Pagano Doria’s wife, whom he used to carry on his shoulders, looked at him, and at the calm woman facing her in the half-dark. “I don’t care,” Catherine said, “if he makes a loss. In fact, I’d like him to. Will you help me get away?”
“Not Niccolò,” said the lady Violante. “You must not, of course, look to Niccolò, as you have said. But I, perhaps, can do something. Yes, I think I can help. Provided I know as much as possible of Messer Pagano’s movements. Does he mind if you often visit the Palace?”
“No. He likes it,” she said.
“Good. Then we shall find some excuse. And you will tell me all we need to know to let us help you. Now I think you should go, and before Messer Niccolò. It would not do for you to be seen together.”
The child rose then, and turned to him. She said, “You don’t look any older. Everyone says you hope it makes you look important. My mother will make you shave it all off.”
“I expect you’re right. In fact, I expect I’ll have shaved it all off before I see her,” Nicholas said. “Catherine?”
“Yes?” There was a lot of Cornelis in her, as there had been in Felix.
He said, “Don’t forget Master Tobias, and Father Godscalc, if you want anyone quickly. And they won’t hurt Pagano.”
“You would,” she said. “You did. If he hurts me, you’d fight him, wouldn’t you?”
“I might,” Nicholas said. “It would depend on who was to blame.” He watched her take her leave, and the door close behind her.
“A virtuoso performance,” said Violante of Naxos.
“He has trained her,” said Nicholas.
“I was referring,” she said, “to your own.” She rose and, crossing the room, stopped him rising in turn with a hand on his shoulder. She lifted the hand and touched the close new grain of his beard. She said, “What is this? There are messengers, envoys enough.”
Her hand dropped again to his shoulder, but her eyes rested still on his face. Her nails were stained pink, and there were little rings on every joint of her fingers. He said, “I thought I might like to see for myself. I thought I might be needed. I have respect, Despoina, for the lord your uncle and his mother.”
The hand lifted and she moved away, her perfume following her. “And she for you,” she said. “I have had messages from Erzerum too. Never fear, word has gone to her about Georgia, and about Sinope.” She paused. “The man Doria has kept a consignment all this time on board his ship?”
“Of weapons and armour,” Nicholas said. “I’ve always known. It was why I distrusted Paraskeuas, who told us nothing about it.”
She took her seat, carefully, on the stool the girl had vacated, and folded her hands in her lap. “And,” she said, “have you felt like God, able to choose whom you favoured? For God and profit, my husband always puts on his ledgers.”
Nicholas said, “Whom will you tell, when the arms come ashore?”
“Why,” said Violante of Naxos, “it would be as much as my life was worth to tell anyone. That is your problem, my Niccolò. Mine is to get the girl out of Trebizond. Do you not think me altruistic?”
“I didn’t think your highness knew the word,” Nicholas said. “Messer Julius could care for her at Kerasous.”
“So he could,” said the woman. “He arrived, then, quite safely? He has, I believe, a kerchief of mine; but he can keep it. It seems a pity that he has a token, and his master has none. Although, of course, Messer Doria thinks differently. But for you, I might have discovered much more.” The reddened lips opened and curled. “The child’s mother has bound you with rigorous vows.”
“No,” said Nicholas. “I had better tell you that she freed me to take what relief of a common kind might present itself. As it happens, I prefer not to buy. And it would be unfair to take gifts.”
“Unfair to your wife. To whom you take back a shipload of wealth. Then will your debts be discharged?” said Violante of Naxos.
He got up. He said, “You are thinking of trade. Trade is a game, like the elephant clock. Between the demoiselle and myself are no debts, any more than there are obligations between the demoiselle and Catherine there, or Felix who died, or Tilde her other daughter.”
“She owes nothing to you?” said the woman and he smiled, hiding his anger and wondering that she found it needful to hurt.
He opened his hands and said, still smiling, “Look at me.”
“Oh, I am looking,” said Violante of Naxos.
