‘To do that, or to go back to Venice. A place on the Great Council, and full control of the Bank, with my wife.’
‘You may want that, of course. Or you might prefer to stay here, and send for your family. Niccolò, may I speak?’ Nicholas waited. The other man hesitated, and then went on. ‘It seems to me that something has happened, and that this change of career and of country is not by your choice. Am I right?’
‘I have not complained,’ Nicholas said.
‘No. You took some time to recover. When you came to Thorn, I saw it as a sign that you had done so: an indication that you had resolved to rebuild your empire.’
Again, he stopped. Again, when Nicholas did not speak, he went on. ‘I thought I knew you from your letters, even though all you claimed to seek was information for your Bank. Some men work for a cause; many achieve as much or more through ambition alone. With you, I thought it was first one, then the other. Now I think it is neither. I cannot see your purpose in life.’
‘Because there is none,’ Nicholas said. ‘You have just defined freedom.’
‘For an adult? I have just defined mediocrity,’ Buonaccorsi said.
Their eyes met. Then Nicholas laughed. He said, ‘The happy mean. Why despise it? You still thought me worth buying.’ The wine had been left on the table. He rose to lift it and found it set aside from his grasp, and the other man standing beside him.
Callimaco said, ‘Of course I will buy you. You will always be bought, because you will always be worth something to others, even as you become worth less and less to yourself. Dare to aim for what you want. Dare to fail.’
‘Dare to succeed?’ Nicholas said. He moved away and sat down, without the wine. The weariness had returned, and some of the anger.
‘Ah,’ said Callimaco. He also turned and after a moment sat down. He said, ‘If you are afraid of success, then you are fighting the wrong wars. There are men who could advise, some of them in Poland.’
‘Ludovico da Bologna?’ said Nicholas. ‘Or perhaps an astrologer? You know what the late revered Pope Paul thought of astrology?’
‘That is one of your fears?’ the other man said. His voice had changed. ‘Why? Because of some other man’s prophecy, or because of something you yourself have experienced? I know you have witnessed one of the great mysteries of this world. Benecke has spoken of Iceland.’
‘Then you know as much of Iceland as I do,’ Nicholas said with finality. Through the open window a faint, hoarse sound swelled as he spoke. Beyond the walls of the Old Town, the games were under way. Time was passing. Adorne was leaving, and he had to see Kathi. He said, ‘I must go. You have been frank, and I value it. I shall give you an answer. But first, you will agree, I must find and talk to the Patriarch.’
‘I could find him for you,’ Buonaccorsi said. ‘It is not in my King’s interest, but I could arrange for you to see him, for a fee.’ A mild irony entered his voice. ‘It is a fee you will experience no embarrassment in paying. Lipnicki!’
The black-clad secretary appeared. ‘Maestro. He is here. I shall bring him.’
Nicholas rose. Illogically, he expected to see enter the coarse, bulky form of the Patriarch. Instead, there came the short figure of a fair-haired boy-child of about seven.
‘The prince Zygmunt,’ Cailimaco said, ‘expressed some eagerness to witness a master diviner at work. I have told him you are such a person, and that one day, when he is grown, he may hold silver coins from the mines you have found. Meanwhile, all he asks, as I do, is a demonstration of your art. You will allow us?’
Nicholas, making his bow, was simply pondering how best to refuse. Perhaps, trained astrologer that he was, Cailimaco already knew what he was asking, and even that Nicholas, since he became Colà, had forsworn both the pendulum and the rod. The child spoke before him. Employing the charming Polish usage, the child said, ‘Will my dear lord not do us this favour?’
‘Sire,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am sorry. I have no pendulum with me.’
‘But I have,’ said Cailimaco, and took from the breast of his robe a cameo set in a ring.
The stone was Greek, Nicholas guessed; pale and heavy, and carved in the likeness of a child’s face. It was warm from where it had been, and the thong on which it was threaded was scarlet. Nicholas held it.
Its owner continued, in that deceptive, mellifluous voice: ‘Let us sit by the window. This is a divine gift we practise, and God’s air should breathe upon us as it is done. My lord prince there. My lord Niccolò at his side. And I shall sit here. Now the stone hangs from its cord on my lord’s finger. What do we wish it to tell us?’
‘It cannot speak!’ cried the boy.
