It didn’t take her long after that to discover, stored in the Kerasous citadel, the entire cargo of the Ciaretti, brought by Master Julius from Erzerum. There were Venetian goods too. There were bits that the Ciaretti had picked up in Trebizond, including books and jewels and dyes: all the sorts of dyes that she had expected Pagano to buy. She saw a keg of pearls that she recognised. Nicholas had got it all. He had got everything Pagano ought to have purchased, and he was not even a Charetty. And he’d managed to evacuate all the Venetian women and children as well.
It was a matchless performance and she failed to see, now, how Pagano could equal it. When she ached for him nightly, she reminded herself how incompetent he had proved; how Nicholas had outmanoeuvred him. And still, day by day, she looked for him to arrive: to put these sneering Venetians to the sword; to load their goods and hers into his cog and say, “Come. I am the greatest sea prince of Europe, and you are my lady.” Then common sense would prevail and she would grit her teeth and press her nails into her hands. For if he could manage only a quarter of that—less than a quarter—she would manage the rest. Anything. Anything so that her mother’s friends would stand back in awe and say, “Our little Catherine! Such a marriage! Such a husband! Such a fortune!”
Then the day came when a great Turkish cog slowly broke through the mists from the east and instead of keeping its course, as did all the ships, captured and free, that came by on the way to Stamboul, began to turn towards Kerasous. Then the guns ran out on the citadel and the shore, and the strange sounds began that had frightened off more than one ship in the past; and Master Julius, and Master John, when she spoke to them, threw her a word over their shoulders but explained nothing. Until, almost opposite the precious island, and with her mainsail torn by a ball, the crescent flag had suddenly slid down the mast and another replaced it. She had been standing, at that moment, on the ramparts of the citadel, and had found herself abruptly in someone’s embrace. Master Julius said, “They’ve come. They’ve come.” And she saw that he was crying.
Then she said, with dawning delight, “It’s the Doria! Pagano’s ship! It’s Pagano!” And Master Julius had dropped his arm and said, “It was his ship, Catherine, but we don’t know what’s happened to it since. Don’t worry. Stay here. I’ll send you news as soon as I have it.”
Despite that, she had run down after him to the gates, Willequin at her heels; and would have fled down the slope to the shore except that the notary—her mother’s notary!—had snapped a command and some men, kindly enough, had stopped her, and caught her hands when she scratched, and escorted her back to the women. The Venetian women, who tried to patronise her. She found a bed and flung herself on it, and waited; while the dog lay on the floor and panted, and looked at her. When Pagano came, he would send them all packing.
Then the door was darkened and she sat up; and then turned away, because it was someone much taller than Pagano. He said, “She’s here. Let me speak to her.” And another voice said, “No. It is for me.”
The second voice was that of her mother’s apprentice. Her mother’s husband. She turned in the bed, and saw it was Nicholas, standing over her as he had done at Pera five months before. Then, avoiding Willequin, he drew up a stool, and sat, and said, “Catherine? I have bad news.”
Of course, she knew what it was. The governor had been in a frenzy for weeks. The Turks were besieging Trebizond from the sea, and the Sultan was marching his army round behind through the mountains. Once they met, no one in Trebizond could get out this year, and Master Julius and John le Grant were going to sail home without them. Nicholas, with all his money, had probably bribed his way out. And the horse-eating German, whose voice she had heard. And Pagano had been forced to bring them from Trebizond with him, because his little endeavour had failed, and he’d not been able to think up another. But that didn’t matter. She had a dozen plans. She said, “The Turks have taken Trebizond?”
Nicholas said, “They will have it by now. Catherine: Pagano is dead.”
She frowned. He could hardly have been as stupid as that. Then she realised what it was. She said with fury, “You killed him!”
“No,” Nicholas said. “He was killed by the enemy side. He was carrying messages to the Osmanli, and someone killed him. He died bravely, Catherine.”
