Surprisingly, it was the lawyer, Gregorio, who paled. The girl — the woman, she was in her late twenties — had weighed him up sooner, and, dropping her eyes to her lap, had shown no immediate sign of alarm. Only at the end, looking up, she spoke before her companion could do so.
‘Some deal has failed to go through? Any other tragedy, I feel, would have been reported to us by now.’ The man Gregorio had glanced at her.
Zeno said, ‘I fear you are wrong, and I am the harbinger. The lord of Cortachy will hardly have made his way back to Flanders as yet, whereas my report will be released by the Senate tomorrow. I wished to warn you beforehand. I do so with the greatest reluctance.’
He treated the woman to a sensitive pause and saw that he had made an impression at last. None the less she did not exclaim, but merely spoke in a taut, level voice. ‘Are you saying that Anselm Adorne has changed his mind about going to Tabriz?’
‘Changed his mind? No. His mission has failed,’ Zeno said. ‘The King found himself unable to receive him, and your own Duke wrote to demand his recall. You will hear no doubt from Bruges. Duke Charles has decided that to send Adorne to Tabriz was impolitic, and Adorne has agreed to return.’
She had flushed. ‘On Venetian advice.’
‘And that of others. The lord your husband was of significant help.’
‘Nicholas was in Poland?’ the lawyer Gregorio broke in. He was still pale. ‘What was he doing?’
Zeno released a delicate sigh. ‘What was he not doing? I am sorry, madonna, but you must know your husband: his love of drink and riotous living. Tragedy was going to come of it: something much worse, madonna, than crazy contests and rich, idle women, such as Paúel Benecke pushed in his way all through the last winter. When Benecke left, it seemed that all might be well. We talked, as I said. De Fleury commended himself to the Queen and her sons, describing to them the proper management of Scotland. But the rot was there, the tragedy was preparing from the moment your former colleague arrived. Your lawyer friend Julius.’
Again, it was the man who responded, his voice as sharp as his nose. Gregorio was not renowned for his looks. ‘Julius was in Danzig?’
‘Thorn. All of this happened in Thorn. Ah! Herr Straube does not, of course, report to Venice now?’
‘He works for Julius. But Julius, of course, writes from time to time, and no doubt we shall hear from him. So?’ said Gelis. ‘Apart from the Burgundian Mission, where was the tragedy?’
‘Julius will not write to you, madonna,’ said Zeno sadly. ‘Your Maestro Julius is dead, killed in public before the eyes of his wife and the merchants of Thorn. Another San Matteo, you say! Another international incident, requiring the attention of princes? No, for your Maestro Julius was slain by a man of his own kind. By your husband, madonna. By his former patron, M. Nicholas de Fleury.’
Predictably, it was the lawyer who jumped to his feet. ‘I don’t believe you.’ The young woman sat motionless, her eyes large. The man Gregorio spoke again, a little more formally. ‘I am afraid I find this hard to believe. How and where is it supposed to have happened?’ And finally, after a pause, ‘Did they come to blows? Was M. de Fleury the worse for drink?’
‘Yes,’ said Caterino Zeno in a soft voice. ‘I am afraid he was. But they did not quarrel, at least. There was a contest. They had bows. M. de Fleury’s horse slipped, and his arrow misfired. He was not imprisoned or called to account: the shooting was clearly an accident. But a tragic one for your friend and his wife.’
‘Anna?’ The woman opposite him moved at last. ‘What happened to Anna?’
Caterino Zeno conveyed deep regret. ‘The details I do not know: you will hear them from Anselm Adorne. But the last word I heard was that the Gräfin, courageous as you are, had determined to carry on her husband’s business, and was leaving for the trading marts of the Crimean peninsula. Our friend Nicholas de Fleury, they say, proposed to accompany her.’
This time it was the lawyer who flushed. ‘You find that strange? That Nicholas should give a woman protection?’
‘Not at all!’ said Caterino Zeno, laying down his wine glass and rising. ‘It is what I should expect, except that, of course, a former Venetian banker might require more protection in the Peninsula than he can give. No. I came in friendship to tell you the facts before others hear them. You will have cause to be glad, perhaps, that you and your Bank are no longer tied to de Fleury or Burgundy. You will not even require, I suppose, to consider the fate of the Cologne business, as that will descend to the widow and her young daughter.’ He viewed the lady sympathetically, his head to one side. ‘Have I distressed you? Please forgive me.’
