She was not sorry, however, when the fishing expedition was mooted, although she was amazed (although not quite as transfixed as Nicholas) when the Patriarch of Antioch elected to join it. There was some sense in the casual exodus. The dispute over the next Tartar Governor of Caffa was becoming daily more serious and, having done what they could, outsiders should now stand aside. As for the gold, nothing could happen until Ochoa’s ship came in the spring. And if by any chance, said Nicholas smiling, Ochoa managed to sail under the ice into Caffa, he knew he could depend upon Anna to act for them both.
She had returned the smile with a freedom never seen by her noble Hanseyck kinsmen, who thought it ill-bred to show any emotion, far less happiness. Now, she took pleasure in observing her moods reflected in Nicholas’s pensive grey eyes. This winter, she had set herself to know him, and every day taught her more of the cast of his mind, at once bright and dark, and never simple. The eloquent voice of the imam, the harmonious chant of the Koran readers, had meant little to her compared with the physical profile of Nicholas listening: the heavy, black-bearded heel of his jaw; the substantial cheek; the thin, contradictory nose with its quaintly fastidious nostril; the rounded lips sheltering one another; the stark, unwavering gaze. She remembered the same open gaze resting on her. But then the lips had parted a little, as he drew breath.
When, leaving the medrese, he had talked to her of what they had heard, she had at first fallen silent, rather than confess that it was not the teaching that had absorbed her, but his interest in the imam, connected as it must be with his past in West Africa, and Umar, the jurist and friend who had died there. Yet when, at length, she asked him frankly about it, he had not mentioned Timbuktu in his answer, although he hesitated a moment, as if examining the question in his own mind. ‘Why should I concern myself with Muslim philosophy? Do you never wonder why you choose one course of action in place of another? My divining seems to tell me that however much I strive, the future cannot be altered. And I don’t wish to believe that.’
And ‘Why not?’ she had said. ‘If it is true, it relieves us of great responsibilities. But do we not always follow our desires, whatever punishment threatens in this world or the next?’
‘Not always,’ he said. ‘Surely, one learns from one’s errors. One learns, whether from fear or from conscience, that there are other people in the world who deserve to live out their lives, whatever their failings.’
‘Such as the people of Scotland?’ she had dared to say, softly. And when he bent his head, she had added, ‘And do you need an imam, Nicholas, to tell you how to make peace with yourself? To remind you what part of your boyhood your mistakes, your agonising, your conscience all spring from? Nicholas, how did your mother die?’
He had risen, and she had thought for a moment that he might reply. But he had said only, ‘Not today. But the next time you ask, I shall tell you.’ Then, a few days after that, he had left.
For Nicholas himself, the expedition that took him from Caffa was a strange adventure: an interregnum quite different from the hearty, drunken escapades with Paúel Benecke, although he was not always sober, and often quite as close to risking his life. It had more in common with Iceland, but with no shuddering springs, and with Ludovico da Bologna in place of Katla and Hekla. Kathi and Robin were also missing, having business of a more adult and permanent nature to prosecute, a long way away.
It was the climate, of course, which reminded him. The unusual winter, bringing stinging rain and wet snow even to the palmy shores of the Crim, had frozen the steppes of the north and iced its rivers, so that, in place of mud-swaddled oxen, canopied sledges skimmed over the whiteness, swallowing space as if it were smoke. He had seen them burst through the sunlight of morning in a dazzle of spume; men and sledges and horses encrusted with sparkling frost; beards and manes sheathed and flashing like mirrors.
He had heard tales of the fishing here since he was an apprentice in Bruges: seamen’s accounts of the mythical four-hundredweight sturgeon of the River Yaik, forging up from the Caspian to breed; and of the beluga eighteen feet long, white as veal, sweet as marrow, that could hardly be carried by thirty strong men from the Dnieper. In the spring, men would launch boats to spear them, and to gather in carp and pike bream and chub as they swarmed to their nets. In winter, as now, the fishing was done from holes hewn in the ice by men who travelled in caravans of powerful sledges, with the great frozen rivers their highway.