‘Oh, it can speak,’ said Callimaco. ‘How else will it tell us what you have hidden?’
Nicholas, watching the cord, felt the other man’s gaze as a weight. The child’s voice rose and fell in delight and excitement. Zygmunt had concealed a purse. Pan Nikolás was to divine where it was. ‘Now! Please! My dear lord!’
‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas repeated. He met Callimaco’s eyes.
Callimaco said, ‘Perhaps my lord is tired. We understand. But tell the prince what might happen, were the pendulum to speak?’
A child should never be denied; his curiosity quenched. A child. A vulnerable child. Nicholas said, ‘To find something of yours, sire, I should touch you. Then I should ask the pendulum questions. This is not my stone, so I do not know how it answers. With mine, it swings from one side to the other if the answer is yes. For no, it gyrates.’
The boy said, ‘It is raining. Ask it if it is raining.’
It was raining. The downpour pattered on the trees outside the casement; the haze of water rose from the ground. Nicholas watched it, his head turned, and felt the thong stir. The boy screamed, ‘It is moving! It is moving from side to side!’
It was true. He felt it before he gave it, at last, his attention. The swing was polite, moderate, unemotional. Is it raining? It is.
‘Now find my purse!’ said the boy. ‘Ask it. Please, Pan Nikolás! Please? Is it in this room?’ And taking Nicholas by the arm, he lifted the broad, adult hand that was free and laid it, palm down, on his own young, bony shoulder. His eyes were not grey but brown, and full of expectation. Where is maman?
He did not need to formulate any question at all. Of its own accord, as the boy cried out, the pendulum began to move in a slow circle. No.
‘Is it in the hall? Is it in the hall?’
No. No. The loop, revolving more briskly, rasped his finger.
‘Is it on the roof? Is it in the privy? Is it in the cellar?’
No. No. No! ‘Keep clear,’ said Filippo Buonaccorsi, his voice curt. ‘It is rising quite high.’
It was rising quite high. It was describing a full circle now, and increasing slowly in speed. The small, pale face at the end of its cord made a whispering sound.
The boy’s face was red. ‘Is it in the kitchen? Is it in the dairy?’ Whirr, whirr, went the stone. Under the cord, the diviner’s hand wore a rough inflamed ring pricked with blood. It was painful. Beyond the snarl of the ring, Nicholas could see the scholar’s large eyes and curling hair and ascetic face printed with growing alarm. ‘Is it in the garden?’ shouted the boy.
And NO! screamed the ring, just as Nicholas flung out his free hand and stopped it.
The prince said, ‘But …’
‘Sometimes,’ said Nicholas, ‘it is sick, and does not speak the truth. I am sorry.’ He spoke with difficulty.
Zygmunt said, ‘Then it couldn’t find silver. The purse is in the garden; I put it there. It didn’t know. It can only tell if it is raining.’
Nicholas kept his fist closed, the ring burning his palm. He said again, ‘Sire, I am sorry. It is not the ring’s fault, but mine. Some day it will perform for you. Let someone recover your purse.’
‘I shall do it myself,’ Zygmunt said.
He rose, and Cailimaco rose with him. Lipnicki came, at a sign, to the prince’s side. The boy said to N
icholas, ‘It was not your fault. Such things happen. It was probably the fault of the purse.’ He left with the secretary. Nicholas straightened.
Cailimaco said, ‘What was unleashed?’ His face was a little pale.
‘Anger,’ Nicholas said. He remained standing, the cord and ring crushed in his hand. After a while he said, ‘It knew what its real errand was. It was being asked the wrong questions.’
‘Ask the right one,’ Cailimaco said. ‘Or do you lack not only wisdom but courage?’ Then he stopped speaking, as Nicholas opened his hand, and let the cord unfold from his finger.
The face in the stone was a sweet one. He wondered where Cailimaco had found it: in Constantinople, perhaps. He wondered, fleetingly, what else Cailimaco might have brought back from Turkey. The ring hung, passive, waiting. The anger, he well knew, did not reside in the stone; the grief, the anger, the despair. He said, ‘No.’ And even as he spoke the word, the ring started to move. Its first essay was short. In the second, it stretched out as far as the wall.
Cailimaco said, ‘It is swinging, not circling. Nikolás, it answers you yes. What did you ask it?’ Faint from the garden, there came the sound of the prince’s high voice.