The lady rose. She said, ‘You have done what you came to do, and we shall no doubt receive the full story in due course, from the other participants, as you say. I am not sure that I understand why the Gräfin and M. de Fleury are both leaving Poland?’
He gave a gentle shrug, while retaining his expression of sympathy. ‘The lady’s company had urgent business in Caffa where the Genoese live and trade, as you know, by courtesy of the Tartar and the Turk. And M. de Fleury, I suppose, had excellent reasons for leaving. That is, my Senate had expressed, in concrete form, their hopes that he would travel to Persia, and use his special skills to press their interests, as I have done, with Uzum Hasan. It is perhaps all for the best, provided he is discreet in passing through Caffa. I escaped with my life, but Venetians are not welcome there: indeed, men have been forbidden to shelter them. A temporary matter of local politics, you understand.’
The lawyer said something. He looked disturbed. They were moving to the door, all three of them, when it creaked and hopped open. Caterino Zeno looked down to meet the penetrating grey gaze of a brown-haired child of about six who stood, one hand upstretched to the latch, the other clutching a paper. ‘Ah,’ said Caterino Zeno paternally. ‘So this is the young lord your son. How like his father he is!’
The child, its regard switched to its mother, said nothing. It was the mother who surprisingly knelt, and put her arm round the boy and said, ‘Here is a visitor, Jodi. No, it is not Papa, but you will make your best bow to him.’ And after a tremulous moment, the child Jodi obeyed, and the Venetian envoy to Uzum Hasan was able, gravely, to leave.
‘Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!’ said the staid Gregorio wildly as soon as he had gone.
‘We shall get the truth from Bruges,’ Gelis said. ‘That was not the truth.’ But the boy looked up at her face, his own crimsoning, for the arm that gripped him was trembling.
IT WAS TRUE that the Burgundian Mission had been recalled, for the news was all over the Rialto next day, mixed with the latest reports of the Duke of Burgundy’s political and military blunders on the borders of Germany. There was enough to perturb the money markets, without paying attention, as yet, to the rumour that the German version of the Casa di Niccolò had lost its director: opinion had it that the company would continue under the widow, or amalgamate with Antwerp or Bruges. Gregorio spent the morning in conference with his officials, discussing what precautions to take and drafting communications to Diniz and Moriz and Govaerts in Flanders, for although the branches might now be separate, they were not rivals. Information was the lifeblood of banks, and the wider network, on which Gregorio depended, was managed by Gelis. Today she had remained in her room and, although he missed her, he did not send to hurry her, for he shared some of her helpless anger, mixed with distress. Julius was dead — the infuriating, life-loving colleague and friend who had run the Venice Bank for so long, and who had found in Germany autonomy and a happy marriage at last. And all they had found intolerable in Nicholas was now miserably reinforced by this news. For even though much of what Zeno said might be untrue, the picture he had painted of Nicholas in tribulation was painfully accurate. They had seen it happen before.
Then, at noon, when Margot came in and they broke off, gladly, to think about dinner, the courier had come to the landing-station with his satchel from Danzig, in which, brought by expensive relay
, there was a letter from Katelijne Sersanders addressed to the lady of Beltrees.
Gregorio had taken it, and then, after thought, had asked Dr Tobie if he would deliver it to Nicholas’s wife in her room. For this, sent before Kathi left Danzig, would surely contain for Gelis’s eye the true account of what had happened in Poland. And Tobie, to whom his young Kathi was dear, was the best person to be at hand to interpret it. Also, he was a physician.
He was away for a long time. The household ate, with Margot, subdued, at the head of the table and Gregorio at its foot. The low, sensible voice of the nurse conversing with Jodi filled the spaces between the stilted talk of the clerks, and the nervous scraping of platters. Then, suddenly, Gelis came in, and the men raggedly stood, while Mistress Clémence finished what she was saying, her voice placid, her eyes on the doctor.