The tales of these were cautionary too: of unskilled steering which could overturn horse and sledge on clear ice; of the fights between rival fishermen, and the chance attacks from war-bands of Tartars, come to unearth the salt and caviare buried under the snow, and — timber-starved — to burst apart the boxes, the barrels, the temporary shacks and take them away to make houses and wagons.
With Dymitr Wiśniowiecki there was not much fear of that, although the sledges carried weapons, as well as twenty men and their servants, food and drink and utensils, fuel and stoves, and their fishing and hunting equipment, with their spare horses and dogs running beside. To a man of Dymitr’s race, the frozen marshes and steppes to the north were familiar ground, and his practices were already half Tartar. His had not been the inept party which, travelling from Moscow, had lost Anna her furs — although, like his fellow merchants, he was the poorer for it.
No one troubled to speak of that; there was no time. Already, exploring the country, Nicholas had found his way to some of its rivers, and to the channel which led from the sterile Black Sea to the vast stretch of the Sea of Azov, Palus Maeotis: so rich in fish that both Venice and Genoa had chosen to command it from its northernmost point, where the walled double city of Tana lay on the banks of the Don. But Nicholas knew it only from the soft time of the year, when the Genoese ships crowded the havens, ready to enter and cross the Black Sea with their cargoes of fish and honey and furs, and the traffic in slaves was at its height. The traffic which, of course, Ochoa de Marchena was engaged in.
No ships moved now, but there was life on the steppes: elk and deer and high-leaping wild sheep to be shot, and fat birds to fall to their falcons, and later shrivel and brown on the spit. They ate as they travelled, as Tartars did, until they came to the fish: then they gorged as they worked on mighty salmon, cooked in the gloss of near-life, with the curd thick as cream between the pink flakes of flesh. And of course they wrestled, and roared out their ballads, and flung themselves into violent, joint-wrenching dances, howling over the wheeze of the pipes (they had learned a dirty song about bagpipes) and the twang of someone’s chipped, eight-stringed lute. And naturally, they drank. But it reminded Nicholas of that other country in the north because among the badinage, the talk was not without purpose: it was concerned with the land and its bounty, and the ways of the people who lived on the land. And at night, round the crackling blue fire in the makeshift shelters they found or created, they would fall silent and listen to the ruminative, rumbling voice of the elderly priest from Bologna, who passed the days enthroned like Perun on his sledge, chewing meat and bellowing orders, but brought to the lit circle at night stories such as even they had never heard, for he had been further than any of them and seen, it seemed, all that there was to see.
And even though the servants crowded in, and the chance might seem irresistible, Ludovico da Bologna said nothing at all of either the Latin church or the Orthodox one they belonged to; only rattled off, at bedtime, the routine benediction you would expect from any master at the close of the day. But if a man asked to see him apart, he would take him off silently, and he would bind a wound, testily, or set a leg if he had to, striking the man if he yelled without cause. After they had been away for ten days, someone asked him about Roman practices. He replied in three sentences, but showed no anxiety to continue, although he would consider a question if asked. Some days after that, Nicholas sought him out.
‘So this is how you do it?’
‘What?’ The Patriarch, in the process of going to bed, wore two robes over two p
airs of quilted trousers and boots made of horse-hide lined with bear fur. His blanket, which was also his cloak, was a vast and noisome collage of black sheepskins, which he was currently binding himself into with rope. He showed no interest in Nicholas. He had shown intense interest in the account Nicholas had given him of Mengli-Girey and Abdan Khan and Brother Lorenzo. He was responsible, very likely, for the appearance of the imam Ibrahiim in the Crimea. He showed no curiosity whatever about Nicholas’s spiritual condition, which, of course, suited Nicholas very well.
Nicholas said, ‘So this is how you go fishing.’
‘It depends,’ the Patriarch said, ‘upon whether I’m after sturgeon or anchovies. I hear you’ve found a taste for profound theological issues since you started travelling from Poland. If your divining scares you so much, why not stop it?’
‘Anna has been to see you?’ Nicholas said. Extreme irritation filled him once more. His hands were in gloves, and far too cold to show weals. He didn’t know how the old man could have noticed.
The Patriarch’s bulbous features creased. ‘I told her you weren’t even an anchovy. Anyway, what advice could I give you that Cardinal Bessarion didn’t?’