On Monday 15 June, the fortress town and harbour of Sinope surrendered to the Sultan Mehmet, his commander the Grand Vizier Mahmud and Kasim Pasha his admiral. With the Grand Vizier were Tursun Beg and Thomas Katabolenu, respectively his Turkish and Greek secretaries. As had been expected of it the fleet remained for some days in the harbour, exploring the amenities of the town and rounding up the emir’s splendid fleet in order to send it under convoy to Stamboul. The emir left Sinope for his new home at Philippopolis which the Sultan, ever generous, had given him in exchange for his emirate of Kastamonu, his town and his copper mines. The emir’s brother, who had been close to the Sultan throughout, was rewarded by some of the emir’s best lands.
It might have been expected that, lord of Amasra and Sinope, the Sultan would count the season successful and stay. He did the opposite. While the fleet lingered, the Sultan’s army left Sinope in heavy rain and set off on foot south-east over the mountains. Their immediate object was calculated to be Koyulhisar, the frontier citadel of Uzum Hasan, two days’ march east of Sivas. From Sinope to Sivas was generally reckoned to be between two and three hundred miles, most of it vertical. They would be fortunate if, having reached Koyulhisar, they had energy left over to take it. After that, they would be well advised to sit down and rest and consider. Erzerum lay some two hundred miles off across land fortified and defended by the White Horde. From that point to Trebizond was another two hundred miles. And it was wet, and midsummer already. The Sultan’s Greek neighbours observed his predicament and were gratified. Secure behind its fine mountain barrier; reinforced by its Muslim relations and allies; the court at Trebizond felt freed to pursue with solemn energy all its plans for its greatest annual festival, that of St Eugenios, the City’s patron and favourite benefactor.
Wise, by now, in the ways of their client, both Nicholas and Astorre had taken measures to draw most of their work to a close before the holiday. The galley had gone, stealing by night westwards to Kerasous and taking John le Grant again with it, as well as, among other things, a box of fine books which had cost forty monks in the City more sleep than they could spare. Le Grant, taking his leave, had been no more talkative than usual. Tobie doubted whether he was looking forward to several months in the company of Julius: on the other hand, perhaps he was. In any case, they would not see him again until the galley returned with its new cargo next year—always assuming that it managed to leave Kerasous and get home with the old in the first place.
Had things been normal, he supposed Nicholas and not the notary would have taken the Ciaretti home. He wondered how Nicholas felt, exiled now as they all were until the next voyage. He wouldn’t be back in Flanders now for fully two years. Two years without a wife, or a companion. Two years of limited industry, even when war didn’t immure them, or interrupt the shipping or camel trains. And in between the buying and selling, a languid, vacuous existence in the moist warmth of the Asian Euxine, rich with flowers and fruit, nut groves and vineyards, milk and poisonous honey. While at the same time, in Bruges, his wife worked and aged, and, in Scotland, a child grew and learned to call Simon St Pol of Kilmirren its father.
At least one thing, it seemed, was being put right. The Charetty child had seen sense at last and had asked for help to get home. The problem there was to get her to Julius at Kerasous without her husband suspecting. Doria thought their galley was stuck at Batum and their silk was still stored in the Citadel. Once let him sniff the existence of the depôt at Kerasous, and he would repay Nicholas soon enough for all he had done to him. Meanwhil
e, although you would say from his behaviour that his marriage was not much on his conscience, Pagano Doria had begun to take a great interest in the girl’s safety. Wherever she went—even to the Palace—there were now armed servants beside her.
She went to the Palace a lot. It was there, it seemed, she had confided her troubles. There, and not to Nicholas. Nicholas, pinned down by Tobie on what was supposed to be a hunting party, pointed out that the Palace had more powers than they had, and anyway he rather thought that Doria might have blackened his character.
“Well, if he has, he knows something I don’t know,” Tobie said. “But she might still be piqued about you and her mother.”
“Perhaps,” Nicholas had said. He had stopped riding to unstrap something from his saddle.
Godscalc had reined in gently beside him. “You said the child didn’t want to leave right away. Why? Might it be that she is as attached to her husband as ever, and is using this means to recover his interest?”
“I’m not sure,” Nicholas had said.
Godscalc had looked at him. “Aren’t you?”
