“So you had discovered this long before I sent you to Brussels; and said nothing. You could have saved Catherine.”
“Do you imagine I haven’t thought of that?” he said. “But the ship had left by that time. I had no idea she was on board. I wasn’t in Antwerp myself. There was nothing then to link Doria with Catherine. Her letters to you were still arriving.”
But already she was throwing him, numbly, another challenge. “You told Nicholas, and yet he has sailed. Why? Why did he go on? The whole purpose of his leaving Bruges was to remove him from Simon.”
Gregorio said, “The galley is only on loan. He has made other investments. He had to go on, or the company would have suffered.”
She said, “One load of alum from Phocoea would cancel all of his debts. Against that is his safety.”
Gregorio did what he could. He said, “Would it have been safer for him in Europe, with Simon still close? At least, chance has taken Nicholas to where Catherine needs him. He may bring her home.”
The blue eyes were fixed on him now. She said, “He left Florence knowing nothing about her. Perhaps he will find and rescue her. But what good will that do, if Doria has orders to get rid of him?”
Gregorio said, “Nicholas himself doesn’t believe that. He has said so, in my letter. He describes Doria as a dangerous, competitive child, but not an assassin.”
“What does Nicholas know? The man has abducted a twelve-year-old child. He is working for Simon. Don’t you understand yet,” said Marian de Charetty, “that Nicholas cannot understand evil? Has learned nothing? Cannot conceive it exists? More. Nicholas, through beating and injury, will not think evil of Simon. You know that. When he finds out the truth about Catherine, he will be bewildered: he will not know what to believe. He may be able to hold off Doria, although it is likely, to my mind, that Doria is biding his time until there is a prize worth falling heir to at Trebizond. But Doria hardly matters. It is the wound of Simon’s enmity that harms Nicholas most, and could disarm him.”
There was a little silence. Then Gregorio said, “I have been trying to find Simon, to confront him. He has been in Scotland for weeks. But they say he may come for the Golden Fleece. The Duke is holding a Chapter.”
“You would speak to him?” she said. “About this? About Doria and Catherine? But I told you. The connection between Simon and Nicholas is not to be made known.”
“Of course,” said Gregorio. “We all respect that. But the feud is public knowledge; indeed, is in the realm of entertainment by now. The lord Simon and the young comedian Nicholas provoke one another; that is universally known. Hence—everyone knows—Simon and his wife think him intolerable. But a deliberate attack on his life would be thought quite uncalled-for, and Simon will never admit quite to that.”
“So what would you gain,” she said, “by meeting him?”
“Information,” Gregorio said. “Because he is vain. He has been mocked. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t want us to know a little, at least, of what he has planned to ruin or ridicule Nicholas. He may say little enough, but we should know at least something of what to expect.”
“But we could do nothing about it,” said Marian de Charetty. “A letter from you to Nicholas would take four months to reach Trebizond.”
“It would help me to punish him,” Gregorio said. “Through the law. Or my sword.”
She was bleached with fatigue, but that touched her. Her anger, three-quarters rooted in fear, had long since drained away. She said, “That is more than I or the company would ever ask. I have been-forgive me, I have been hard on you. I know you understand. But whatever happens, you mustn’t forget what I have to remember, through everything. In his own eyes, if not the eyes of the world, Nicholas is Simon’s son.”
“Tobie knows it. And Julius,” Gregorio said. “They will help him.”
He spoke firmly. He would not have her guess what in his mind was painfully certain. That Nicholas, despite every promise, would have said nothing to Julius or Tobie or anyone else about the man behind Pagano Doria.
She left, with her escort, in a week. Before that, Gregorio was much in her company. She was making a long journey and there were dispositions to make, and papers to put into his care. Now, too, she admitted him further into her personal affairs than ever before. Harmony had returned to their relationship and, indeed, the relationship itself had subtly altered. It was due, he was aware, to his assumption of a duty he had taken for granted: his resolve to question Simon of Scotland as soon as he could find him. Question and caution him. The Charetty company was not without men.
