Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
As once before, Gregorio himself was on the Rialto when the ship he was hoping for was signalled into the Basin. This one did not come under cover of darkness but anchored for all to see, flying two flags: the emblem of the Order of the Unicorn from its mizzen, and from its mainmast, the standard of the Order of the Sword, in the position of mourning.
The Bank’s boat was already tied by the Bridge. Gregorio used it to sweep down the Canal and out to the anchorage while Nicholas
was still on board with the officials who had come out to greet him. Tobie heard the lawyer’s hail and met him at the companionway. He looked sick.
Gregorio said, ‘What has happened?’ He looked about for Nicholas.
‘The King is dead. Long live the Queen,’ said Nicholas from behind him. He looked worse than sick: he looked unfriendly. He added, ‘I have to go to the Senate. Wait for me, if you like. Mick and Tobie will tell you what has happened. Is Julius here?’
‘No. They’ve gone to Augsburg. Nicholas –’
‘Yes?’ said Nicholas, stopping.
‘Were you there?’
‘Everyone was there,’ Nicholas said.
The news, passing from throat to throat, reached the Ca’ Niccolò long before Gregorio returned with the travellers. Margot brought it to Gelis where she stood on the balcony overlooking the water.
‘Nicholas is back, safe and well. They’ve just sailed in. Apparently Gregorio went down to meet them.’ She saw that Jodi was there, sitting at the feet of his nurse. She said, smiling, ‘Ton papa est en retour.’ Mistress Clémence was looking elsewhere.
Gelis said,
‘Nicholas!’
‘Sooner than he expected,’ said Margot. She looked from Gelis to the nurse and back again. Mistress Clémence returned her attention to Jodi. Margot said slowly, ‘They’re saying that Zacco has died.’
‘Oh,’ said Gelis. Then she said, ‘That explains the uneasy market. The news must have reached the Collegio already.’
‘They say he was poisoned,’ Margot said.
‘But they didn’t blame Nicholas,’ Gelis said. She paused. ‘Unless, of course, he has raced back, the Catalans screaming murderer at his heels?’
‘Apparently not,’ Margot said. ‘I think they might even have wanted him to stay. I think we should be glad he has come back.’
‘I don’t know,’ Gelis said. ‘There are generally rich pickings to be had from a power struggle, if you don’t mind the risks. But I expect he wanted to come home to us all, as you say.’
After that, everyone in the Casa seemed to know that the padrone was at last on his way, having reported to the Minor Consiglio on the tragic death of Queen Catherine’s husband. The Palace itself had confirmed it. Sadly wild, as everyone knew, the young man had apparently indulged himself on a hot day while hunting, and had succumbed to an attack of the flux.
The travellers arrived. Mistress Clémence, standing in her
employer’s hall, released Jodi, freshly dressed, to be crushed by his father and was pleased to observe Dr Tobias crossing to greet her. She said, ‘It has been an unpleasant business for you all.’
‘We shall all be the better for being at home,’ the doctor said.
She followed his eyes. Instead of commenting, she said, ‘You must have met with the flux often enough in the battlefield.’
‘Well enough to know it,’ he said.
She studied him. She said, ‘So they let you treat the King? They must know your reputation.’
‘Eventually,’ he said. ‘But it was too late.’ He paused and said, ‘The padrone and he knew each other well.’
‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘The child will cheer him. I heard the Queen of Cyprus was near to her time?’
‘I doubt if it will cheer her,’ he said.
Nicholas was back, not in the autumn, but in August. Gelis, too, saw all that the others saw in his face, and felt the alteration at once, as he greeted her. Invariably, in the first moments of every fresh meeting, he showed his awareness of her, even if expressed by contradictory emotions like anger. Now, for the first time, he seemed indifferent.
She was given no opportunity to question him. A ceremonial supper had been arranged, attended by all the gentlemen of the factory. Afterwards, in the relative privacy of Gregorio’s parlour, Tobie appeared intent on wresting Nicholas from the company. Gelis raised her voice.
‘Before you go! Mistress Clémence is sure to ask me your plans. Are you leaving to rejoin Astorre?’
‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘The French war has stopped, for the moment. All the interesting events seem to be occurring along the Duke’s frontier with Germany. I shall probably follow Julius to Augsburg, and then try to seek out Duke Charles.’
‘And Mistress Clémence?’ Gelis said. ‘Or are children not permitted in Germany?’
He knew, of course, that this was not about Jordan. It was about whether the careful plan had been changed, and she might come to him now, rather than later.
