What has it to do with you? Nicholas thought. He said only, “Not Julius.”
“Agreed,” said Godscalc. “The fewer the better. On the other hand, he must be told who is paying Pagano Doria and so must the others. In failing to pass on that information, you broke an agreement made by your wife for our protection. It must be revised.”
“You will enjoy that,” said Nicholas. He imagined Julius would.
For a moment, he thought he saw on Godscalc’s face the expression Tobie had worn. Disgust? Disappointment, perhaps. Harshness, certainly. Godscalc said, “We cannot trust you, but we cannot remove you. You will remain as nominal leader, but will give Julius your code books. You will take no decisions alone; you will go nowhere alone; you will discuss nothing without one of us present.”
It was no less than he expected. His lips cracked as he parted them. “Even with the Emperor?” Nicholas said.
There was a little silence. Then Tobie (of course) said, “You might as well tell us. Was it true? You and Doria?”
“Up to a point,” Nicholas said. It was like the end of a whipping: you walked away light-headed, and made everyone angry. Later, he would have to bring to mind, as well as he could, every word of the ordeal and examine it, and consider the consequences. Later, he would have to deal with the caging, the dogging, the loss of his privacy.
Meanwhile, he had got through the worst of it, and he had made, he thought, at least no silly mistakes. He said, “The Emperor did make his wishes quite clear. But that was all.”
“Nothing happened?” said Tobie.
“Oh, quite a lot happened,” said Nicholas. “I think…in that box.”
He watched Tobie frown, and then cross unwillingly to the red velvet chest. He had put a third manuscript on top of the others. Tobie examined it. The expression on his face as he straightened was gratifying. He said, “Do you know what this is?”
Since he had chosen it for Tobie, he was glad that he recognised it. The treatise composed by the physician Zacharius for a Comneni emperor in Byzantium was three hundred years old. It was still the greatest work of its kind. Or so he had been assured. The Book of Zacharias on the Eye, called the Secret of Secrets.
Nicholas said, “It’s the Emperor’s gift. Doria said there was no silver left. He was right. But there are manuscripts, and they are willing to trade them.”
Tobie said, “Get them.”
“What I can,” Nicholas said. “Some are being copied. Don’t tell Doria.”
Godscalc, too, had crossed to the box and was kneeling. He said, “You need no other merchandise but this. One manuscript—in France, one manuscript sells for five hundred écus.”
“I know. But still. The camel trains might get through, too, if we help them.”
They looked at him. He supposed it seemed crazy, talking money. Nicholas said, “If you collected the books for me, I could leave you. Find the caravans and hurry them in. It would get me out of your way, and Doria’s.”
“Doria’s?” said Tobie. They had forgotten.
Nicholas said, “He’s married to Catherine de Charetty. He’ll put me away as soon as he thinks we’re rich enough. He can’t touch Bruges. He can’t touch Catherine’s mother. But he could seize the branch here in her name and collect all its profits before he could be legally stopped. You have to keep me alive. You have to pretend that I’m still running the company. Because, the moment I’m dead or deposed, you belong to Doria.”
The silence that followed was a long one, and was broken only by Godscalc. He said, “Is it possible? Did you design what has happened? Did you intend to make us privy to all that you’ve done, since the threat of Doria protected you?”
They stared at him, as if they expected to receive an answer. Eventually, he said, “Pretending the fever was the hardest bit.” Then they went.
Loppe, sponging him down, said, “Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes. I’m still alive,” Nicholas said.
Loppe said, “You’ll die, if you don’t quieten down. You’ll die before you are thirty.”
“Twenty,” Nicholas said. “She used to say twenty. No, I shan’t. I’m as strong as you are.”
The sponge lifted, dry and hot, from his body. After a moment, Loppe soaked it again. He said, “What else did you hear?”
“I heard you lying most convincingly. Thank you,” Nicholas said.
“But you must go on with it?” Loppe said.
“Jason did,” Nicholas said. He heard Loppe snort his contempt, and almost smiled. He said, “Where have we got to? I have sown my seed, and reaped a battle.”
