Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
Cullet was broken glass. He had brought the donna Marietta so much, she had piled it against the far wall of the yard in a ridge twenty feet wide, stacked beyond a man’s height and unstable. A bridge to the wall, perhaps, to a man in extremity. But not to a man with one undamaged arm who, trying to balance and climb, would have to clutch at whatever he could as the mass shifted and spilled. A man who might or might not have shoes on his feet.
Nicholas stepped forward, sinking and sliding on glass. He called again. ‘Come down. We shan’t harm you.’ Not surprisingly, the dim, scrambling figure didn’t stop.
No one was running now. They had all come to a halt, blocking the light so that the wall of crumbling glass gave back only sound; the continuing punch and slide of the footsteps, the cadenza of an uneven fall. Julius said, ‘We’ll have to go in and get him.’
Perhaps he was overheard. At that moment, the crowd shifted and parted, and a shaft of diluted red light fell on the glass, turning it into a cliff of rock amethyst. Near the top, a black figure stood, its white face made rosy. From behind, someone lifted a brick, and took aim, and threw.
It struck its target. The man threw his arms up and fell. As he
thudded into the glass, its hoarse chatter turned into a roar as it rushed over and round him. Even then, you could see the mound heave, the rattle of still-falling glass by turns cushioned and brittle as the buried man tried to move, tried to push the mass off with his hands, to jerk free his limbs, to twist his face and find air among the split blocks and knuckles and shards that pressed down on him.
They had started forward with their shovels when the final fall came, and they jumped back, choking and coughing in the abrasive white dust. This time it lasted a while; a complete collapse of the stack, loud and continuing and final. And after that, there was no movement at all.
Once they had dug it out, they put the body on canvas, and took it back to the shed it had come from. The soldiers, silent now, helped. After that, Nicholas sent them back to the boat, with a message to collect Messer Gregorio and the lady. Julius and Loppe he dispatched to the office to find water and a brush for their clothes; they went without speaking. He himself stayed in the yard.
His mind, by that time, had all the options assembled. He would have to remain, to deal with the officers and the paperwork with which, as from yesterday, he was familiar. It would be most convenient if the boat left without him, and Loppe and Julius with it. He could hire another and follow, when he had dealt with the two other matters.
One of them was already to hand, in the person of Marietta Barovier, standing before him in the wavering light. There was no shouting now, and even the dogs had ceased barking. Round about them the men, low-voiced, were closing down all their work for the night. On the maestra’s orders, the cullet had been left until daylight. She had said other things to them too, which they wouldn’t soon forget. Her face, tired before, was now haggard.
He didn’t know what she would say to him. But for him, and the Florentine, the intruder would never have come; she would never have had to keep him; her good, skilled workforce would never have escaped her authority.
Nicholas said, ‘The blame for all that was mine. I shall report the death as an accident. He was an assassin; he escaped, and ran into the glass.’
In the lights that remained, he could see her eyes, and the bruise on her brow. She said, ‘He escaped because your bodyguard thrashed him.’
‘They will be punished,’ Nicholas said. It was one of the smaller lies of the evening. He had made a very precise bargain with the two soldiers of the Serenissima.
He continued in the same subdued voice. ‘Men act in such a way
when they are excited. Even your father could not have quelled them, any more than we could, or the soldiers. They are not bad men, your people. They will feel shame tomorrow, and be easy to manage. But still, it should not have happened. If you want, we shall tear up the contract.’
‘He wanted to kill you?’ she said. ‘And someone else, yesterday? Why?’
‘I told you,’ said Nicholas. ‘I have come to success very young. I make mistakes. I am resented. I can only say, it will never happen again.’ He stopped. ‘If you want, I shall ask the Florentine to pack up and leave. I should see him, in any case.’
‘Oh, see him,’ she said. As the shock left her, some colour had returned to her face. She said, ‘The fault was that of the soldiers. I do not see how you could have prevented it. You tried to help.’
He waited. She said, ‘Your hands are cut. Go and see to the welfare of your man, and then come to the office. I see no reason to disturb our arrangement.’ He watched her turn and walk off. She had not waited for thanks. After a few paces he heard her say to someone, ‘He is there. But be quick about it. It is nearly time to let loose the dogs.’ He saw she was speaking to Julius.