He had a black beard, which made his skin look unnaturally stark. She said slowly, “Pagano, somebody’s courier? No. He went to promise them arms, and you let him. I told you where the arms were, and you took them. When they found they were gone, then they killed him. You killed him.” Her nails ached in the sheets. She said, “You sat safe in Trebizond and let him go to his death.”
From the door, Godscalc said, “Nicholas. The truth would be better.”
Nicholas got up. “Tell it, then,” he said; and walked out.
The priest said, “Get up.”
Her gown was wrung and rumpled where she had been lying, and her hair had fallen where she had dragged off her cap. She still had her earrings, and her gown was silk taffeta, and her mother employed this man, and would dismiss him at a word. Catherine stood erect by the bed and said, “What can you believe of a servant? My husband is very likely alive and has just beaten him.”
“He is dead,” said her mother’s chaplain. “He went to sell his armour to the Sultan Mehmet; and found Nicholas and Master Tobie in the Sultan’s camp; and tried to betray them.”
“In the Sultan’s camp? Nicholas?” Catherine said. “What was he selling?”
“His skin,” said Godscalc. “In exchange for something he needed to know. One day, perhaps he’ll explain to you. Meantime, you can be assured that Nicholas did not kill your husband, or cause him to be killed. It was a risk Pagano took when he went to the Sultan. I expect he took it for your sake. He hoped to win favour, and establish himself in Trebizond when all his rivals had gone. For all you may think, he and Nicholas were not bitter opponents, although they stopped at very little, either of them, to win what they wanted. Of the two, it was your husband who didn’t mind whom he killed.”
“Then who killed Pagano?” said Catherine.
“Someone of the opposite camp. A servant of Mahmud Pasha,” said Godscalc. “He thought to please the Grand Vizier. Catherine, you are not alone. The best friend you have in the world is your stepfather.”
She sat on the bed and bit her lip, thinking. Then she said, “Where is the armour?”
He didn’t answer at once, which annoyed her. Then he said, “It is here, in the citadel. Nicholas has given it to the Imperial garrison.”
She stared at him. “Then I see,” said Catherine de Charetty, “that I must speak to him. The armour is mine. The round ship is mine. Nicholas has no right to give it to anybody. Who is he?”
“He is the man who saved you from Trebizond.” said her mother’s chaplain. “You will neither speak to him nor will you restrain him in anything that he chooses to do. I told you to stand. Stand. I have something to say to you.”
She stood and listened, flushed and shaking with temper at the cruel things he was saying to her: about her disregard for her mother; her self-interest; what he called her childish lust for sensual pleasure. She ceased to listen. He was a prig and a bully: a snivelling priest straight from the cloister who would faint from envy if he knew—if he dreamed what a man and a woman did when they were together…What they did, over and over, when they were together.
Then her loss came to her, in a hysterical salvo of grief that tore her throat, so that she collapsed on the bed and sat, her eyes closed, her mouth open, and the tears pouring and the mucus streaking her face unregarded. She heard her own voice barking, and Willequin’s; and couldn’t tell which frenzy was which.
Then the priest put his arms round her, and held her, and spoke to her until she was quiet.
Swifter than that, the story had spread through Kerasous of what Nicholas had done. Nicholas himself, no one could catch: he was up on the hilltop with Astorre, interviewing the governor and the garrison; he wa
s out on the island, talking to John and the monks; he was checking the inventories of the cargo with Julius and Patou; he was on the round ship with Crackbene and watching her beginning to load. He had bought horses, they said, and was designing a place for their stowing. Told about the fate of his camel, he had asked a question or two, and then changed the subject. When next noticed, he was with the clerks checking the provender: the beasts and the biscuit, the water, the fruit and the poultry; the gunpowder and the shot. There were sheds full of bales which he spent a full hour examining. The galley was now in the water and loading. Soon the men and women and children would go.
From Tobie and Godscalc, over a hurried meal, Julius heard what happened before and after the visit to Skylolimne; the little marsh from which Nicholas had not brought back a fever, but, it seemed, the secret of perpetual motion. Of that, too, Godscalc and Tobie bore the marks; or perhaps they were caused by the month-long siege, the other events in the three months since their parting. He heard, but did not at first believe, how they had made their escape. Julius said, “How in God’s name did you manage to dress up as Turks?”