The sponge stopped. Loppe said, “Do you want to get better?”
Nicholas opened his eyes. Loppe looked angry. Loppe said, “Even me. You don’t even trust me, do you?”
The room faded, and came reluctantly back again. Perhaps he would die before he was thirty. Even in the Abruzzi, he had not felt like this. Nicholas said, “What more do you want? No one confides everything, least of all menials.”
Loppe said, “I trust you.” His eyes, root-dark ringed with clearest white, looked as stern as Godscalc’s.
“Don’t,” said Nicholas.
Chapter 22
FAR FROM THE RAVAGES he had unwittingly caused, the Charetty lawyer Gregorio saw the time draw near at last when he could find and confront the Scottish lord Simon of Kilmirren with his crimes against Nicholas and Catherine de Charetty. It appealed to Gregorio’s liking for symmetry that he and Simon would owe their meeting, whatever its outcome, to that most select of chivalrous bodies, the Golden Fleece Order.
He had not, of course, forgotten the dispatch he had sent east from Bruges in January. He knew which reports should be arriving in April in Trebizond, whether or not Nicholas was alive to receive them. He was aware of the relationship between Simon and Nicholas. That there could be a relationship between Nicholas and the girl whom Simon had married did not, naturally, cross his mind.
He had thought quite deeply, as it was, before warning Nicholas that his rival Pagano Doria was an agent of Simon’s. He had hardly known how to soften the blow when, later, he had been forced to report the same Doria’s abduction of Catherine although it seemed likely that, by then, Nicholas would have found this out for himself. He could imagine the effect that might have on a young man like Nicholas; but not what he might be impelled to do about it.
Compared with all that, the birth of Simon’s son was a minor event, but he had taken care, again, with the way he had informed Nicholas; for the arrival of a supplanting heir was hardly good news. On the other hand, a child of his own might divert Simon at last from his contest with the son of his first wife. And Nicholas, given the chance, might get on with his own life and have the sense to leave Simon alone. Once, that is, he had dealt with Pagano Doria. And once Simon, daily expected in Bruges, had been informed by Gregorio of Asti himself that he proposed to take him to law unless he made proper amends and saw that the persecution was stopped.
The Tenth Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece had been commanded to meet on the second of May at St Omer in Artois, handy for the French and Burgundian knights. Duke Philip, its sovereign and founder, moved the court west from Brussels a month before that, dividing Easter between Bruges and Ghent. The arrival of hundreds of courtiers and servants at the Princenhof, Bruges, was the equivalent of the arrival of the Flanders galleys. You couldn’t move from one street to the next, and everyone worked from morning till night without complaint, making profits. It taxed Gregorio, already short-handed, to satisfy all his customers. It was not until the lord of Flanders and Burgundy had left his good city of Bruges that Gregorio drew breath and sent a clerk to find out when the van Borselen family were coming to Silver Straete.
“They’ve been,” said the clerk when he came back. “That is, they came in from Veere and went straight on through Bruges without staying. My lord Franck and my lord Henry of Veere. And my lord Wolfaert and his wife the princess and their son. And my lord Florence and h
is wife and their daughter Katelina and her husband Simon the Scotsman.”
The clerk was new, which was why Gregorio had sent him. “And they all left Bruges together?” Gregorio said.
“After they’d called on my lord of Gruuthuse. They all went in his party to Artois.”
He dismissed the clerk and thought, while he cleared his desk. He should have expected it. Louis de Gruuthuse had married a van Borselen and was currently high in the ducal favour. For several good reasons, he might have taken care to rent an establishment in St Omer worthy of a family with royal connections. And there, Simon and Katelina would be accompanying them. He could hardly accost them on the road. He could not, in any case, leave the Charetty business at a moment’s notice, excellent though his deputy was. He had had, since morning, reason to go and visit Anselm Adorne. This he now did.