‘I don’t know,’ Nicholas said. He had asked it nothing. It had lifted the question, he thought, like a print from his mind, and was forcing on him an unwanted answer. Yet if he were ever going to get rid of anything — music, anything — he had better start doing so now. He said, ‘Would you allow me to borrow this, and try somewhere else?’ He paused. ‘I shall tell you what happens.’
‘I think,’ said Cailimaco, ‘that you have already paid what you owe. Go. I shall find Father Ludovico for you. Then you may bring me your final decision. Look. It swings for you still.’
Nicholas caught it and left, walking unevenly. He felt like a cripple. He felt as he had on the raft, fighting Benecke. The house next door was empty: Friczo Straube and his lodgers were attending the games. Advancing experimentally, Nicholas stopped inside the hall. Looking down, he opened his hand and, attaching the cord to his finger, painstakingly let the ring hang. It began to swing gently; its pulse leading away rather than towards the wall common to the two houses. He had guessed correctly. This was where it had wanted to come.
As soon as he started to move, he was made aware of the difference. The ring wasn’t whipping him this time. This time, all its fierceness subdued, it seemed full of an earnest solicitude, nudging, prompting, swaying, circling demurely. No, I do not wish to go through to the stockroom. Yes, this is the way I wish you to turn. Yes, I wish you to climb. No, I do not wish to go to the reception-room, to Herr Straube’s chamber, to the other guest-room, to the granary. Yes, again I wish you to climb. This is the place. This is the door. Go into this room.
It had brought him to his own chamber.
He stood inside the door. The cord shook itself suddenly. An end to pretence. The ring gave a harsh whisper. No more need for blandishments. He knew now what was going to happen; but he was not a minion, an echo. He would determine when and where he would cede. He stood in the doorway and, drawing on all his remaining strength, hurled his contrary demands, the will of the diviner crossing the will of the pendulum: self against self. You want me to go to the window? The candle-holder? The cupboard?
He was punished for it. This time, the answers were physical. The circling stone started to rise. The childish face, stony, smiling, passed his with increasing speed, its hiss changed to a snore. The cloth was snatched from his hand, and the ring, smoothly hurtling, seared the air with its rebuttals. No to the desk. No to the bed. No! No! No! to the prie-dieu. His wrist ached, with refusing to name what it wanted.
He went there, in the end. In the end, he said, in his mind, ‘To the table?’ And the stone pulled him there; converting itself, in a great convulsive leap, into the pendulum that answered him, Yes! Then it fell, and hung dangling, like the arm of a fighter which has just delivered the ultimate blow.
It had brought him to nothing very much, you would say. Made free of the whole country of Poland, the whole of Thorn, the whole of Friczo Straube’s fine house, the stone had brought him to nothing more sinister than this table, upon which rested a flat pewter dish, stained with black.
Nicholas stood. He was still standing when someone addressed him. The voice was quite near. ‘Pan Nikolás?’
Jelita, his servant, submissive as ever in his long coat and cap and soft boots. He was in the room. Perhaps he had been there for some time. He spoke once more. ‘My lord?’
Nicholas moved. He felt very stiff. He remembered being in a great haste about something. To find and talk to Katelijne while everyone was occupied at the games. His hand was sticky with blood; he saw the man looking, alarmed. Nicholas said, ‘It’s all right. The lady of Berecrofts. Did you find her?’
‘I came to tell you, my lord. She has gone to the contest with her husband and uncle. The merchants invited them. The Baron Cortachy is to leave Thorn, it appears, and the merchants wished to do him particular honour, not desiring him to think badly of them in the future. So they say, my lord.’
Nicholas gazed at him, vaguely surprised by the unaccustomed loquacity. He seemed to remember that Julius and Zeno were to attend the same gathering. Propriety would presumably prevent an explosion, and the presence of Anna would be conciliatory. He could not, at the moment, bring himself to think about it. He said, ‘Then I may see the lady Katelijne when she returns. There is no need for you to stay. Perhaps you would like to see the sport yourself.’
‘Everyone is going,’ the man said. ‘Thank you, my lord. Everyone wants to be there for the show Signor Zeno is to give at the end. Not being a friend of the Genoese, he’ll likely perform some great feats, so they say, just to flaunt the superiority of Venice. They say Signor Zeno is a great man with the Persian bow. Very dashing.’
