Astorre said, “That’s it! I agree. See how the cat is going to jump. A siege is the worst we’ll be in for. And there’s Julius, safely home with the galley. We don’t need it. The Emperor’s a fool, but the guard know what it’s about. Between us, we’ll seal off the City from God and all His angels.”
“That,” said Godscalc, “is what I’m afraid of.”
“If it’s sealed off,” said Nicholas, “the Greek and Latin churches will be sealed off inside it. Astorre. It cannot be taken?”
Astorre shook his head. “Any more than Sinope. Not now. And by God, not by the time John and I and the Emperor’s man have finished reinforcing it.”
Nicholas waited. So did Godscalc, his eyes on this child, this changeling who was leading them. Say it. Say it. Be fair and say it. But as with Tobie at Modon, he didn’t; and unlike Tobie, Godscalc did not force him. After a while, when no one had spoken, Nicholas said, “That’s enough, then. John, will you go with the galley?”
Le Grant said, “She’s ready to sail whenever you want her. And while you were away, I did the surveys you wanted. I’ll also leave you a couple of men who are artists, I tell you, in siege defences. Are you going to the Palace?”
“As much as I can. You’d better come with me. We’ve to convince the Emperor to spend money, and to pass on all he hears of the Sultan.”
“And of Uzum Hasan,” Tobie said. “So what will Doria do now? Take the round ship and cross the Black Sea to Caffa? That won’t do him much good if he’s nothing to sell. And if he tries to go home, he’ll run into the Turkish fleet, just as we should.”
Godscalc said, “I thought he did have something to sell.” He waited, but Nicholas failed to look at him.
Tobie said, “What? We’ve ruined him.”
Nicholas said, “No. Godscalc’s right. He has transport to sell. He could evacuate half Trebizond in his cog if he’d time, and take them over to Georgia or Caffa for a swingeing payment per head. It’s a Genoese tradition in these parts. Profit and humanitarianism combined.”
“Then shouldn’t we allow him to do it?” said Godscalc. Tobie sat erect with a bump.
It was John le Grant who said, “We need men. No. It isn’t a large enough city to man the walls day and night. And you need women to serve them, and stiffen them. If ye let them, they’ll melt away. They did it once before. They left an empty city with fifty stricken men in it to hold off the enemy. No. You stop Doria. It wouldn’t be difficult.”
“It isn’t difficult,” Nicholas said. “Well, then. That’s the position. Those are the plans. The figures are on paper. I’ll have them copied. If any one of us drops out, the rest ought to know what to do. Is there anything more?”
Without Julius, there was no one really to challenge the figures. On the rest, what still had to be said didn’t take long. At the end, Patou gathered his notes and they all started to rise. Across the table, Tobie said to Nicholas, “You saw Gregorio’s letter?”
Nicholas, still seated, looked up. The others were leaving. Godscalc stayed, his hand on the back of his tall chair. He knew the letter Tobie was talking about. It had arrived only last week for Nicholas. Thinking him dead, they had opened and decoded it. Written from Bruges in the winter, it contained company news. It also contained, specifically from Gregorio to Nicholas, the most recent scraps of confirmation about Simon’s involvement with Pagano Doria, and Pagano Doria’s with Catherine. It revealed little they and the rest of the company didn’t now know, unless it was the extent of the collusion—or trust—that had existed all these months between Gregorio and Nicholas. It did warn, however, that Marian de Charetty herself for the first time now knew the whole story. She has taken it with courage, Gregorio had said in his letter. From first to last, it was the only personal remark he had made. There was none in the rest of his message. The demoiselle believed redress depended on the validity of the marriage. She proposed to travel to Dijon and Italy to seek out what documentation she could. Gregorio himself was planning to follow her. He hoped to interview my lord Simon first.
It had shaken them, that piece of news, and they had discussed it from time to time, he and Tobie. Nicholas had received it that morning, with all the other papers that had come in his absence. Godscalc had been there when he read them all quickly. There had been no time for comment, and his face had shown nothing. It showed nothing now. Godscalc said, “It’s as well, I suppose, that we’re staying. Doria has no cause to think kindly of the Charetty company now. Or his marriage.”