There was a canal at the foot of the Hôtel Jerusalem, the graceful building linked to its church which the Adornes had built for themselves in the eastern quarter of the city. He took one of the Charetty boats, and sent a servant to announce his visit. Adorne’s steward came to the postern at once with a welcome. Since Marian de Charetty went away, Gregorio had held one or two circumspect meetings with Anselm Adorne, host and guardian to her remaining child Tilde; and had satisfied himself that the girl was well cared for and reasonably happy. Circumspection had been due because, however long his line had flourished in Bruges, Anselm Adorne was in origin as Genoese as the Dorias, and one Paul Doria was godfather to Adorne’s oldest son.
From friendship and piety, Anselm Adorne had last year endorsed the unexpected marriage of Nicholas and Marian de Charetty which had taken place here, in this church. Profit had followed, of course. But there was no doubt at the time that neither Adorne nor his wife had welcomed the union so abhorrent to Marian’s children. Tilde, then thirteen, had hated Nicholas for it, and maybe still did. Her revulsion did not, it seemed, include the Adornes—perhaps because she too could sense their reservations. But speaking of Nicholas, Anselm Adorne was always tolerant; showing admiration and even affection where Gregorio himself might have been critical.
Tilde, a wiry fourteen, never mentioned her stepfather Nicholas. In the last year she had grown like her dead brother in appearance. Her hair fell dark brown and limp from its padded circlet down to her shoulders, and showed none of the bright russet gleams of her mother and sister. Her nose, like Felix’s, was a flattened stub that became red at the tip under emotion. When Gregorio came, she was usually about to be called for by friends. Once, getting him to herself, she had asked him a number of questions about the company’s loans. The questions were less than childish: he saw he was being invigilated. Otherwise, she spent quite a lot of time, Gregorio knew, at the Bruges home of the lord Henry van Borselen, especially when his royal Scottish grandson was there. The attraction, Gregorio suspected, was less the little prince than young Liddell, his tutor.
He was not over-concerned, for that sensible person Adorne’s wife had an eye on the affair. It might yet turn out to the good. Although Scottish, the man Liddell was well born, and the girl was of an age to be married. But, of course, nothing could be done until her mother came back from her mission.
It had been given out that Marian de Charetty had gone to Florence, to spend some time with her younger child Catherine, at present said to be staying with friends. No one had questioned it. In March, his employer had left perfectly openly, with a good, well-armed entourage to serve and protect her. This morning the entourage had returned, clattering into the courtyard at Bruges with the slightly loosened decorum of a pack of men dispatched leaderless home, who have lost more pay and had more girls on the trip than their wives would ever know. They had been cheerful, though, reporting to Gregorio. Delivered the lady to Dijon as right as rain, and seen her fitted out with another good escort for the rest of her journey. From her sister’s people, she said. She’d kept her own woman, Tasse. Geneva, she was going to, and then over the pass into Italy. She’d have no trouble. A natural-born organiser, that demoiselle was.
As indeed she was. Telling all this to Anselm Adorne and his wife in the handsome room they received him in, Gregorio was conscious of Tilde’s steady glare. Of course, she hated losing her mother. Of course, she hated her mother who had chosen Catherine and not Tilde to go to Antwerp and Florence and was now successfully travelling to join her. Tilde said, “What was she doing in Dijon?”
Gregorio was careful. “Visiting Thibault your uncle. You know he lives there.”
“He’s gone crazy,” said Tilde. “He’s so old, he doesn’t know where he is. He wouldn’t know who my mother was, even.”
“Maybe not,” Gregorio said, “but she would have a rest there and, as you see, she got some good men for the rest of her journey. And here’s the letter she gave me to give you.”
He drew it from his purse, making sure it was the right one. The other, also from Marian de Charetty, had been addressed to himself:
I’m not sure what to do. The old man has gone, no one knows where, and the house is empty. I have told the men he is with friends of my late sister’s, and indeed, I found some people I knew who hired the escort I needed. If Doria has hidden him locally, then I must try and find him. If not, I shall ride on the way Doria’s messengers must have gone. I shall keep writing, but bearers cannot now be relied on: if you hear nothing, there is no need to worry. I send a letter for Tilde. The third is for Nicholas. Hand it to him yourself.
