‘I fear so,’ said Nicholas.
‘In which case, he is about to find the Grand Duke’s banquets somewhat demanding. He is also a Venetian, of that Republic which has outraged the Grand Duke (he has now decided) by treating behind his back with the Golden Horde. He will not be well received.’
‘I am sorry for him,’ Nicholas said.
‘And lastly, Signor Contarini owes a number of Russian subjects a great deal of money which he is unable to pay. None of them is likely to allow him to leave until Venice has been informed, and has sent to settle his debts. He may be here for some time.’
‘I feel for him,’ Nicholas said. He said it carefully, for he sensed something in the air. Fioravanti, who had been smiling broadly, looked at them both.
‘Indeed. The Duke, of course, has been most pressing in his desire to retain your services, but there is now a question of accommodation to be considered. Signor Contarini’s present rooms are not to his liking, and Signor Rosso, in the expectation of future satisfactory repayment, with interest, has suggested that he should be offered apartments somewhere more pleasant. There is, of course, a great scarcity of such places.’
Fioravanti lost his smile. ‘No,’ he said.
‘You don’t even know Signor Contarini!’ said the Greek, mildly chiding.
‘I’ve heard you just now. I know you. No!’ said Fioravanti. ‘In any case, I haven’t the room.’
‘But you would have, if Niccolò left,’ Acciajuoli said.
There was a short silence. Nicholas said, ‘How have you come so far without having your throat cut? Rudolfo, I didn’t know this was happening, and I have to tell you that you would never finish the rest of the cathedral if Contarini comes to stay here. Say no. They’ll find somewhere else.’
‘There is nowhere else,’ said the Greek. ‘And much as you may enjoy being selfless, I have to tell you that this is your one chance of leaving Moscow forthwith. It permits the Duke to remain loftily impartial and you to depart without allotting blame for small matters like stabbings. It is a pity, I agree, for Rudolfo.’
‘I am glad you agree,’ said Rudolfo.
‘But it will not last long. As soon as Niccolò has gone, someone will discover that your work has degenerated through overcrowding. Contarini will be asked to leave.’
‘You promise?’ said Fioravanti.
‘I am a Greek from Florence,’ said Acciajuoli. ‘At this court, I have only to ask.’
‘Really,’ said Nicholas sourly. But his heart was suddenly high.
Chapter 37
AFTER THAT, the end of Nicholas de Fleury’s stay in Moscow came with extreme suddenness. There was time for several feasts, mindless with drink, with Dymitr Wiśniowiecki and his Russians; with Fioravanti and the entire working group from the cathedral; with the merchants he had worked with on Julius’s behalf. He had an audience with the Grand Duchess, although not her husband, and was given, to his embarrassed astonishment, a cloak lined with ermine and a thousand squirrel skins, packed in a bag. He was also to have a guide, and a safe conduct which would procure him another at each stage of his journey. He failed to see Rosso, who had left to travel north with the Duke, but he went to renew his acquaintance with Ambrogio Contarini, for whom he was vacating his rooms.
The accommodation and stabling the Venetian occupied was certainly uninviting, although after the hardships he had endured, you might think that things could be worse. Hardships were not, however, much referred to by the ambassador, who preferred to remember graciously the delightful court of Uzum Hasan, and to express particular interest in the speed with which Messer Niccolò and his companions had made their way north to Moscow, with all the Crimea held in enemy hands. He must be as resourceful as his dear friends Josaphat Barbaro and Marco Rosso. Nicholas replied politely that the ambassador himself had proved at least as resourceful. In its way this was true, although he suspected that most of the resources had been provided by the two servants and elderly Father Stefano, his chaplain, who sat, yellow of skin, in exhausted silence. With a Barbaro, there might have been some profit in exchanging information. With Contarini, it was not worth the risk. Nicholas produced a reassuring account of Rudolfo Fioravanti’s temper and living arrangements, and left. It was only as he stepped from the doorway that the name of the Patriarch of Antioch was mentioned, with distaste.
‘That dreadful man! You know, of course, that he stole the Duke of Burgundy’s presents from the very arms of the Persian ambassador, and handed them over to thieves?’
