Caprice and Rondo Read online

  DOROTHY DUNNETT

  Caprice and Rondo

  Dorothy Dunnett was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. She is the author of the Francis Crawford of Lymond novels; the House of Niccolò novels; seven mysteries; King Hereafter, an epic novel about Macbeth; and the text of The Scottish Highlands, a book of photographs by David Paterson, on which she collaborated with her husband, Sir Alastair Dunnett. In 1992, Queen Elizabeth appointed her an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Lady Dunnett died in 2001.

  Books by

  DOROTHY DUNNETT

  THE LYMOND CHRONICLES

  The Game of Kings

  Queens’ Play

  The Disorderly Knights

  Pawn in Frankincense

  The Ringed Castle

  Checkmate

  King Hereafter

  Dolly and the Singing Bird (Rum Affair)

  Dolly and the Cookie Bird (Ibiza Surprise)

  Dolly and the Doctor Bird (Operation Nassau)

  Dolly and the Starry Bird (Roman Nights)

  Dolly and the Nanny Bird (Split Code)

  Dolly and the Bird of Paradise (Tropical Issue)

  Moroccan Traffic

  THE HOUSE OF NICCOLÒ

  Niccolò Rising

  The Spring of the Ram

  Race of Scorpions

  Scales of Gold

  The Unicorn Hunt

  To Lie with Lions

  Caprice and Rondo

  The Scottish Highlands

  (IN COLLABORATION WITH ALASTAIR DUNNETT)

  FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 1999

  Copyright © 1997 by Dorothy Dunnett

  Introduction © 1998 by Judith Wilt

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Michael Joseph, Ltd., London, 1997, and in slightly different form in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1998.

  Vintage Books and colophon are registered trademarks of

  Random House, Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:

  Dunnett Dorothy.

  Caprice and Rondo / Dunnett. — 1st American ed.

  p. cm.—(The house of Niccolò)

  I. Title. II. Series: Dunnett, Dorothy. House of Niccolò.

  PR6054.U56C36 1998

  823′.914—dc21 97-49458

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76228-3

  Author photograph © Alison Dunnett

  www.vintagebooks.com

  v3.1_r1

  For Annabella Charlotte Dunnett

  Contents

  Cover

  Map

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  Characters

  Introduction

  Part I: Polonaise

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part II: Circassian Circle

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part III: Polovtsian Dances

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Part IV: Reprise

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgments

  The House of Niccolò

  PREFACE

  When my chronicle of Francis Crawford of Lymond ended, it seemed to me that there was something still to be told of his heritage: about the genetic lottery, as well as the turmoil of trials and experience which, put together, could bring such a man into being.

  The House of Niccolò, in all its volumes, deals with the forerunner without whom Lymond would not have existed: the unknown who fought his way to the high ground that Francis Crawford would occupy, and held it for him. It is fiction, but the setting at least is very real.

  The man I have called Nicholas de Fleury lived in the mid-fifteenth century, three generations before Francis Crawford, and was reared as an artisan, his gifts and his burdens concealed beneath an artless manner and a joyous, sensuous personality. But he was also born at the cutting edge of the European Renaissance, which Lymond was to exploit at its zenith—the explosion of exploration and trade, high art and political duplicity, personal chivalry and violent warfare in which a young man with a genius for organization and numbers might find himself trusted by princes, loved by kings, and sought in marriage and out of it by clever women bent on power, or wealth, or revenge—or sometimes simply from fondness.

  There are, of course, echoes of the present time. Trade and war don’t change much down through the centuries: today’s new multimillionaires had their counterparts in the entrepreneurs of few antecedents who evolved the first banking systems for the Medici; who developed the ruthless network of trade that ran from Scotland, Flanders, and Italy to the furthest reaches of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and ventured from Iceland to Persia, from Muscovy to the deserts of Africa.

  Scotland is important to this chronicle, as it was to Francis Crawford. Here, the young Queen of Scots is a thirteen-year-old Scandinavian, and her husband’s family are virtually children. This, framed in glorious times, is the story of the difficult, hesitant progress of a small nation, as well as that of a singular man.