“I thought Nicholas told you. The bales the mules brought from Erzerum were filled with Turcoman clothing.”
“He said cloths,” Julius said. “Padded out to look like raw silk.” He was astonished. He said, “Did the old woman arrange it? She would know, in a siege, it was the only way to move people. A supposed squad from the Sultan, with orders to sail the captured ship back to Stamboul. Genius. Genius. No one would question them.”
“It wasn’t quite without event,” Godscalc said. After a bit he said, “We got most of the families out. The Venetian Bailie elected to stay; and some of the Genoese. The round ship seamen all came. And the Genoese women and children. The families from the Venetian compound had left already.”
It was John le Grant who had said then, “And Paraskeuas?”
Godscalc said, “Paraskeuas was given the chance. He refused.”
“And the other Greeks in Trebizond?” John le Grant had said. He was a persistent man, who asked questions.
“What about the Greeks?” Nicholas had said, coming suddenly into the room. Julius turned, keenly interested. The Nicholas who had landed miraculously at Kerasous from the Doria was not the battered comrade he had left in May on the road from Erzerum. He was longing to examine the change. He watched his immense former servant lean over, raiding the table and, with bread and meat in one hand, pause beside John le Grant. “Deaf?” he said.
John le Grant said, “No. Nothing. Idle curiosity. I thought I saw a few Greeks get off your ship.”
“They had friends in Kerasous. Officially, we didn’t bring any. How do you suppose we’d choose which to take? Hold a lottery?” He propped his shoulder against the wall and watched the other man, the bread still in his hand.
“You could have earned a tidy sum,” said John le Grant. “If we hadn’t disabled his ship, Doria would have got a load of people out to Caffa that time.”
“I thought you were all against it,” said Nicholas.
“Oh, I was. I’m still against it. If you’d sailed off to Caffa, you’d have been stuck in the Crimea all winter, if not for years. Tartars, Genoese, and terrible weather. Tobie wouldn’t like that. And you’d not have room for a cargo.”
“That, of course, was the worry,” Nicholas said. “On the other hand, Greeks are human like everyone else, and one must consider such things, or seem to consider such things, with Godscalc about.”
“You tossed a coin,” said John le Grant. Julius shifted in his seat.
“You guessed,” said Nicholas. He and le Grant gazed at one another. Nicholas said, “Perhaps you would have loaded the cog with whoever you thought you could take, choosing the richest, or the weakest, or the ones that survived the mayhem that would happen when you announced you were going. My view was different. You know what the Emperor sold himself for? Vice-Regent of Christ, Servitor to the Incarnate God? His daughter Anna, and a home in Turkish Adrianople, plus a yearly income of three hundred thousand pieces of silver. You might say, mightn’t you, that those who sustain such an emperor deserve such an emperor; or they would have risen against him? And if they didn’t they might as well sink.”
“Adrianople,” said John le Grant. “I wouldn’t have chosen Adrianople. Too near the new owners. If someone bought out my company, I’d go and settle a long way away from the competition.”
Nicholas said, “I don’t think he plans to set up again in the emperor business.” The moment’s violence had faded. He said, “You are a bastard.”
“They tell me,” said le Grant. “You were saying?”
Nicholas stood where he was. Then he came and sat down, his hands on the table still holding the bread and the meat. He said, “We tried to take them. They wouldn’t come. We were Latins. Caffa is Genoese. They would rather have the Turks.”
Julius felt his face flush; and found Godscalc looking at him. Tobie was scowling. John said, “And so much for the Council of Florence and the union of churches. Man, I’m glad I was at Kerasous all the time, without any of these terrible questions to answer that stop you eating your dinner. If you don’t want it, I could do with some bread.”
And Nicholas had said, “Get your own God-damned bread,” and begun to eat.