‘Thieves?’ Nicholas said. ‘Were they not —’
‘Thieves,’ said Signor Contarini, standing at the door in his cheap doublet and coat. ‘Wherever they claimed to have run from. I had the story from Uzum Hasan’s own ambassador, and made sure that Marco Rosso knew it as well. He little knew, our Patriarchal friend, that we should both survive to denounce him.’
‘Surely not,’ Nicholas said. ‘You will find, I think, that his action was prompted by charity.’
‘The Grand Duke did not think so,’ said Contarini. ‘As soon as Rosso informed him, he had the fellow taken from Moscow, and put back in the Troitsa monastery. What did you say?’
‘I just mentioned,’ Nicholas said, ‘that we both know it quite well.’
‘THEY’RE BOTH FOOLS,’ said Father Ludovico, ‘but Rosso’s a rascal. Fortunately, there are some wise heads in the Duma still. They will play the Greek card, but keep the Latin one handy in case they need it. I’ll go when I choose.’
‘Not yet, then?’ Nicholas said. He had brought enough delicacies for a week. They stood stacked all round the cell.
‘Not with you, no. Not for a while. I want to hear from Uzum Hasan and see what happens in the Crimea. They’re all too busy in the West to need me. I’ll probably stay for the winter.’ He looked just the same. He looked, if you really studied him, like a man in his sixties who had travelled further and lived rougher than perhaps any other now living, and who one day would find he was tired.
Nicholas said, ‘Explain to me why you do it.’
‘That took a long time to come,’ the Patriarch said. His eyes gleamed.
‘I’m a very slow learner,’ Nicholas said. ‘Are you truly fired by a mission to keep alive the Christian war against infidels by reminding the rulers of the world of their duties? Do you dream of converting the Uzum Hasans to Christianity, and the Grand Dukes to the Roman faith? Do you find you can persuade Burgundy or the Emperor or the Pope to investigate the prospects for a Crusade if you can also promise them information in return? Or are you angry that all the crusaders, all the missionaries of the past have seeded Europe, Africa, Asia with hearty Christian colonies which have now withered to frightened, isolated groups who have none to comfort them, none to regulate and renew their pastors unless some individual can beg, borrow or steal the money, the safe conducts, the time to maintain their lifeline?’
The old man had folded his arms, his sandals stuck out before him. He said, ‘You still think life is like a diagram for a cathedral. A cathedral is a box created from numbers, whose function is to keep the rain off your head, but also provide a temporary carapace for all the limp, wilful, wandering, helpless souls that don’t operate by numbers at all, although they may occasionally refer to them. My reasons for doing something today are not what they were a year ago. They are not what they were, very likely, last week.’
‘But you know what you want,’ Nicholas said.
‘Oh yes. You have listed, in your methodical way, most of the problems that exercise the True Church. They are tackled, not in order of their importance, but as opportunity offers. They may be mended by the decrees of theologians, or by fleets and armies sent by princes and popes. Or they may be patched, as I patch my cassock, when I have a little time and some thread.’
‘So you are not, in the long run, the delegate of the Duke, or the Emperor, or the Pope,’ Nicholas said. ‘You are your own master.’
‘God is my Master,’ the Patriarch said. ‘It makes
for simplicity. I commend it. For that is your trouble, isn’t it? An apprentice to too many masters, and never stopping to consider which one to choose. Still, all this experience is worth something. You have something to offer, now, when you go back. You’re not going to be Alexander the Great — no, you started too low and too late for that.’
‘But Bucephalus,’ Nicholas said.
‘The horse? Well, there’s something to be said for a horse, if it has the right rider,’ the Patriarch said. ‘And if you lose one leg, you’ve still got three others. It’s going to be dangerous.’
‘It always was,’ Nicholas said.
‘Well, you’re right there,’ said the Patriarch. ‘You only had to look out of the window, and trouble always came to you. Do you want a blessing?’
‘Can you say one?’ said Nicholas, surprised.
‘Usually,’ said the Patriarch. ‘But I might as well get in some practice.’