Since he saw no point in returning to the house, and did not want to go to the booth, the conflict took place where he stood, in the darkening yard with its streams of hot and cold air, and its kernels of dull, glowing fire. Julius simply walked up and said, ‘The man you killed. He was a spy, not an assassin.’
‘The man I killed?’
‘You let him loose. You knew he was a spy. You guessed who paid him. You wanted to stop him confessing.’
‘Why should I want to do that?’ Nicholas said. He cast his mind back. During the chase, Julius must have questioned the soldiers. He hoped Julius was the only person they’d told.
Julius said, ‘Because you didn’t want his employers to guess what you were up to. Because you’re damned well afraid of his employers, as we all are, and have picked your own dirty way of dealing with them. That man is dead meat, and all the rest of him flayed into ribbons and wrapped round that foul stack of glassware, because he confessed to something you didn’t want known. You do know who employed him?’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas.
‘Well, so do I,’ Julius said. ‘He told the soldiers as soon as they touched him. He was paid by the nasty company you tricked into insuring your ship. The Vatachino told him to follow you.’
Nicholas didn’t reply.
Julius said, ‘So what was the secret you would go to those lengths to protect? Who is the Florentine?’
Sometimes, if you let Julius blow off enough steam, you could divert him. Nicholas said, ‘He’s a man working with glass. You know my plans for the island. They could still be upset, and the Signory won’t release a glassworking permit for anywhere else. I want to keep it quiet for a time, and it was worth holding the spy for a while on a more serious charge. Then it would have been dropped, and he would have gone free. That is all.’
‘You let him escape,’ Julius repeated.
‘I thought he was dead,’ Nicholas said. ‘Damn it, why should I let him escape and tell the Vatachino all he knew, when he was already as good as in prison? Look, do you think we could go in? I’ve got depositions to deal with, and I don’t want to be here when they let the dogs out. Even if you think it would be appropriate.’
‘Where is the Florentine?’ Julius said. It had been inevitable.
‘It’s a business secret,’ said Nicholas austerely.
Even in the dark, he could see Julius flush. Julius said, ‘I have shares in your God-damned Bank.’
‘Have you? Well,’ Nicholas said, ‘all right; but don’t tell the Charetty company.’ And he led Julius, expectant and softened, to the booth by the wall.
He wished that, sometimes, fate would settle for drama or comedy. He wished that the more difficult events of his life were not always in terrible juxtaposition to the ludicrous. He had fading hopes that, one day, he would wake up and find that he was firmly in one successful mode, and about to stay there. He reached the low booth and rapped on the closed shutters.
If he had been nervous of Nicholas before, the man inside was now frankly terrified. When he was persuaded at length to open the door, it was necessary to spend quite some time explaining the running about and the shouting. To make it worse, as they were speaking the dogs began barking again.
‘She promised,’ the fellow kept saying. ‘Monna Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi. She promised I should be protected. I shouldn’t be in Murano. I should be under guard in a city. I want to go back to the Strozzi in Florence.’
‘Of course,’ Nicholas said. He avoided looking at Julius. ‘You may go where you please. But only here can you work with
cristallo
. I understood this was your greatest ambition?’
‘It is true,’ the man said. (‘
Monna Alessandra?
’ Julius murmured.)
‘And you are having success? It is providing the results that you hoped for?’ (‘
And her son Lorenzo,
’ Nicholas murmured back.)
‘Beyond my wildest dreams,’ said the Florentine, looking from one to the other. ‘It is true. It is unsurpassable.’
‘May we see?’ Nicholas said ‘It is new and wonderful to us all.’
He watched the man rise and disappear. Julius said, ‘What have the Strozzi to do with it?’
‘They supply barillo, salt-marsh weed, for the soda ash. They know the market. Monna Alessandra wants to make a lot of money almost as much as I do.’
He watched the Florentine coming back with the flat-lidded box in his hands. They had been discussing these boxes, he and Gregorio. He didn’t think they were as good as they should be. He saw Julius frown as the thing was set down. It was perhaps a foot square, and all of three inches deep. The Florentine opened the lid.