Gelis looked at them all. She had dressed more formally, you would say, than was her habit: her fair hair swept under the rolled brim of a pale satin hat; her light, narrow gown girdled with gold. She stood, one hand on the back of the master chair Gregorio had vacated, and spoke as a man would have done: a merchant among merchants.
‘You’ve heard the rumours. I now have better news directly from Danzig. Meester Julius is not dead. He has been injured in an accident but, although badly hurt, is recovering. His wife waited to be sure he was out of danger, and has now gone to do business in Caffa, with the help of the Patriarch of Antioch, who is to fulfil Lord Cortachy’s mission at Tabriz as well as his own. Lord Cortachy is returning home, that is true, but he has managed to complete some successful contracts with the Danzigers: I have details here. And lastly, his niece and her husband are coming home also, for a very good reason.’ She looked across smiling at Margot. ‘The lady of Berecrofts is with child. I think we should drink to that, and the other news. Goro, bring out the wine.’
He had begun to fetch it already. She sat down, the room ringing with relieved voices. She had not mentioned her husband but, for the moment, nobody cared. Julius was safe, and so was his wife, safely chaperoned by Ludovico da Bologna, of whom Zeno, of course, had said nothing.
The voice of Jodi said shrilly, ‘What child is Kathi with?’ and then broke off as someone chuckled. Mistress Clémence bent over and whispered; then, rising, drew the child from his chair and, curtseying, led him from the room. His voice faded. Tobie, who had not taken his seat, also left the room quietly. When Mistress Clémence presently emerged from the nursery alone, shutting the door, she found him waiting for her.
‘He is jealous. He misses his father,’ she said.
‘Nicholas has gone to Caffa with the woman,’ Tobie said. ‘It would have been better if Julius had killed him.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ said the nurse. ‘The priest is with them, in any case.’
‘When did that ever stop Nicholas?’ Tobie said.
‘Come into my parlour,’ Mistress Clémence said, and opened the door.
She did not curtsey or address him with ceremony and had not done so for some time, but he never thought of the omission, any more than he had noticed when it began. To an outsider, they were two professionals, nurse and doctor. To themselves, it was the same.
He had grown to trust her in Scotland, once he had become accustomed to her tart speech and tendency towards boldness. She had proved quick-witted at Trèves. Since his birth, she had been an excellent nurse and a stern but fair mentor to Jodi. Tobie believed that the woman had had a fair understanding of Nicholas, and supposed that the revelations of the previous winter had been as much a blow to her as they had been to himself. When Nicholas’s wife had reacted as she had done, daring to take up the business in Venice, Tobie had been impressed, rather than sorry for her, and had decided, since the company needed a doctor, to return to his old role.
Since then, he had seen a great deal of Clémence, who was now Jodi’s only nurse, and who also gave her services, in her neat, angular way, to Gelis, Margot, or any who she thought required or deserved them. She was athletically thin, with a depressed Gallic nose and globular irises black as obsidian: he had never seen her brows, never mind her hair, both of which were permanently concealed under a hood of impeccable white linen. Her ankles were the finest he had ever caught sight of, to the extent of being disturbing. The doctor was in his early forties, and reckoned her to be ten years younger perhaps. It was at this stage of their acquaintance that, not so long ago, he had received his real blow: he had discovered Mistress Clémence by chance in a rival office, selling information for money.
The Bank in question had connections with Bruges, which was why he was there. Curiosity and a chance-open door led him to glimpse the woman ensconced in a chair, handing over a document to a clerk who, in return, took out and passed across a purse full of coins. Transfixed, Tobie had seen that the woman was Clémence. Completing, in a daze, his own business, Tobie had reasoned that the treachery must have started in Flanders, after Nicholas went, and was now being continued in Venice. He thought of all his own confidences, and the nurse’s apparent record of loyalty to Gelis, and felt ill. When the nurse left the Bank, Tobie had waylaid her on the small dock outside. She had flushed.
‘Well?’ was all he had said.
And she had sighed and said, ‘Dr Tobias. Well, I am glad it was not some fool who would jump to conclusions. I see I must trust you.’ Turning the tables was a speciality of hers.