THE GREEK JOINED HIM at the last moment. Nicholas de Fleury was actually riding out of Moscow for the last time, with his interpreter and his servant and four spare horses and a small string of packmules when someone called from behind, and Acciajuoli came riding up beside him, with a train as neat as his own, but with a wagon in place of the packmules. The old man said, ‘Unless you have any objection?’ He was wearing plainer headgear than usual, compensated for by the splendour of his cloak, which was collared and turned back with ermine.
‘You’ve had an audience, too,’ Nicholas said. ‘But why? You didn’t expect to be leaving?’
‘I suddenly realised,’ Acciajuoli said, ‘that I was about to experience another winter in Moscow, and all the pretty boys had grown up. You are not going to travel through Novgorod?’
‘It wouldn’t be much use for Florence,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. I’m on the road for Viazma and Smolensk. Informed advice from the stables. And after that, the fastest way to Bruges. Will some of that suit you?’
‘Perhaps all of it,’ said the Greek. ‘I shouldn’t mind meeting your wife once again. I have always enjoyed meeting your wives.’
Stupidly, Nicholas saw in this nothing suspicious. His thoughts were occupied with the town he had just left, and the people in it; and after that, with the terminus of his journey. He had never set his mind, methodically, to thinking about Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli, from the moment seventeen years before when that capricious, one-legged nobleman had appeared on the wharfside at Damme, fatally, at the same moment as Simon de St Pol and Gelis’s sister.
It did not occur to Nicholas, then, that by wives, the Greek meant also lovers, and that among these had been Violante, the mother of the catamite Nerio. Violante, of the exotic family which had produced the first of those crystallised sweets which had failed to cause his death in Cairo, but might have done so in Soldaia had he not recognised them. Because of Acciajuoli, he had been bewitched by those secrets of trade that had sent him to Trebizond, and later kept him in Cyprus, where Acciajuoli’s brother had tried to get rid of both him and young Diniz. Cyprus, where Nicholas had first met David de Salmeton.
The first day’s ride out of Moscow was a long one, and open ground and uninterrupted sunshine were soon left behind them as they entered the forests, bumping their way along wide, uneven tracks, across log bridges and causeways and into occasional clearings where the charcoal-burners and beekeepers lived; and where you would find sometimes the huddled timber shacks of a village, the cabins made up of whole peeled trunks outside and shaved wood within. Better far, in cruel frost and searching sun, than sweating brick, the Muscovites said. And Fioravanti, if pushed, would sometimes agree with them.
Nicholas had no desire for much conversation, but the Greek was a tactful companion, discoursing agreeably on innocuous topics spiced with occasional scandal, and insisting on paying the casual expenses of the journey, from the roubles for tolls to the den’gi he tossed to the boy who brought sour milk from a cottage. He was, it was apparent, of considerable wealth, and did not mind displaying it.
He did not mind, either, admitting to the infirmities of age, although he took his rest in the wagon, after refreshment, with a sighing deprecation, and did not do more than shift in the saddle occasionally when his leg started to pain him. It did not augur well for the speed of the journey; but for the moment Nicholas set the problem aside and suggested that they stop short of their chosen destination, and sleep in the open, rather than on infested straw in the village. They were debating this still when the wheel came off the wagon, and the question was resolved. Nicholas, man of utility, dismounted and settled to mend it, while Acciajuoli rode ahead with his servants to discover the village and send back whatever materials the repairs might require. He left the guide, since he was familiar, he said, with the way, and Nicholas kept the servant he had hired for the journey.
It was as well, for the servant was willing to strip to his shirt-sleeves like himself, whereas the guide, resting upon his recommendation from the castle, let it be known that his function was to interpret and to guide, not to strain his back levering up other men’s cheap broken wagons. He announced, after a while, a call of nature and disappeared, displaying thereby a wholly unusual delicacy, which should in itself have been sufficient warning to Nicholas. As it was, faced with a chance to undertake a strenuous piece of simple engineering involving no moral decisions, Nicholas was contentedly whistling, gasping, and issuing comradely orders to his man when he became aware that the man was not replying. He turned, and the glare of a descending sword dazzled his eyes. The wielder was the guide.