Artists always wanted to draw Julius, although he rarely had the patience to let them. His face would have looked well in marble; the blunt symmetry of the cheekbones and the straight, classical nose were enlivened by the slanting, archaic eyes with which he examined his fellows. Trained on the box, they were blank.
‘You’re staggered, I knew it,’ said Nicholas. ‘So many sets! You’ve never seen so many, and look at the binding. It’s leather. And the box. Two long double wells, and look how every piece lies without touching. Near vision on this side, and long sight on the other. Try one. Tilde’ll love it.’
And before Julius could move, he lifted one of the Florentine’s artefacts out of the box, clipped it on to the other man’s nose, and sat back on his heels, gazing at him. ‘Now that,’ said Nicholas, ‘is what I call a miracle. You look like Catullus. Or Vitruvius, maybe. Or you would, if they ever wore spectacles.’
‘Spectacles?’ Julius said. He moved his chin carefully up and down. Behind thick circles of glass, his eyes looked like ships’ biscuits. The upturned V on his nose gave him an air of fearful surprise which was not entirely misleading.
‘
Rodoli da ogli
precisely,’ Nicholas said. ‘Never before ground quite like this. Never before created from the special pure glass that only the Barovier know how to make. That lot, once the permit comes through, is destined for the Duke of Milan. After that, the King of Naples. Then Rome. Then Flanders. Then France, Spain, Germany, England. Every court will want to have them.’
‘They’re all blind?’ Julius said. He pulled the lenses off, with some difficulty. His face had gone red. ‘It’s a wonder they manage to win so many wars.’
‘Scholars need them,’ Nicholas said. He put a pair on his own nose and peered about in a bemused way. ‘Painters, teachers, men of the church, men of the law. Ordinary people as well, but they can’t afford them. Courtiers? They seldom need them, of course,
but they’re not going to refuse if their short-sighted prince suggests that there is nothing more dashing than a bit of glass on the nose. They’re a mark of nobility.’
‘You hope to make them one,’ Julius contradicted. His eyes were beginning to sparkle.
‘No, they are. The Strozzi family have been acting as dealers for years, but their glasses are not very good. The market is there. We just have to step in and capture it.’
Julius was staring at him. He said, ‘I see what makes people want to put you quietly out of the way. Who will this make you popular with? Apart from your better-known enemies?’
Nicholas considered. ‘I don’t think the Medici will like it very much,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think they would bother to kill for it. Sir, my colleague is in ecstasies over your lenses.’
‘He is?’ said the Florentine. He looked pleased. He added, ‘I get little company. Perhaps you would both stay and share a flask of wine?’
‘We must go. But,’ Nicholas said, delving into his purse, ‘you will permit us to come back, and drink our health meantime? There is so much to ask and to see. That is, if you feel you could bring yourself to stay? I must tell you, such genius should not be wasted in Florence.’
‘You are kind. You are kind. Yes,’ said the Florentine. ‘Under such patronage as yours, an artist must flourish. Monna Alessandra said so herself.’
‘I’ll wager she did,’ Julius said, as they bowed themselves out of the door. ‘What percentage is she to get? How much did you leave him just now?’
‘Mind your own business,’ said Nicholas. ‘It’s very noisy. Why is it so noisy? Oh, great God, they’ve let out the dogs.’
He walked with Julius to the landing-stage to see him board the Bank’s boat and leave with everyone else to return to the city. On the way, recollections of the early part of the evening returned, naturally enough, to chafe Julius, but to a milder degree.
Nicholas was able to explain that the bodyguard, from unsolicited good feeling, would support their story that the dead man had been a would-be assassin. Gregorio knew he was not, but affirmed that accusing the Vatachino would do more harm than good. Julius, applied to, agreed that something should be done about the Vatachino company; brokers, dyers, sugar refiners and malign opponents.
‘They’re devils in Bruges,’ Julius said. ‘A man called Martin, making deals where he shouldn’t. It’s damaging everyone’s business – Simon’s as well as ours.’
‘A man called Martin?’ Nicholas repeated.
‘Yes. Was that the man who poached your dyeworks in Cyprus?’
‘No. That was a man called David,’ Nicholas said. ‘Two men in the field, therefore. Who else?’
‘That’s all I know of,’ said Julius. ‘And the man or men who operate them. But I’ve no idea who they are.’