He carried that in his purse because there was nowhere else safe he could leave it. Only he knew that his employer had gone to Dijon for one reason alone: to question Thibault de Fleury who had supposedly signed the permission for Catherine’s wedding. If the signature was invalid, then she could pursue Doria and hope to get back her daughter.
Tilde said, “They may be in Florence by now. With Nicholas.” Her eyes looked wet. Instead of reading her mother’s letter, she held it screwed in her hands, which had been tightly clasped in her lap since he entered.
Adorne said gently, “But we know the company has left Florence, little lady; and your mother cannot have arrived there just yet. Why not show Meester Gregorio what Nicholas arranged to have sent you?”
Then Gregorio saw that she held something else in her clenched hands. It looked like a ball. After a moment, she released her fingers and allowed the object to roll from her knee to the ground, where it lay in a tangle of string. She said, “It’s a toy for a child. He has a short memory for an apprentice.” The letter, tumbling also, lay beside it on the floor.
Adorne picked both up. He had hands like a painter, Gregorio thought. Whereas Colard Mansion the painter had fingers like peapods. Adorne’s face, too, with its pale curling hair and high cheekbones and wry, intelligent mouth was ascetic in a way you would never expect of the man who farmed the Duke of Burgundy’s wine taxes and had a reputation, too, of being able to outdrink most men of his guild.
Adorne’s wife smiled and, rising, gently excused herself. Adorne untangled the string until the small object was bare, and then carefully began to rebind its waist. Two young children, hitherto occupied at the end of the room, saw what he was doing and ran up. He said, “You know, of course, that the Eastern delegation is here: the one Nicholas had dealings with in Florence? Of course you will know: the envoy from Trebizond must be most anxious to acquaint himself with the Charetty business. At any rate, Nicholas asked the Persian delegate to bring this little object to Tilde. He says Cosimo de’ Medici has tried and failed to master the principle.”
“What principle?” Gregorio said. The envoy from Trebizond hadn’t been near him. He suspected, he didn’t know why, that Fra Ludovico his leader had stopped him.
“One that Cosimo de’ Medici and I, evidently, know nothing about, but Nicholas does. Engineering, my dear Meester Gregorio. The study of opposing forces. And that manipulation of mechanical and numerical mysteries which Tilde, although you wouldn’t guess it, excels in. That is why he sent her the farmuk.”
&
nbsp; The children clamoured. Adorne held out his hand and the girl, hesitating, took back the toy. Gregorio said, “And what was he like, the envoy of Uzum Hasan?”
The children had seen all the delegation. The envoy Mahon was as tall as that window, and old, with a white beard and a white cloth wound round his head. The envoy from the King of Georgia had been big and handsome, for a man living on the edge of the world. The delegate from Prester John in Ethiopia was an impostor, because he was brown and not black. And there was a man with a very tall hat; and one with rings in his ears and a face and a beard like a monkey, although he had shaved all the hair on his head but a tuft. That one ate twenty pounds of meat in a day. Someone had said so.
“From the Atabeg of Imeretia in Georgia,” Anselm Adorne interpolated. “I should say that the envoy from Ethiopia, impostor or not, was discovered to be a theologian and an astronomer. Maurat, the Armenian envoy, can play several instruments as well as possessing a very tall hat. Alighieri, of course, is an educated Florentine merchant who happens to be familiar with Trebizond. However exotic, the delegates are not, therefore, unendowed, although they all carry credentials, I am told, of a curious Latin uniformity. Even the Muslim lord Uzum Hasan writes to bid us all ‘Vale in Christo’. Nevertheless, the Holy Father received them in Rome, and honoured them profusely with banquets. Duke Philip means to do the same in St Omer. After that, they pass to the King of France, who might support a crusade, they imagine, to ease his mortal departure.”
His voice was dry. Yet Adorne’s own father and uncle had been on pilgrimage, twice, to the Holy Land. Gregorio said, “What is it? You don’t think Fra Ludovico’s mission is genuine?”