The steel hissed as it swept down, angled to cut through his neck. Nicholas hurled himself to one side, taking the chop on his arm with a thud he could hear. The violence of the blow and his victim’s unexpected movement made the man stagger, and Nicholas, still rolling aside, kicked his legs from under him while completing the movement to draw his own sword. His left arm was numb. Behind, on the grass, lay the dead, bloody figure of his servant. The guide got to his knees, sword in both hands, eyes open and glistening. He was used to assassination rather than fighting, but he knew enough to get back from a wounded man and play him until blood-loss made him weak. Nicholas watched his eyes, guessed where the next blow would come; parried it; made a slash of his own which was rebuffed and, feinting, kicked the man again, but this time in the groin. The guide gave a whistling grunt but held on to his sword, his face yellow, scrabbling to back out of range. Both men stumbled to their feet. Nicholas glanced at his horse. The other man’s eyes followed, and he grinned queasily, shifting to block the way. He held his sword with two hands, Nicholas with one.
Nicholas threw his sword away. It arched into the air, drawing his attacker’s attention. Then the man screamed and fell, with Nicholas’s flying dagger sunk in his chest. Nicholas strode over and crouched.
It was over, or nearly so. The would-be assassin had no more than a few moments of life: enough to sneer up into his employer’s face and say, ‘You thought you’d escape if he dressed up as you. But they’ll all be dead by now. And you won’t get far with that arm.’
Nicholas clamped him by the elbow, but the man had gone. He recovered his knife and rose slowly. His own blood, swamping his sleeve, had left a random, sprinkled trail on the body, like a parting benison from a censer. For a moment, Nicholas stood. You thought you’d escape if he dressed up as you. He had suspected nothing. He had never set his mind, methodically, to thinking about Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli.
There was cloth in his saddlebag. He twisted it round his arm and knotted it with his teeth to stop the blood pumping. Then he gathered the reins, threw himself into the saddle, and set off, the horse tossing its head. He had demonstrated at Thorn that he knew how to shoot and control his horse with his body at the same time. Now, he might be unable to shoot, but if he had to, he could both ride and fight with one hand. He prayed that he would have to. Well paid, and well provided with weapons, the villagers ahead would have been lying in wait. Or perhaps it would have been a band of pseudo-robbers who
pounced on the party that was known to be riding from Moscow today, with one of the castle’s own guides. He wondered if the Grand Duchess had anything to do with that, and thought not. Acciajuoli had been one of Sophia’s men.
He did not, of course, have a guide. The forest roads were in themselves unmistakable, but quite often divided, or were joined by lesser tracks. Twice, he had to rein in at a junction and scan the ground for recent hoof-marks and new-settled dust. The rest of the time he rode headlong, heedless of noise and of the blinding, battering pain in his arm. Then came the intersection of paths where his way was identified for him by a riderless horse, prancing towards him.
Prancing was, indeed, the only way to describe its astonishing gait. First it would break into a canter, then pause, shaking its mane and bowing to kick its hooves scything behind it. Then, whinnying, it would rear, before crashing down and resuming its erratic progress towards him. The trees of the forest threw back its squeals. Then, as Nicholas raced towards it, he heard the other high, searing, menacing sound, and saw what the approaching beast was bringing with it. Round its head, stuck to its flanks, streaming in loops and whorls all about it, was a death-cloud of bees.
He knew then what had happened, for it was not unknown among Russian villages. If you wish to discourage intruders, set the bees on them. He knew what it looked like. He had seen a beekeeper rouse a hive, rapping with the palms of his hands on the sides to induce it to swarm. There might be forty thousand bees in each hive; the number of hives would, of course, vary.
Now, he plunged into the forest, sweeping back to the road once the maddened animal and its cargo had passed. As he rode, he tied his reins and emptied his saddlebags, binding a scarf round his face and pulling his hooded cloak round him with hands thrust into gloves. The rest he tried to drape as an improvised horse-cloth. Before he had finished, the air was filling with bees. Instead of the occasional flick of orange or white from a butterfly’s wings, or a crane-fly’s spidery rattle and click, or the probing black and yellow cylinder of a wasp, there were single black bodies everywhere, of bees, once concentrated and now dispersed, distrait, uncertain of purpose. They did not attack him. A crashing in the forest told that another horse had been less fortunate.