He knew now when to expect the encounter. Duke Philip did indeed plan to hold a Chapter of the Golden Fleece Order in Flanders, and among the knights to attend would be Franck and Henry van Borselen, kinsmen of Katelina, my lord Simon’s wife. It would be a historic occasion. The lady Katelina would come from Scotland. And Simon, her husband.
Even the limited amount he had told her about that had made the demoiselle uneasy. “Goro? You will be careful? And you will write and tell me what happens?”
“Lawyers are always careful,” he said. “I wish I could come with you to Dijon.”
“No. We talked of that. I shall write to you. You may do better, in the end, to travel to Venice and use the money there to take lodgings and see what word you can get from the East. If I need you in Florence, you could reach me from there in a week. And if I come home, you would be halfway between Bruges and Trebizond.”
It sounded sensible enough, but too casual. And she had suggested it twice. He said, “You want me in Venice?”
She was pale, again, for a high-coloured woman. The afternoon had been spent at the Hôtel Jerusalem, making arrangements for Tilde. Of all those who had offered to shelter her daughter, Adorne and his wife had been most pressing and, finally, the demoiselle had agreed. It was the arrangement, Gregorio thought, that probably Tilde would like best. He had not tried to change it.
But now, although she was tired, something in her mild insistence disturbed him. When she did not answer at once, he put his question again, worded differently, “Are there other reasons why you want me in Venice? To keep a balance against Doria and Genoa?”
“It would be sensible,” she said. Then she said, “No. I want you there, watching. I’m afraid of the Venetians.”
“Afraid?” Gregorio said. “But it was Venice who launched this whole scheme. Who suggested the alum contract. Who told you that Florence wanted an agency. Nicholas saw no danger in it. He lodged his money there.”
“I may be wrong,” said Marian de Charetty, “but they pushed us, it seems to me, from the beginning. The one-legged Greek. Zeno. The…others. Of course, they wanted Astorre and his soldiers. That would add to their safety in Trebizond. They wanted someone to share the shipping risks, and bring their raw silk, and consolidate trade with the Emperor, who was falling out with both Venice and Genoa. They might even have wanted to…seduce the Charetty company to the side of the Serenissima and away from our equal friendship with Genoa. The friendship we had before this business of Pagano Doria.”
“He is only one man,” Gregorio said. “We have no reason yet to distrust all of Genoa. Nor can I see Venice as a danger. She needs us.”
“That is why she is a danger,” said Marian de Charetty. “She needs us in Trebizond. She is pushing us there. She is pushing Nicholas all the time, the way the Greek has done ever since he saw him at Damme. I don’t think we shall see Catherine home, because no one wants Nicholas to turn back, perhaps not even Simon.” Her voice suddenly split. “Is it even possible that Venice is using Simon?” she said.
“No. You are imagining it,” said Gregorio. “Sit, demoiselle. I am going to give you some wine. Demoiselle…”
She said, “I am sorry. It is just that I am tired.” She paused and then said, “I have longed only that he should be happy. As he used to be, always.”
“Men who have such a blessing rarely lose it,” Gregorio said. “He needed a bigger ar
ena, whether Venice opened the door or anyone else. And whatever happens, he will deal with it, and come home to you safely.” He didn’t know if she believed him, but she gave the appearance of doing so. Calmer, she accepted the wine and sipped it presently, talking of trifles. Then she picked up her cloak and her letter, and carried them both to her room.
After that, they were never in private. The day she left, all the arrangements perfected, he and the other officers of the company rode with her retinue as far as the city gate, and the senior guild members and fellow merchants came, cloaked and hooded and hatted, to wish her Godspeed.
She had taken Tilde on her horse as far as the gate. The girl and the handsome small woman made a single shape of wrapped fur and velvet, with the woman’s rich glove on the reins and the girl’s fine, shining hair falling over her shoulder. At the gate they clung, and parted, and Adorne lifted the girl to his saddle.
Tani, of the Medici company, had black ribbon pinned to his cloak. Taking leave of him, Marian sought out the reason.
“Madonna, I thank you. The death is not in my family, but in the house of my master in Florence. A child, barely six, but bitterly mourned. Cosimino, the little grandchild of my lord of Medici.”