After that, now and then, he looked more like himself and Julius began to have hopes of a reasonable voyage, provided they got past the guns in the Bosphorus, and the guns at Constantinople, and the guns at Gallipoli, and managed to eke out their stores until Modon. They could be in Venice by October. Well, by mid-October. He gave little more thought to the conversation, beyond wondering why John had chosen that day to attack Nicholas. After three months of John le Grant’s company, Julius still found him impenetrable.
On 18 August, as planned, they set sail. First the round ship, flamboyant with Turkish flags and seamen in Turkish turbans and jackets. Next, grappled fast as her prisoner, the Florentine galley with no flags but two ranks of oarsmen, apparent captives, to help her along. They were given a guard of honour at the shore; and on the island of Ares, sacred to the Greek god of war, the monks who had kept their secret so long stood and waved to them.
It was like the leave-taking Trebizond had denied them. There they had steered out among Turkish ships anchored at random; breaking out their sail with Turkish commands. Then, no one looked back to the shore. No one tried to pick out the white-blotted walls of St Eugenios, or the blackened shell of the fondaco, or the ruined square of the Meidan, or the bare pole of the Palace where no banners flew.
Now, although both ships were silent, there was leisure to turn back and look at Kerasous, city of cherries; and the hill of the citadel, with the steep, leafy foothills behind it, and the mountains beyond. As always, there had been rain; and the painted churches and white, flat-roofed houses, the gardens and orchards were glistening and misted with heat. Over the water, instead of the piercing notes of spring blossom came the darker scents of ripening fruit. Already the wild vines were heavy and bearing; and the hazelnuts were bearding the bushes. Autumn was coming.
Soon, in a normal year, dancing feet would beat out the grapes for the black wine, and the nuts would be spread on the beach; and the cranes would come flying, and the air above the Zigana pass would turn black with migrating quail. In a normal year, there would be festival before the autumn storms closed the seas; and festival after it, when the land would be left to its own until the spring came, and brought the ships once again.
This year, it would be different. Nothing would be normal this year, unless the garrison high on the hill, where the citadel glittered, managed to hold out until winter. They were well led and well provisioned, and they had extra arms now, and good armour to help them. From the sea, Nicholas saluted them with his guns; and they answered. Then they became small and dim in the mist, and the next headland hid them from view.
The Black Sea was empty. It was more than they had hoped for. For the first few days, bo
th ships were silent, and men watched, high in the rigging, for the blur on the horizon that meant a Turkish trireme, or a cutter to report them. All they saw were fishing vessels; for the fleet had closed around Trebizond, and the captured ships from other ports had long since been sent west. Eight days out of Kerasous, they crept past enemy Sinope in darkness, and saw from the mast lights that no big ships were left in harbour. Here, they were at the narrowest part of the Euxine. From here, it was quicker to go north to Caffa than to continue west to the end of the Black Sea. No one spoke of it. That battle had been fought, and the choice had been made. They continued to sail, towards the guns; towards home.
It was not quite the voyage Julius had expected. Nicholas was eternally busy, or else Loppe or Godscalc or Tobie were in the way when he wanted to chat to him. It was a while before Julius realised that the blockade was a form of protection. What was unclear was the purpose. Sometimes he thought it was to shield Nicholas from other people. At other times, it was obvious that it was needed to shield other people from the way Nicholas felt.
Why? Released from three months of boredom, Julius gave little thought to the dangers ahead. He felt rich, reckless and joyful, and found it an irritation that others did not.
John, of course, remained equable, and had the sailing to see to. Crackbene, at first an object of suspicion, had shown himself to be what he seemed: a highly competent professional seaman who fulfilled one contract and moved to another with no ill-will on either side. Astorre, at first plunged into gloom, was now preparing, with some hopes, for a fight to replace the one he had had to abandon in Trebizond. To be let down by your lord was a bad thing for a mercenary. It spoiled the good name of warfare. Only Nicholas had come out of it clean, and with that bastard Doria done away with.
Julius had lost no time in discovering the exact fate of Doria. Tobie, questioned, had been curt. “He was killed by the black page he presented to Mahmud. Noah. No need to tell Catherine.”