“Aren’t you?” Tobie had repeated, alarmed. “Well, you’d better make up your mind before you do what she wants. Because, if she wants him to follow her, she could lead Messer Pagano Doria to Kerasous.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Nicholas said. “But we can’t refuse to take her. Apparently, he has some scheme in mind, and she wants to know what it is. So do I.”
“She would spy for you?” Tobie said. “And maybe for Doria as well, like Paraskeuas? I think you should stop listening to Fra Godscalc your Christian conscience. Take the girl now and send her to Kerasous, whether she wants it or not. As for Doria, you know what I think. I think she liked him when he was rich, but not as a philandering failure. I think you could kill him tomorrow and she wouldn’t shed so much as a tear.”
“You may be right,” Nicholas said. “In fact, you are right about one thing. It’s time we got her out. The question is, how to stop Doria noticing it.”
“Well, I’ve told you one very good way,” Tobie said. “What are you doing?”
“Playing with a ball,” Nicholas had said. There was one on the grass. He straightened. In his hand was a stick with a knob on it.
“On horseback?”
“It’s a game they play at the festival. I’ve been invited, not very seriously, to try my hand at it. Catherine and Doria will be there.”
He addressed the ball with the stick and hit it, and it flew into a tree and stuck there. Tobie said, “And?”
“And just what you think,” Nicholas said. “The twenty-fourth day of June. Kidnapping Day. But this time, a game of our choosing; and not Pagano Doria’s.”
Chapter 34
THE EASTER FESTIVITIES had been held at the Meidan, as was the tradition. For the celebration of the Feast of St Eugenios, the Emperor chose a different stadium for his games, and was committed to a different church for his worship. Tobie, for one, had not expected the echoes to be so disturbing.
At vespers the evening before, the court performed its annual reverence to the saint. As on that first occasion, the Latin merchants and their servants and entourage took their places to do honour to the Emperor as he rode down from the Palace. This time, crossing the eastern ravine, the court rode uphill and south to the strong convent and church of St Eugenios, built on the spot where the saint achieved martyrdom. Still further east, beyond another picturesque but overgrown gorge, lay Mount Mithras, heathen site of the shrine he had bravely demolished. St Eugenios, Tobie reflected, had cut the trudge to worship nearly by half, and deserved the annual thanks of his votaries.
Three months ago, fresh from busy Flanders, opulent Florence, the hectic fringe of Stamboul, they had watched such a procession, awed by the frieze-like beauty of horses and trappings, of immobile riders encased like (vacant?) reliquaries in gold wire and jewels and silk; by the gleaming files of young men, pages, children, clergy and soldiers; disturbed by the thick effluvium of leafy juices; the smell of rich, heated cloths and glandular scents. Now there were familiar faces behind the metropolitan’s cross and the towering banner upon which St Eugenios rode, his crucifix stout as a mace, chosen protector of the Basileus and people of Trebizond.
This time, the Vice-Regent of Christ rode alone, in his white silk robe sewn with golden one-headed eagles and his Imperial mitra with its curtain of jewels brushing the august, powdered face. Men and women talked to a doctor: Tobie knew all the gossip. There in her diadem and veil was the princess, a year older than Catherine, who would refer with disdain, through her stammer, to the many husbands they proposed for her. And the young princes, jealous, backbiting, quarrelling—all but George, not yet a year, for whom Tobie had found and mixed a tisane not all that very different from the dose he had given the camel. And there, with a cautious, comradely wink, was the court physician, bored with aphrodisiacs and eye-paint and lipsalve, who had made a first, idle approach and then proceeded, with delightful enthusiasm, to exchange notes and advice, beginning from the books Nicholas had brought. Since then, between them, they had found more. It was what Tobie had been doing all summer, reading books. And looking at sick women and children, and testing new treatments, and listening.
There, packed like charcoal, were the stiffly veiled hats of the churchmen, and the bishops he had seen Godscalc talking to, their glistening white robes spattered with crosses. Here were the Latin monks in their hoods; the well-paid who administered the colony’s churches; the country papas who served the little foreign communities of lay workmen and servants. Who would come just as diligently to a Greek woodsman gored by a hog, as would the Greek papa tend a needy soul of the Roman persuasion. Tobie had heard much, as they all had, about the rapacity of the priests of the East. So far as the City went, it was probably true. Elsewhere, there were decent men who had never heard of the confrontation between the Greek Church and the Roman; the stony turning of backs over differences in phrase or custom or ritual; the opposition of Dia to Ek; the dispute over unleavened bread for the Eucharist; the obdurate schism over the origin and form of the Trinity. The Trinity! What did a choking child care if the Trinity consisted of sparrows?
