make himself available to Filippo Buonaccorsi.
The two houses were very alike. In this, the wide public room on the first floor overlooked the long garden, like Straube’s, but was otherwise unremarkable except for those few objects which the lessee had clearly brought here: a writing-box inlaid in Florence, a globe, a painted chest, a ewer with a trailed handle and a set of Murano glass goblets. The man Lipnicki filled them. Compared with that of the Burgh Halls cellar, the wine was ambrosia, and Nicholas could not bring himself to refuse it. He thought, then, that the day was within his control.
Cailimaco was wearing a robe of dun-coloured taffeta, and a single jewel, and his spectacles. His hair was like Zacco’s. Kochajmy się. Outside, speaking in Polish, he had waszmośćed Nicholas in the third person, but now he used the Italian of his Siena countryside. ‘Have you been told that I may molest you?’
‘Caterino Zeno, it is true, is not a sensitive man. But then he is trying to propel me into the arms of the Tartars and Uzum Hasan. It surprised me that the Patriarch left without helping him.’
‘He has not yet gone,’ Cailimaco said. ‘Nor has Adorne, but he will. Adorne was a bad choice: I agree with Signor Zeno, if for different reasons. The Duke sent Lord Cortachy to lodge a public complaint with the Hanse, or be seen to be doing so. He made him envoy to the Levant on a whim, to please Adorne himself, whose name is known there, and as a sop to the Pope and Milan. But how could he ever succeed? Venice has always been able to promise Uzum more than anyone else, and it is Venice whom Uzum and the Great Horde will favour. Then, if Uzum conquers the Turks, it is Venice who will benefit from the flood of renewed trade, and who will take control of the alum mines. That, of course, is Zeno’s interest. You will have guessed.’
He had guessed. He knew, also, what Callimaco’s bias was. Zacco, too, had hated the Genoese. Nicholas said, ‘I should tell you that I have been given a bribe. Or a non-returnable gift. Or perhaps even a pension. I have taken it, but I am not yet committed.’
‘Whatever it is, the King would offer more,’ Buonaccorsi said. ‘If your commitment is for sale.’
‘Why?’ said Nicholas. ‘Why not allow someone else to pay me to advise Uzum and what is left of the Horde, and help free Poland from all these threats?’
Callimaco leaned back in his chair, his long-fingered hands embracing his glass. ‘Because, Niccolò, this country has been torn to pieces by mercenary troops over the years, and we have had enough. Our delegate to the Council of Constance denounced crusading as contrary to God’s will. It amuses you. But we are the base for every Western attack: against the Muslim, against the pagan, against those of Orthodox faith. Destroy the Turks, and the Grand Prince of Moscow will immediately appear on our frontiers. Ally with Moldavia, as we are doing, and how far will Stephen’s ambition finally take him? And what of the Mongols? Listen to Father Ludovico when he talks of the khans’ friendship, and listen to me when I tell you that the Tartars from north of the Black Sea plunder us daily and always have done so: they will fight for anyone, and will join with the Turk or the Russian or Uzum Hasan as it suits them. And be
cause these nomads are not ambitious for land, the Western princes see no need to give us protection.’
He paused. He said in a calmer voice, ‘We are a buffer state, and our friends are as dangerous to us as are our enemies. So Casimir does not fight, Niccolò. He prevaricates. He conciliates.’
‘He disappears,’ Nicholas said.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the other man. He rose, crossing the room. The folds of silk, falling loose, smelled of something sweet. When he returned, it was to hold out some papers. ‘You read ciphers. You once encoded reports, I am told, for the Medici.’
Nicholas received them, and the pen and ink he was given. He was beyond, now, feeling merely intrigued or annoyed. It was true that he had a natural facility for everything appertaining to numbers: for ciphers and navigational calculations, for mathematics and gunnery, for astronomy and, of course, music, which he had denied himself for seven months. An aberration he would soon overcome:
The codes were not simple and he sat, head bent, working on them while the other man watched. These were not trading reports. He saw almost at once that they were copies of secret dispatches, mostly between Venetian agents, but some involving Florence and Rome. They were all very brief. He translated them silently, for himself, and then, laying them down, picked up and drank off his wine. He said, ‘So much for Adorne.’
‘As you see. Zeno and his colleagues have written to all the princes of the West, warning them that Adorne’s embassy would be disastrous. The Duke cannot afford to let him go to Tabriz, any more than the King can afford to admit Benecke’s piracy. And meanwhile, Venice is promising the world to Uzum, and to you, while secretly half her ambassadors are suing the Sultan for peace. If you go to Tabriz, you become another part of that false Venetian promise, that is all. That is why you were paid.’