Nicholas stood. “She knows where to come,” he said. “Tobie, what do you do for a cough?”
Interest filled Tobie’s pink face. “I heard it,” he said. “Three beaten-up eggs in an ounce of turpentine daily. Never fails.”
“My God,” said Astorre.
“Not him. The camel,” said Tobie.
The marriage of Pagano Doria proceeded to founder. It was not entirely his fault. Now and then, in the course of an adventurous career—quite often, in fact—he had been bested by circumstances, and took some pride in accepting failure with the same flamboyance with which he greeted success. He then put it behind him with the greatest possible speed and began somewhere else. Very seldom had he been tied like this to the place of his defeat, and even more seldom was the defeat due to a single adversary playing the same game as himself. Moreover, he was bonded to a young wife who nagged him.
It had begun with questions to do with the silver. What had Nicholas meant? Doria had lied, not foreseeing that she would then go to his ledgers and work out why he couldn’t pay anything. She had then wanted to accuse Captain Astorre or Nicholas and his servants of stealing it, and he had had to explain that it had been carried off by the Kurds. Her attitude towards the return from the grave of her mother’s husband seemed to waver between relief and aggravation: she talked about him a great deal. Also, having found her way to her husband’s account books, she began getting interested in what he had sold, and planned to purchase on credit, and was paying for everything. She even tried to discuss it all with him and at last, when petting failed and he was driven to speak more directly, she lifted her pretty face and opened her pretty lips and criticised him.
What, said Catherine de Charetty, was she to make of a man who had wanted to take over her business and yet couldn’t buy shrewdly or supervise proper accounting? There were cargoes proper to galleys, and there were cargoes for round ships. What had he done to fill his? If Nicholas had never come back, Pagano might have taken and ruined the business.
He would have been less surprised if his horse had complained of his riding. Then he said, “Oh, those terrible books! With Flemish clerks, we’d have had none of this trouble. Sweetheart, don’t trouble your head. With the kind of clerking we have, Croesus would look as if he were in debt. We need a good Caffa notary, and we’ll get one.”
“No. Don’t bother. I’ll do it for you,” said Catherine. After that, he never saw her but she had some mistake to upbraid him with. He wondered if Nicholas knew it, whose rich elderly wife was safely at home, and who was sitting there laughing, with his silver, his goods and his profit. Pagano Doria was not much in the way of killing people with his own hands, but he wished that he had taken the trouble at Vavuk. He wondered who else was laughing. He took to going out a good deal to places where he was welcome, and nobody discussed the price of borax cakes while he was undressing them. In between, his mind was on ways of redeeming his status.
There was one. He had referred to it once, before he realised quite what an inquisitor she was going to turn out to be. When she had complained of going home empty-handed, he had said, “You know it all, don’t you? But don’t despair, my pretty Catherine. I still might have something to sell.” Then he had had the sense, smiling, to say no more, so that she turned away believing, he hoped, that he had been deluding her.
Had he been at home, he would have left her by now, although with real regret. He had trained her how to give and receive pleasure and, even now, if she wished, she
could urge him to desperation. In fact, there was a level at which they still had need of each other. When he was tired of his other diversions, or he found himself unexpectedly roused, she never refused him. And at other times she would put herself repeatedly in his way, as if frightened by the very prospect of losing him. He began to toy with the idea of taking her with him when he went; but on his own terms. He even began to consider guardedly whether, if his new scheme succeeded, he might not be able to keep the Charetty company after all. Provided, of course, that something happened to Nicholas.
On most days during the next three weeks, Nicholas found himself at the Palace. Since his inaugural encounter on the day of the baths, he had met the Emperor twice: once heavily escorted, just before his journey to Erzerum; and once swiftly, to announce his return and have Doria’s authority rescinded. The next time, John le Grant and his two men went with him, and so did the elephant clock, on a handsome and specially made cart, with a fringed velvet cloth to protect it.