He said, ‘Margot says you have grown to like Venice. Why not stay for a further few weeks, and then join me?’
She couldn’t tell whether he meant it. Gregorio sat, his arm round Margot, placidly awaiting her answer. Tobie glared. Gelis burned with frustration. She said, ‘I don’t mind. Jodi might: he has been practising hard on the water-hens. Must you hurry away? What exactly happened on Cyprus?’
He looked at her. His eyes were darkened, like Tobie’s, and he had been drinking nothing but water. She had asked the question out of pure devilment; she was taken aback when he replied with subdued violence.
‘Exactly? Zacco died, but I didn’t. I was abducted, not very tenderly, and left without food or water, and chained. I not only survived, but I wasn’t there when Zacco fell ill. You have no idea what good fortune that was. Princes envied me.’
Gregorio said sharply, ‘You didn’t tell us! Who did it? Nicholas, was Zacco poisoned? By the Venetians?’
‘Probably.’
‘And you were abducted to get you out of the way?’
‘Oh no,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was abducted by someone paid by David de Salmeton, who hoped to extort a ransom for me which would disable the Bank.’
‘But you escaped?’ Gelis said.
‘I escaped. And de Salmeton was caught and imprisoned. As a result of it all, I am not, at the moment, deeply attached to the
miraculosissime civitas Venetia
, and would rather be somewhere else. On the German frontier, for example.’
‘And David de Salmeton? Are we meant to believe all this?’ Gelis asked.
‘Do you find it hard to think of sweet David in quite these terms? Tobie doesn’t.’
‘Nor do I,’ Gregorio said. ‘I hope he’s dead.’
The owlish gaze had turned directly on Gelis. She said, ‘Is he?’
‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not even in prison. I let him off. Aren’t you pleased?’
‘ You
let him off!’ She gazed at him.
It was Tobie who answered, his voice curt. ‘The King’s mother asked Nicholas to let him go, and he did. Of course, de Salmeton can never return.’
‘So where has he gone?’ Gelis asked.
‘There are several possible places,’ Nicholas said, ‘if my prayers have been listened to. But he may be somewhere else, and quite happy, bathed in a saintly light and enjoying intimacy with God. So, you want to come with me? With Jordan?’
She had goaded him, and he had replied. She stared at him, dizzy still. Then she said, ‘It might be amusing.’
‘It might be. Can you be packed by, say, tomorrow?’
‘That’s asking a bit much,’ said Tobie.
‘Is it? You don’t need to come,’ Nicholas said, getting up. ‘Neither does Gelis. I imagine she can get herself over the Alps on her own.’
‘Will you stop it, Nicol?’ said Gregorio. ‘Go and rest, for God’s sake. But before you do, here’s something I haven’t told you yet.’
‘There is no end to the Divine Bounty,’ Nicholas said. ‘So what have you found for me now, outside perpetual chastity?’
Gregorio ignored it. ‘You remember Paúel Benecke?’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. He sat down again.
‘He had a stroke of luck,’ Gregorio said. ‘Back in April. He was hanging about in the Narrow Seas in a caravel when he saw these two Florentine ships leaving Sluys for Southampton.’
‘Goro?’ Nicholas said. His eyes had begun to gleam.
‘So he attacked and relieved one of its cargo. The other escaped. There’s been a great fuss.’
Margot was smiling. Tobie was looking from one speaker to the other. Nicholas said,
‘Florentine
ships?’
Gregorio said, ‘Well, really, Burgundian ships. The ones that were built for the Crusade, and Duke Charles let the Medici use them.’
‘Tommaso’s
ships?’ Nicholas said. ‘Tommaso Portinari?’
‘I’m afraid so, yes. The one they plundered was the
San Matteo
. Full of alum and stuff. They’d wintered in Flusa, and were calling at Southampton on their way back to Porto Pisano. Benecke took the whole lot. The thing is, he was sailing under letters of marque, and his ship belonged to some Confrérie of the Church of Our Lady in Danzig. They’ll never get it all back.’
‘Alum?’ Nicholas said. He looked dreamy.
‘And cloth: gold and silk and velvet and satin. Furs and tapestries. Paintings, even. Poor Henne Memling.’
‘Goro,’ Nicholas said. He rose and, carrying his seat in his hand, relocated himself next to Gregorio. Then he put a hand on his shoulder. He said, ‘Tell me very slowly. I don’t want to get too pleased too soon. Henne Memling?’
‘Two huge altar-pieces,’ Gregorio said. He was crimson now.