She said what was right, and rode on; but her heart was with a child of thirteen who had lost not her life but her childhood in Florence. And a happy innocent—surely happy, surely innocent—who, through none of his doing, might by now have sacrificed both.
Chapter 17
THREE THOUSAND MILES east of Bruges, the child Catherine and the youth Nicholas were close to their destination, and almost within sight of each other. As with most young when parted from their agonised elders, each was confronting known dangers with inherent hardihood. Which was not to say that Marian de Charetty was wrong in her fears for them.
The Black Sea, although salt, was more like a great inland lake, joined to the Middle Sea by one channel. From Constantinople to the Caucasus Mountains at its far end, it stretched for seven hundred miles. Its northern, black-bouldered shores gave on to the Khanate of the Crim Tartars, with the fur lands of Muscovy to the north of it. The Genoese, wily traders, had fixed on the Crimean coast their station called Caffa, big as Seville, and bursting free, at this moment, from the long winter’s ice.
On the south coast of the Black Sea rose the mountains of Asia Minor: thickly forested where they plunged to the dark iron sands of the sea, with stout forts on the headlands and ancient Greek towns built half on the mild, fertile shores and half fitted into the mountains behind them. Beyond the mountains lay the rocks and plains of Anatolia, Persia, Syria, and the caravan routes to Baghdad and the East. It was its position at the end of the Silk Road that had made Trebizond the emporium of Asia, older than Rome or Byzantium. Now it stood, the solitary gem in the empty Imperial crown: the last unconquered outpost of the Byzantine Greeks.
Towards it sailed the Doria (once the Ribérac) and the Ciaretti, sometimes abreast; sometimes overtaking or passing each other. The winds, always freakish in March, blew one way in the morning and another when the sun passed its height, sometimes favouring the round ship and sometimes the galley. Of the two, the galley made, perhaps, the more memorable voyage. For one thing, she was still in the hands of her workmen, as the smiths and carpenters began to strip out the false compartments below. The morning after Tophane, the noise of saw and mallet halted only for Godscalc, who called for a blessing on this their voyage amid a deep and reverent silence.
Absent from the ceremony was their Imperial passenger, her priest and her servants. A separate droning issuing from somewhere under the poop confirmed the crew’s suspicions. The robed and bearded figure with the lady Violante was indeed a Greek priest, and liable to pray in the Greek manner. Later, the repressive figure of the female servant issued, wrung the neck of a hen, plucked, gutted and cooked it on a small personal stove, and then vanished again.
There was no question, it appeared, of the lady her mistress joining the ship’s officers for entertainment or refreshment of any sort. She remained in her quarters as the galley sailed on through dusk and nightfall. In due course the priest emerged, made his way to the common cabin, bowed and, saying nothing, unfolded a mattress and, lying down, went at once to sleep. Shortly afterwards, the eunuch emerged from the curtain of his mistress’s quarters and took up his position cross-legged before it. From inside the cabin could be heard snatches of the lady’s voice talking in silvery Greek, punctuated by someone playing the flute in a way that could only be regarded as melancholy.
Halfway through the night, which was spent sailing, the wind rose and extra seamen were roused from their sleeping-benches to see to the sheets. The flute had long been silent. The scream, when it rose above the roar of the elements, was therefore all the more startling. Nicholas, who had been in the bows, dodged the length of the gangway and was brought up by John le Grant, his voice stoical. “The doctor’s got it in hand. Nothing fatal.”
“Oh, good,” said Nicholas, his arms hanging loose.
John le Grant’s white-lashed eyes glinted. “The serving-woman came out with a slop-pail, and one of Astorre’s men went at her with his breech clout undone. You mind. No shore leave at Modon.”
“Which of them yelled?” Nicholas said.
“Oh, he did. She knifed him. Nothing serious. Nothing too serious. Astorre says the gomeril’s got thirty-five children already to his absolute knowledge.”
“And Tobie’s got it in hand,” Nicholas said. “Well, that leaves us with ninety-seven entire soldiers. Who needs perfection?”