Of course, le Grant had been to the Citadel before. Once, he had visited the Palace with the plans for the elephant clock, because Nicholas had asked him to. Once, he thought Nicholas had perished because of it. At other times, with Astorre, he had minutely examined the walls of the Citadel; the western bridge, with its guarding tower; the southern gate, with its large, modern keep. He had walked the length of the two ravines, looking up from the water’s edge to the castle rock and its buildings a hundred and fifty feet over his head; judging the span of the ravine against the span of probable weaponry. He had examined where the powder was kept, and what arms, heavy and light, the Emperor stored. He had looked to food stores, and water. He knew where everything was. Today, he jerked his head as they passed the baths and said, “Is that where you were?”
“I don’t recommend it,” said Nicholas.
“What happened?” said John le Grant.
With the Aberdonian, the question was just what it seemed. Nicholas quite often gave answers to John, when the same question from Godscalc or Tobie would have led too far in a direction he did not want to go. Now Nicholas said, “The Emperor had me sent for. Fortunately, perhaps, the lady Violante sent a messenger who got to me first. By the time I saw the Basileus, he had made do with somebody else, and was willing to accept other forms of entertainment. He had diagrams brought for me. Hence the clock.”
“And ye think three men will keep him off you today?” said John le Grant.
“I’ll scream,” said Nicholas. It was, as he recalled, a long walk to the Palace, allowing time to say a great many things. He walked in silence, remembering.
John le Grant said, “I see the problem.”
“Do you?” said Nicholas.
“Aye. I should think the chaplain’s near to it, too. He won’t say so. If you want the blame all that much, then you might as well take it.”
“Thank you,” said Nicholas, and laughed suddenly. He said, “It’s as well you’re going away.”
“I suppose it is,” said John le Grant. “Upset your sense of the romantic, do I? You’ll learn.”
After that, they found the Emperor and his court under awnings in a small open pleasance planted with orange and lemon trees, and tricked out with oleander and roses. A bronze dolphin danced within water, and ivory couches, scrolled and cushioned, had been set on Persian carpets for the Emperor and his consort. Around them were their courtiers and their family: the beautiful boys; the lovely girls; the handsome women on cushions and stools, talking softly, or sewing, or playing some game. A little organ, set in a vine arbour, breathed quiet tunes to itself. The boy Alexios smiled secretly at Nicholas, observed by le Grant. Le Grant’s two assistants did rather less well at the Prostration than their masters, and were presented, and acknowledged. The cart was wheeled before the Basileus, and the clock set on the grass and unveiled.
Nicholas stood and gazed at it, childishly pleased with his creation. The elephant stood firm and stout, glowing in its deep colours and intricate patterns. The figures had a plump and delicate charm; the golden dragon expelling its pellet rang the gong with splendid conviction. The children screamed. The women clapped their hands gently and smiled. The Empress, turning back from the third or fourth person who had bent over to speak to her, laid a hand on the Emperor’s arm and said in her pure Cantacuzenes Greek, “I have never seen finer. He must make one for us, with jewels.”
“Indeed he must,” said the Emperor. Today, relaxed in the garden, he wore a loose robe of silk which accommodated his girth, and his fair skin was flushed by the sun under the tall hat with its wings of curled feathers. He said, “And you will entrust yourself to the seas, in the hands of these paragons. You could not do better. So this is your ship-master?”
The audience was deliberate and formal, so the Empress asked formal questions. That she wished to ask others was obvious; as was her desire to be done with display and return to the labours of departure. Beneath the paint, the whole archaeology of her features stood exposed in the sun. At her side, the dark, oval face of her daughter Anna, fourteen years old, reflected the same muffled anxiety. The Emperor, feeling it, seemed to grow impatient and presently gave his consort and her ladies permission to leave. Their place was filled by the men, and by the Treasurer George Amiroutzes. The Emperor said, “She wishes to make this trifling voyage; one would not detain her. Ourselves, we see little need.”
Nicholas said, “Your magnificence sent an embassy to the West. Has the need lessened?”