His voice was prosaic, delivering a truth with no trace of false modesty. If he knew of that grave, private meeting in France three summers before, he knew that Nicholas had already heard, at first hand, the finest Christian teaching from the dying Bessarion, the Greek who had devoted his life to reconciling the Latin and Orthodox churches. It had not, of course, saved him from any of his blunders. Nicholas said, ‘I’m sure Anna will think of something. I hear you meet quite a lot.’
‘She worries,’ said Father Ludovico. ‘I told her to start praying for Caffa, not you. The Genoese are pressing the Khan to refuse to keep Eminek as Tudun. They say Eminek holds secret talks with the Turks.’
‘He probably does,’ Nicholas said.
The Patriarch sat down on his mat. ‘Dear Lord, of course they all do, Mengli-Girey included. They’re not fools: they need to sound out the enemy, otherwise they’ll never know when to change sides. Fortunately, Turkey isn’t much interested in the Crimea: the Sultan’s just sent his stepmother to Venice to ask for a truce, which of course — if he gets it — will let him rest and regroup so that he can attack the Venetians in Crete in the summer.’
‘You think so?’ Nicholas said.
‘Venice expects it. They’ve diverted to Crete all the artillery they promised Uzum. But that is next summer. The present issue is whether Mengli-Girey will now succeed in appointing your clever friend Karaï, or whether he’ll be forced to agree to the idiot Sertak. Have they been giving you trouble?’
‘The Genoese? Squarciafico brought me in twice for questioning, but Anna invites him to rich German suppers and he goes away mollified. So what are your plans?’
‘The same,’ the Patriarch said. ‘You and I can’t do more than we have. We’re leaving for Persia as soon as the weather allows. The end of next month, if we’re lucky. That is, you are still coming, with the lady Contessa?’
‘Oh yes,’ Nicholas said with conviction. He supposed he was coming. It was part of his self-imposed task, to provide mercantile outlets for Anna and Julius and he was aware that, with gold to spend, Anna was planning to accompany him. Also, his conscience told him, inconveniently, that he owed something to both Uzum Hasan and the Patriarch. He added aloud, ‘Anna should have her furs soon. Sinbaldo will look after the business while she is away, and Julius, if he arrives. Unless Julius wants to follow us to Tabriz.’
‘He’d be too late. Uzum Hasan may not be at Tabriz,’ the Patriarch said. ‘One of his sons staged a revolt in the south, and Uzum marched his troops down to Shiraz. He’s spending the winter at Qom surrounded by desperate Venetian envoys, waiting to find out whether he’s going to make war on his sons or the Turk. I want to know, too, so you and the lady can expect a long trip to wherever they are if you want to do business. Unless, of course, you’d rather go back to the West. What about this man Ochoa and your gold?’
‘Leave Ochoa to me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am not tempted to go back, and I am not tempted to send for my family. Perhaps you can convince Anna of that, since I can’t.’
‘Oh, I believe you,’ the Patriarch said. ‘But your army might join you now of their own accord. I hear they share Julius’s forgiving nature. And the war over Cologne appears extraordinarily confused.’
Nicholas stood up. ‘Have you sent for them?’
‘I thought of it, but without a letter from you, they wouldn’t move. I still think you should invite them to Persia. You’d enjoy playing patron again. Would you put the candle out as you go? And take that with you. You really shouldn’t leave it lying about.’
‘Nikita!’ someone bawled from outside. Dymitr, anxious to gamble. Nicholas looked from the priest, indistinguishable from the sheepskin that wrapped him, to the object to which he referred. He said, ‘Where did you get it?’
‘In your tent,’ said the old ruffian blandly. ‘If Dymitr had seen it, he would have started to wonder.’
Staring at him, Nicholas swore under his breath. Then, snuffing the candle, he rammed the object under his cloak and left the shelter. Behind him, Father Ludovico pronounced a small benediction from his sheepskin. Nicholas crossed to his tent, then joined the others in the big wattle cabin for a night of gaming and drinking and trials of strength. When at length he was free to retire, he sat for a while alone in the light of his candle before he rose to take something out of his purse, and to pick up and bring back the article that Ludovico da Bologna had borrowed.