The procession continued. The Kabasitai, with their gold ceremonial swords; their paper-boat hats with spikes and stiff, fluted brims over their fair, solemn faces. Figures, it once seemed, from Kambalu. Now they were simply the Imperial watch. There was the man who kept getting drunk every Monday, and the one who gambled his shield, and had to serve the eunuchs a week before he was allowed to redeem it. And the lesser soldiers, in turbans, who liked the bang made by handguns and had to be restrained from shooting up houses and stables; and the ones Astorre had had whipped for making the masons carry their shot to the arsenal; and the two or three who had got Nicholas to show them the farmuk, followed by another little unreeling game he had devised with somewhat robust connotations. As the seamen had, so the workmen had come to appreciate Nicholas. Who, of course, worked to that end.
So one had to look at the young men, whom Nicholas also knew although not, Tobie thought, as well as Doria would have them believe. The courtiers in towering elaborate hats and curling hair, brocaded skirts and soft boots, who would never admit Latin merchants to their inner or even their outer circle if they could avoid it. The learned men with forked beards in discreet robes of great value with whom, sometimes, he and Godscalc had been able to meet and speak, feeling for common ground. He assumed that, at the Palace, Nicholas was silent in their company as he had been at Modon. And yet he always came back composed, with a number of good stories and some quite surprising information at times. Nicholas absorbed information through his skin.
And there was the Great Chancellor, Treasurer Amiroutzes, with his two sons, the student Alexander and the sulky lout Basil, godson of the Greek Cardinal Bessarion whose message had, in the end, got Julius into more trouble at Constantinople than he had got out of in Florence. Not far from him rode Violante of Naxos, with the Archimandr
ite Diadochos in her train. Both the Treasurer and the woman had known Doria well; both had since had many dealings with themselves. Amiroutzes was the Emperor’s personal philosopher, personal agent, arbiter of his taste, master of his acquisitions. At the fondaco and about the city his manner had the ease of a professor towards the lay unlettered who saw to his wants. In the Emperor’s circle, it was to be presumed, his discourse was very different. When asked, Nicholas could never quite remember what Amiroutzes and the Emperor talked about. Only once, Nicholas had volunteered a comment of his own. “But he is a man who likes pleasure.”
“At the baths?” Tobie had said. And Nicholas had laughed and said that he thought not; it would bend his hat out of shape.
So they passed; all the rarefied beings. The Master of Horse and the Pansebastos. The Protospatharios, the Protonotarios, the Grand Vestarios. The Candidatoi, with their wands. The captain of the Palace. The Drungarios and the archons of the invisible fleet, who had yet been able to dismantle Doria’s cog, thanks to Nicholas. The Augusta’s ladies; the eunuchs. All the beautiful symbols. Not quite vacant reliquaries, because they still served as their counterparts in Byzantium had served; as their fellows in Constantinople had served until eight years before. Hear us, O God; we beseech Thee to hear us, O God, the coronation ritual had run. Grant the Emperor life; let him reign. The world expects him; the laws wait for him; the Palace awaits him. Our common glory, let David come. Our common good, let him reign. Hear us, O God, we beseech Thee.
Protected by God; ensconced in his city the image of heaven, the Basileus could not really have fallen, or Constantinople really have been lost. Not when the flock and their shepherds had sent to heaven all their affirmations: Possessing Thee, O Christ, a Wall that cannot be broken. The ships in the Golden Horn had each flown a prayer: the standard of Christos Pantocrator and the Mother of God, the flag for St George or St Demetrios or St Theodore Stratilates, saints strong in battle. It was John le Grant who had said they could have done with a few good ship-masters and more than a few good masons instead. And John, far from hailing the skies with a crucifix, had set to burrowing like a rat to smell out the enemy mines.