And then, at last, Nicholas realised that something was being conveyed to him. He said, ‘What do you mean?’
The man looked abashed. ‘Why, nothing, my lord. Only they say that the Baron Cortachy and Signor Zeno dislike one another, and tempers might be lost. That is all.’
‘And you think I should do something about it?’ For once, he was unconditionally disagreeable.
‘I am sure I don’t know, my lord. Except that my lord knows them both. And an accident is always bad business, and harms trade for the foreigners that are left.’
‘I am sorry for them,’ Nicholas said. ‘But not perhaps quite sorry enough to go into battle on their behalf.’ He noticed that someone had refilled the wine-flask.
‘No, my lord,’ said Jelita, and bowed.
‘And before you go,’ Nicholas said, ‘take this platter. It is filthy, and should have been cleaned.’
THE AFTERNOON TOOK its predestined course. The archers of the Confrérie of St George, pleasantly replete from their meal at the Artushof, lethargically competed against one another in the charming meadow which currently formed their arena. Pole shooting, target shooting, distance shooting engendered a few disputes and a good deal of loyal endorsement from wives and parents. It rained, causing a short intermission. The sun shone, upon which the bows came out again. The royal princes, who entered and won two competitions, were plied with sweetmeats and talked, shrill and croaking, together. Robin kept clear of them. It was bad enough trying to look happy. The wretched day was almost complete, release was almost at hand when, amid the shouting, the drumming of hooves, the screams of the triumphant contestants, the little prince Zygmunt sprang to his feet, drawing Robin’s attention. The boy was watching a belated arrival: a rider who materialised unattended, and then guided his horse to the far end of the arena where, having rested his gloved hands on its neck, he paused and looked hazily round.
Robin said, ‘Kathi.’ And Katelijne Sersanders, at this low moment in the lowest of days, lifted her eyes with misgiving and trained them, with rising anger, on the distant, disruptive person of Nicholas de Fleury.
FOR KATELIJNE, lady of Berecrofts, th
e misery had started that morning, with the message which confirmed all her uncle’s suspicions. The King had gone. His official audience was cancelled. And it now became clear that it had never been the King’s intention to receive the Burgundian embassy. Whatever the excuse — affairs of state, illness, a family crisis — the effect was an insult. To Anselm Adorne, experienced diplomat though he was, it was a humiliation he could not forgive. He had begun by refusing, point-blank, the Confrérie’s repeated invitation to be their guest at these games. It had been Jerzy Bock, spokesman for the Danzig merchants and a St George’s Elder himself, who persuaded him to agree. ‘They wish to show that their esteem is not tainted by politics. Royal Prussia will be your friend, whatever Royal Poland may do.’
So Adorne had come, bringing his entourage with him, but leaving no instructions to pack. He had been obdurate. If the King wished to move, Anselm Adorne would follow.
‘How can he be so blind!’ Kathi had wailed to Robin.
‘He is not blind. He has been slighted. He needs to recover. Give him time,’ Robin had said. Robin was usually right.
Even so, the subsequent day had been miserable. The ceremonial ride to the ground had been disrupted by showers, the horses bucking and flying amid the rods of water discharged from the roof gargoyles. The street gutters flooded. Every other man told her, as men will, of the great plans to drain the moat and build a summer hostel for the Confrérie; but meanwhile they had to ride over the drawbridges and through the suburbs and past the watermills and the breweries to the edge of the vineyards, where the archery ground had been laid out.
This was simple enough, consisting of an oblong of grass upon which had been set a shooting-mast, a series of wands for field archery and, distantly, a mud wall on which targets had been fixed. Beyond that, there was space for flight shooting. There was a grassy bank on either side for the spectators, each fronted by a row of benches under an awning. The Confrérie officials occupied one of these, with her uncle and the Danzig merchants beside them. On the other was the palace party, consisting of the three youngest princes with their household officials and servants. The other foreign representatives, such as the Florentines, were seated some distance away. They had kept their distance, too, in the procession: no one wanted to catch the Burgundian infection. The papal nuncio, who had also been invited, was missing. The Patriarch had been with the King, they were told. The Patriarch, abandoning them, was possibly already on his way east and south to Caffa, and to Tabriz.