“Perfection would spoil you,” said John le Grant. “The passengers knifing the crew, half the galley in holes, two priests and a whistle on board and the Turkish army ahead. It’s not a ship. It’s a nervous wreck, laddie.”
Perfection did spoil him. Recalling his duty as patron, Nicholas straightened his face and made his way along the plunging, wind-buffeted gangway to drop down to Tobie’s quarters and inspect the suffering injured. The doctor was not so much reassuring as resigned. “He’ll do. I’ve never heard language like that since I was with Lionetto. I learned fourteen new words. Did you see the woman?”
“No. He didn’t hurt her?” said Nicholas. He got up from speaking to the would-be assailant, whose complaints had reduced themselves to heart-rending groans.
“That one?” said Tobie. “She wiped her knife like a butcher and marched straight back to her mistress’s cabin. I thought she’d come back for his kidneys. Are you going to apologise for this fool? Or I’ll do it.”
“You’re tired,” said Nicholas. “Learning all those new curses. Leave me to deal with the lady Violante.”
John le Grant, who had followed him, clapped his shoulder. “You do that,” he said. “She’ll set you to rights. There’s a pair of sure hands on that lady. She’ll clip you, stamp you, take the ticks out your ears, and you’ll come out that door without touching the ground with your trotters. I’ll have a drink waiting.”
After that, it would have seemed like cowardice to put it off until morning. Nicholas vaulted down the poop steps and knocked on the princess’s door-frame. Afterwards, he was sure he had knocked, although of course the Archimandrite was not there to hear, and the eunuch had deserted his post on the threshold. So, hearing a voice upraised within, Nicholas set his hand to the curtain and, lifting it back, stepped inside.
The glass lamp was extinguished. All the light came from the bed, where scented oil flamed in a low, burnished container. The illumination fell on crushed pillows and disturbed silken sheets, and on the bent golden crown of the princess of Trebizond, standing beside them. Her face, shadowed, was turned to where, at the back of the chamber, her elderly maidservant was moving about, talking as she set things to rights. At first all Nicholas could hear was the old woman’s querulous voice, and all he could see was the lady’s brilliant hair, caught back in a single fat plait like a lion’s tail; and the thick embossed silk of her robe, and one small unjewelled ear, masked by wisps
of gilt hair.
Then the curtain fell closed behind him and, at the sound, the princess of Trebizond turned. Her night robe, swung by the movement, warmed the air with the scent of her body, and for a second time in that place his breath shortened. The delicacy of her face was cause for wonder. Her features were built on the thighbones of mice; her eyes lay fronded in fish pools, their lids upper and lower like molluscs. Her lower lip was a button of coral; her chin round as a shell. Below her throat were two pearl-white globes, and below those, a dimpled crevice, and below that, there was no golden bouquet such as he had fleetingly imagined, but the tender swell of a smooth naked mount with a cleft whose place, barely seen, was discreetly tinted with rose. On either side of her body, the silk of her bedgown fell straight to the ground. His eyes, slowly travelling, followed it. Then the woman saw him, and squawked. But Violante of Naxos stood quite still and composed, and said, “Am I the wife of a tradesman, who has to cover herself before servants?”
“Before no one, lady,” said Nicholas. The heavy pulse beat in his neck, and he could feel it shaking his body.
“Or,” said the lady Violante, “would you thank me if I set you no higher than the animals who are your soldiers, to be stirred by a woman beyond civil constraint?”
“I have come to beg your pardon and your servant’s for that,” Nicholas said. Her breasts were perfect, and their tips developed by marriage, soft as small feeding birds. He felt his face growing white and called, violently, on his intellect. Then he realised that she knew what had happened on deck; had heard the commotion; must have known he or someone would come. Had, probably, recognised even his steps. The anger he felt against his own body died as he analysed that. He said, “Shall I ask your priest to come in?”
“Why?” she said. “Unless your man is dead, and Phryne requires to be shriven. But she is not, as a rule, careless.”
“Nor was she this time,” Nicholas said. “I wondered if she or you required comfort, that’s all. Let me apologise once more for the man’s importunities, and leave you to resume your night’s rest. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”