‘Huge
. On their way to be put up in Florence. And one of them was
The Last Judgement.’
‘Paradise,’ Nicholas said. ‘And Hell, of course. And all those nude ladies and gentlemen. Including Tommaso, with his head painted on foil, and someone else’s bodily ticket to the Gates of St Peter. And Paúel Benecke has it: not Tommaso, not Angelo Tani, not the Medici. Oh, what shall we do? How can we celebrate?’
‘Give me that,’ Tobie said. He emptied the cup Nicholas had been drinking from, and thumped it back down by the wine-flask. He said, ‘That’s how you celebrate.’
‘Oh dear,’ Gelis said.
Margot touched her with a finger. ‘Come with me. We can drink on our own.’ She was exchanging smiles with Gregorio.
‘In the terems,’ Gelis said mildly. She tried not to show what she felt. Nicholas drunk had always been easier to manage than Nicholas tinkering about with the full unappetising range of his faculties. She had an advantage already.
The advantage was somewhat short-lived, in that the journey to Augsburg was sober to the point of austerity, and Nicholas spent all his spare time with his son. At night, he slept with the men of the party. Tobie had elected to come. Crackbene had stayed behind, prior to departing north on unspecified business. There were Hanseatic League talks in Utrecht.
Gelis had a grasp, now, of the purpose of this expedition to Augsburg in the vale of the Danube, where the Emperor and his princes conferred. Here, if anywhere, rumours and news could be gleaned. She would have liked to learn more, but attempts to discuss it with Nicholas failed. Eventually, roused to impatience, she professed an enquiry to which he was bound to respond. Now they had met ahead of time, had he considered advancing the end of the contest?
They had just passed through the Tyrol, and he was impatient because they had failed to meet either Duke Sigismond or the Duchess. Anything that annoyed Nicholas always gave pleasure to Gelis, whether she understood it or not. Unwisely, she showed it.
He said, ‘Our resolution? I hadn’t planned to advance it. Well, especially not after this terrible reverse over the Duke. Did you have a proposal?’
‘No. Were you expecting one? I hear the lady Violante was in Nicosia.’
‘You are speaking of an elective bid, rather than a proposal.’
‘Which you accepted.’ She kept indignation out of her voice.
‘It would have been impolite to refuse,’ Nicholas said.
‘So you suffered it.
Noblesse oblige.’
‘I try to give humble satisfaction. A fervent fighter and untiring soldier of Christ. Although I have been known to charge tronage fees,’ Nicholas said. ‘One way or another. Here is Jodi.’
‘So I see,’ Gelis said. ‘What a teacher your son is going to have in you one day.’
She had fired her dart, and he had replied, as in Venice. She had achieved nothing.
At Augsburg, they were met at the gates.
‘God’s toe-nail,’ said Julius, when he had greeted Gelis and Tobie. ‘It’s like the Flight from Egypt. I never expected to see Nicholas de Fleury hanging with napkins and nursemaids and children.’
‘You missed the cartload of whores,’ Nicholas said. They went in by the Ulm gate. ‘And what about you? Whoever thought to see Julius with a
wife?
How is your extremely beautiful, extremely brave lady?’ He shook the hand of his agent and they all began to move through the port.
‘You want me to say, sick of a morning. Well, she isn’t. Time enough for all that. She’s staying with friends. And my God, what good news from Cyprus! Venice with the whip hand at last! Now the Bank will get its chance!’
Nicholas said, ‘You should have stayed on Rhodes and joined in the rejoicing.’
‘I know, but I’d done all I could. The Patriarch, too. I have to tell you about that.’
‘I heard it from Gregorio, or most of it. The Order insists it hasn’t stolen our gold; the ship they attacked was a pirate; if we want to prove the gold ours we have to produce witnesses, bills of lading, hard evidence. We shall, when there’s time. I didn’t think you’d be here. I thought you would have left after the Emperor.’
In present company, Julius seldom bothered with tact. He said, ‘I stayed to tell you what to do. You’ve to go to Luxembourg.’
‘Really?’ said Nicholas.
‘Yes, really. Take your objections to the Duke, but not in that tone, I’d suggest. He’s in Luxembourg. He wants you. He and the Emperor are going to meet. Charles thinks he’s going to be crowned this autumn at last. Think of the festivities! Everyone will be there!’
‘Where?’
‘They haven’t decided yet,’ said Julius, happily.
It was a very long road to their lodging. Nicholas rode smiling, because they were drawing attention. He said, ‘The festivities. They want us to advance them more money?’