So they had retired to a little churchyard she knew, where they paid for two stools round a brazier and ate hot chestnuts out of a napkin, while she reduced him to the dimensions of Jodi. And yet that was unfair, for she did not expect him to have guessed that Nicholas, leaving, had sent to make a pact with her, and had sworn her to silence. She described it and ended, ‘So, as he asked, his wife and child have been protected. You have seen Jodi’s groom Raffo, and Manoli, my servant. The Lady pays them: I was allowed to select them. They are highly trained soldiers. They would not have dreamed of taking these posts without the extra gold I am permitted to draw upon.’
‘Nicholas left it behind?’ Tobie had said. When talking to Clémence, he had jettisoned, some weeks ago, the formal name of her employer.
‘He deposited it afterwards. There was a time,’ said Mistress Clémence, bursting open a chestnut, ‘when M. de Fleury hoped to send for his son, but then changed his mind. He knew, no doubt, his own failings too well. Now the money is being spent wholly to guard the child and his mother.’
‘Against what?’ Tobie had said. A pang shot through his jaw and he stopped chewing. She put out a palm and, astonished, he emptied his mouth obediently into it. She disposed of the sludge.
‘You eat too many sweet foods. You will end your days sucking up gruel. M. de Fleury’s disaffected family, I understand, are still exiled in Portugal. It is probable, I suppose, that his present fears concern the rival firm, the Vatachino. The Lady worked for them, and has now transferred her allegiance to your Bank.’
It was possible. Since Nicholas’s disappearance, the Vatachino had been singularly quiet, even that member of it who had already tried and failed to kill him in Cyprus. Since he had had him expelled from that island, Nicholas might well consider David de Salmeton a serious source of danger to Gelis and Jodi as well as to himself. But when Tobie asked Mistress Clémence, she shook her head.
‘A gentleman of excessive good looks, charming although not very tall, and last heard of in royal favour in Cyprus? I have been given no instructions, nor have I seen such a person. But, of course, now I shall watch.’
She sounded remarkably placid. Gazing at her, Tobie was struck by enlightenment. He said, ‘Wait a moment. Does this mean you are in communication with Nicholas? Have you known all along where he was?’ He felt himself becoming indignant.
She had smiled. ‘He is too astute for that, don’t you think? No. I send my accounting through a third person, and any reply, if it is needed, returns in the same way. He knows at least they are safe.’
It reminded him of something Gelis had said, in
reply to an incautious comment of his. ‘No. He is not divining. He has not tried to divine since he left.’ And had added curtly, when Tobie was silent, ‘When he does, I can feel it.’
If you believed that, then now it made sense. Tobie said to the nurse, ‘So he doesn’t need to divine. You tell him everything.’
And Mistress Clémence, like Gelis, had treated him with impatience. ‘And you are a doctor? I assure him, in not more than a sentence, of the health of his wife and his child. I say nothing more, nor does he ask. You do not heal a wound by tearing it open.’
Later, back at the Bank, Tobie had drunk soup for his supper and closeted himself, for a brief spell, with Gregorio. He had not given Clémence away, but satisfied himself that, whatever Nicholas had feared, the Vatachino were in abeyance, and David de Salmeton was no longer their man and had quite disappeared. He mentioned to Clémence that Nicholas was wasting his money, in case she wished to pass on the advice.
That had been in the middle of winter. From what he could gather, the position today was the same. The muscular groom was still here, and the nimbly watchful manservant, but their special skills had not been required. He had refrained from mentioning it to Clémence again. Only, discussing foreign trends with Gregorio quite recently, Tobie had asked the source of his news from the Germanies, which seemed suddenly to have become much more explicit. And Gregorio had explained that much of this sprang from the friendly offices of Julius, although the best reports might arrive unsolicited, from nameless merchants hoping one day to change masters. Gelis was an expert with these.
Well, thought Tobie, sitting now in Mistress Clémence’s parlour, there would be no more reports for a while from Julius. And perhaps, unless his guess was quite wrong, none from any other guiltily anonymous source, surprisingly au fait with Prussian matters. He remarked, ‘It is true, apparently, that Nicholas was paid to go to Tabriz. It can hardly have influenced him, with the wealth he already has. He has gone because of the woman.’