Unrolled, it revealed itself to be a broad-brimmed straw hat, swathed in ribbons and attached to a streamer of chiffon. He held it on his knee with one hand, while he took the cord of his pendulum in the other. It began to circle almost at once.
He left the camp at first light the next day, to the baffled displeasure of Wiśniowiecki, and a complacent silence on the part of the Patriarch. Then, with four strongly armed men and spare horses, Nicholas de Fleury set off on the long sledge ride back to the Peninsula. And this time, gliding over the sparkling wastes, he was seized with a mindless and untrammelled pleasure, born of the joys of the present and the promise of what lay ahead. To the alarm of his companions, he sang.
IN WINTER, no one ever approached Soldaia unseen: the waterlogged valleys behind were impassable, and the precipitous routes by the coast were too few. As for the sea, nothing moved in the bay or the river-mouth without being watched from the fortress. Nicomack ibn Abdallah was therefore observed, as he approached the town walls, having long since sent back first his sledge, then his escort. There was, however, no reason to spurn a Mameluke steward from Caffa, properly arrived before curfew, and the gate-keepers allowed him to enter, with his single horse and his saddlebag. These days, Caffa and Soldaia were both licensed Genoese towns, with only a day’s ride between them in summer. They had a long enough history. The uncle of Marco Polo had had a house here.
Nicholas had been in Soldaia before. He had even climbed the landward slope to the separate city, the vast sea-cliff domain, encircled by towers and walls, which contained the Genoese garrison and their servants. But this time, he had come on purely family business: being invited to visit his cousin, who lived with his Egyptian wife in the leafy quarter of the Muslim slave-traders. He had no cousin, but it was still a clever device: Genoese merchants made half their profit from slaves, and the consul seldom troubled this district. It was why Ochoa had chosen it, and described it accurately in the message he sent.
Ochoa was not yet here. There was no trace in this simple white house, with its luxurious furnishings, of the Spanish pirate whom Nicholas had hired long ago to help him buy African gold, and who later had been waylaid by the Knights of St John and captured with all his precious cargo. The Knights, friends of Genoa, had forced Ochoa de Marchena to work for them in Rhodes, until he escaped. Venturing into Soldaia now, he risked recapture and hanging.
‘Yet, for Messer N
iccolò of Bruges, he would do it,’ explained the unknown Circassian cousin, a handsome, well-nourished man in his forties. Reclining at ease on the floor, he waved Nicholas to another pile of deep cushions. ‘I am to hear as soon as he comes, upon which he desired me to call you from Caffa. But you say you suspect he is coming already?’ He accepted a cup from his wife, a dark-eyed nymph veiled like Salome, who came, stooping, to offer another to Nicholas. He smiled at her, answering.
‘I thought it best to come early in case. Since I had cause to visit the Khan, the Treasurer and his friends interest themselves in my movements.’
The girl, who had half risen, stopped, but composed herself when the Circassian spoke to her soothingly. After she had slipped from the room, he turned to Nicholas. ‘That strutting cock of a Squarciafico!’
Nicholas gazed at his cup. ‘It is an old family, as you know. They have administered Chios and Caffa as long as the Genoese ruled there.’
‘And think every native their whore! A Squarciafico calls with his friend on a Tartar and, drawing aside the man’s wife, he pulls out her breast for his companion to finger. Then, when her husband has gone, he sits himself down and bids the wife search his underlinen for lice, which, kneeling, she does, with all the respect she has been taught. It has happened. My wife knows of such a case.’
‘Franks bring wealth,’ Nicholas said.
‘So do the Circassian Mamelukes in Egypt,’ his host said. ‘And competent rule for a time. Then comes insolence, and its fellow, revolt, and next, a new master is welcomed, because he offers wealth with respect. For a time.’
‘Your imam does not preach revolt,’ Nicholas said. ‘In the medreses of Soldaia or Caffa.’
‘The scholar Ibrahiim? He says the same of your friend, the Frankish priest, the Pope’s envoy. He says he asks men to look for the truth, and what is best for their country as well as their souls. Otherwise you would not be here. Everyone with friends in the Maghgrib knows Ochoa, but we do not all do as he asks.’