“The friar. The Observatine friar,” the Emperor said. “Well, you know what such men of God are. He sees himself as Latin patriarch of Antioch and head of the Franciscans in Georgia. The Georgian primates were always consecrated by the Antioch patriarchs. He persuaded our son-in-law to promise sixty thousand soldiers for the Christian cause. Our kinsman Uzum Hasan promised fifty thousand. We ourselves had in mind twenty thousand at the time. But these things change.”
“And thirty galleys, your magnificence,” said Nicholas.
“We had them, at the time,” said the Emperor.
“But you have come to think that the Sultan and Uzum Hasan may come to blows and save Trebizond the trouble of fighting?” Nicholas said. “Your magnificence?”
“How can anyone tell?” said the Sultan. “We can tell you at least that Sinope will never fall. Two thousand musketeers, ten thousand soldiers, magazines filled with provisions; a fleet of war galleys, including the largest ever seen in these seas? It can hold out for ever, and when the October storm comes, no fleet yet built can stay in the Black Sea and survive.”
He leaned forward, and waved a strong, ringed hand. “And on land? Between Sinope and us, all the passes are held by my lord Uzum Hasan and his incomparable cavalry. By the time the Turk has struggled over the mountains to face him, the winter will be near and he will have to retire before the snow and the rain impale him there without food or fodder.”
A tray of delicacies had been brought. He signed for it to be brought over. On it were dishes of bread and the black, salty eggs called caviare. Nicholas took one, and John le Grant another. They already held wine. The Emperor said mellowly, “But assume the Turk conquers Sinope; by a miracle sweeps away Persia, how can he prevail against Trebizond? They cannot enter the Citadel. And the Trebizond winter, with its storms, with its rain, will send them scuttling home. No. We have no fears for Trebizond. But it pleases my consort to visit her daughter. Let her do so.”
Nicholas said, “Your magnificence is indeed lord of a fortunate empire. But it seems expedient still that the Empress’s visit should remain private. And perhaps that, in case of uncertainty, ships should not be easily come by. My lord would not expect the owners to sink them. But with sails removed, and masts and oars laid up and locked, loyalties need not be tested.”
“You sent word to my Drungarios. We agree. It shall be done. And when your galley returns, the same precautions will apply?” said the Emperor.
“Of course. Assuming it returns safely, Basileus,” Nicholas s
aid. “Should the Empress so desire, my galley can transport a large party. She might wish her remaining children, the other young people of your family, to accompany her. It must be long since they saw their sister.”
The pink lips smiled below the narrow nose. “The bonds of family! What is more important?” said the Emperor David. “We shall consider such a congress but later, perhaps, in the year. We should not like it thought that the Imperial family had reason to leave Trebizond. Now you have many concerns, and must wish to return to your business. You have finished your wine?”
“Basileus,” Nicholas said. He laid his cup by, and rose. John did the same.
A finger rested at his lips, the Emperor was considering him. He removed the finger. “We take great pleasure, Messer Niccolò, in what you have brought us. I am conscious of it, and of the service you and your men are performing, and have performed: purchasing our goods, and escorting them safely from Erzerum. The lord Amiroutzes will fulfil our obligations. We have instructed him to be generous.” He turned his head, inviting their attention. At the edge of the pleasance, men had been busy. Instead of the elephant clock, the cart now bore stacked upon it a number of objects. The largest might have been a saddle. There were certainly cloths, or garments in many folds, and a chest. The chest, of modest size, looked perhaps the most interesting. The Emperor said, “There. Your servants may take it. We are pleased with you. We expect, in the weeks to come, to lean on you and your men.”
The men who had brought the cart took its handles. Nicholas spoke his thanks, and he and John embarked, busily, on a series of prostrations and backed themselves out. Rising, Nicholas allowed himself to be led to the Palace by the Treasurer. John le Grant and his men, predictably, were left on the path to the gate with the cart.
Amiroutzes said, “I shall not detain you. I had orders to pay you, and I trust, when you see what you carry, that you will have no reason to feel disappointment. Here is an inventory of what it contains. It struck me that you might prefer a prompt settlement. In case, when your galley returns, you feel impelled to load your cargo and leave?”