  Dorothy Dunnett

  Edinburgh, 1998

  Characters

  November 1473 – January 1477

  (Those marked are recorded in history)

  Rulers

  England: King Edward IV, House of York

  Scotland: King James III, House of Stewart

  France: King Louis XI

  Burgundy: Charles, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders

  Pope: Sixtus IV (della Rovere)

  Venice: Doges Nicolò Marcello, Pietro Mocenigo, Andrea Vendramin

  German Emperor and King of the Romans: Frederick III

  Portugal: King Alphonse V, nephew of Henry the Navigator

  Muscovy: Grand Duke Ivan III Vasilievich, Autocrat of All Russia

  Scandinavia: Christian I

  Poland and Lithuania: King Casimir IV Jagiello

  Bohemia: King Wladyslaw, son of Casimir

  Hungary: King Mathias Corvinus

  Moldavia: Stephen III The Great

  Ottoman Empire (Istanbul): Sultan Mehmet II

  Mameluke Empire (Cairo): Sultan Qayt Bey

  House of Niccolò

  Nicholas de Fleury, former governor of the Banco di Niccolò Szalec Jelita, his servant

  VENICE BANCO DI NICCOLÒ:

  Gregorio of Asti, lawyer and director

  Margot, his wife

  Jaçon, their son

  Egidia (Gelis) van Borselen, wife of Nicholas de Fleury

  Jordan (J
odi), their son

  Clémence de Coulanges, his nurse

  Pasque, his former nursemaid

  Captain Cuthbert, his Scottish master-at-arms

  Raffo, his ‘groom’

  Manoli, ‘servant’ to Clémence

  Tobias Beventini of Grado, physician

  LOW COUNTRIES: HOF CHARETTY—NICCOLÒ, BRUGES:

  Diniz Vasquez, director, nephew of Simon de St Pol

  Mathilde (Tilde) de Charetty, his wife, step-daughter of Nicholas

  Marian, their daughter

  Catherine de Charetty, Tilde’s unmarried younger sister

  Father Moriz of Augsburg, chaplain and co-manager

  Govaerts of Brussels, management, Bruges and Cologne

  Jooris, agent in Antwerp

  GERMAN COMPANY:

  Julius of Bologna, notary and director

  Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck, his wife

  Bonne, her daughter

  Brygidy, her maid

  Petru, her guide

  Friczo Straube, company agent in Thorn

  Sinbaldo di Manfredo, company agent, Black Sea

  MERCENARY COMPANY:

  Astorre (Syrus de Astariis), mercenary commander

  Thomas, deputy to Astorre

  John le Grant, engineer, gunner, sailing-master

  PERIPATETIC:

  Michael Crackbene, shipmaster

  Ochoa de Marchena, former sailing-master on African voyage

  Duchy of Burgundy

  DUCAL HOUSEHOLD AND ARMY:

  Charles, Duke of Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, etc.

  Margaret of York, his wife and sister of King Edward IV

  Marie, daughter of Duke Charles by previous wife

  Bastard Anthony of Bourbon, natural brother of Duke Charles

  Baudouin, bastard and half-brother of Anthony

  William Hugonet, lord of Saillant, Chancellor of the Duchy

  Jean de Rubempré, sire de Bièvres, governor of Lorraine

  Niccolò de Montfort/Gambatesta, Count of Campobasso, Italian mercenary leader

  Jacopo Galeotto, Italian mercenary leader

  Philip de Croy, comte de Chimay, company commander

  Josse and Jean de Lalaing, Burgundian captains

  Matteo Lope de la Garde, Portuguese physician to the Duke

  BRUGES AND GHENT:

  Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, Conservator of Scots Privileges in Bruges

  Jan Adorne, his oldest son, a lawyer in Rome

  Katelijne (Kathi) Sersanders, Adorne’s niece

  Robin of Berecrofts, Scotland, her husband

  Mistress Cristen, her nurse

  Anselm Sersanders, her brother, Adorne’s nephew

  Arnaud Adorne, Adorne’s second youngest son

  Agnes von Nieuenhove, his wife

  Dr Andreas of Vesalia, physician and astrologer

  Louis de Bruges, seigneur de Gruuthuse, Earl of Winchester, Governor of Holland

  Marguerite van Borselen, his wife

  Tommaso Portinari, Medici manager in Bruges

  Hans (Henne) Memling, Rhineland artist settled in Bruges

  Jehan Metteneye, host to Scots merchants in Bruges

  Stephen Angus, Scots agent in Bruges

  VEERE AND MIDDLEBURG:

  Wolfaert van Borselen of Veere, Count of Grandpré, ‘cousin’ of Gelis van Borselen

  Wolfaert van Borselen, his son

  Charlotte de Bourbon, Wolfaert’s second wife

  Anna van Borselen, their daughter

  Paul van Borselen, bastard son of Wolfaert

  DIJON/FLEURY:

  Enguerrand de Damparis, friend of Marian de Charetty’s sister

  Thibault, vicomte de Fleury, maternal grandfather to Nicholas, and brother of late Jaak de Fleury of Geneva

  Brother Huon, his nurse

  Ysabeau, younger sister of Josine, first wife of Thibault

  The Vatachino Company

  Martin, broker, merchant and agent

  David de Salmeton, former agent

  Rome (including Papal Legates)

  Father Ludovico de Severi da Bologna, Patriarch of Antioch and Papal Legate to Persia

  Brother Orazio, his clerk

  Marco Barbo, Cardinal of San Marco and Papal Legate to Germany, Poland and Bohemia

  Prosper Schiaffino de Camulio de’ Medici, Collector for the Apostolic Camera in England, Ireland and Scotland

  Cardinal Philibert Hugonet, brother of Chancellor Hugonet of Burgundy, and employer of Anselm Adorne’s eldest son Jan

  Poland

  Paúel Benecke, Danzig privateer, captain of the Peter von Danzig

  Malgorzaty, his wife

  Elzbiete, his daughter

  Gerta his mistress, tavern-keeper in Thorn

  Filippo Buonaccorsi (Callimachus), royal secretary, exiled Italian poet and scholar

  Nicolao Lipnicki, his servant

  Filip Bischoff, Danzig merchant

  Elzbiete Gerber, his wife

  Barbara, one of his daughters

  Jerzy Bock, Elder of the Confrérie of St George; Bischoff’s brother-in-law

  Johann Sidinghusen, Danzig merchant, part-owner of the Peter von Danzig; father-in-law of Bock

  Tidemann Valandt, Danzig merchant, part-owner of the Peter von Danzig

  Heinrich Niederhof, Danzig merchant, part-owner of the Peter von Danzig

  Elizabeth Habsburg of Austria, Queen of Poland, second cousin of the Emperor Frederick

  Wladyslaw, King of Bohemia, her eldest son

  Kazimierz, Jan Olbracht, Aleksander and Zygmunt, other sons

  Jan Dłlugosz, royal tutor, national historian, canon of Cracow

  Jan Ostrórog, royal tutor, political writer, Castellan of Poznan

  Archbishop Gregory of Sanok, Primate of Poland

  Thomas Halkerston, Scots merchant in Danzig

  Stephen Lawson of Haddington, the same

  William Simpson, the same

  James Lauder, the same

  Germany and other Hanseatic League

  Emperor Frederick III of the House of Habsburg

  Archduke Maximilian, his son

  Heinrich Castorp, merchant of Lübeck

  France and Lorraine

  René, Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence and titular King of Naples and Sicily; father of former Queen Margaret of England

  René II, Duke of Lorraine, grandson of King René

  Bernard de Moncourt, seigneur de Chouzy, kinsman of Clémence de Coulanges

  Scotland

  ROYAL HOUSEHOLD AND NOBLES:

  James Stewart (Third of the Name), King of Scotland

  Margaret, daughter of Christian I of Denmark, his Queen

  Mary Stewart, the King’s elder sister

  James, ist Lord Hamilton of Kinneil, her second husband

  Robert, Lord Boyd, father of her first husband

  Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, the King’s brother

  Margaret Stewart, the King’s younger sister

  James Stewart of Auchterhouse, Earl of Buchan (Hearty James), half-uncle of King James

  IN EXILE:

  Jordan de St Pol, vicomte de Ribérac, lord of Kilmirren, formerly royal adviser and merchant in France

  Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren, his son

  Henry de St Pol, son of Simon’s late wife Katelina van Borselen, sister of Gelis

  MERCHANTS AND OTHERS:

  Archibald of Berecrofts (Archie), Canongate merchant

  Robin, his son, husband of Katelijne Sersanders

  Isobella (Bel) of Cuthilgurdy, neighbour to the St Pols of Kilmirren

  Andro Wodman, merchant; former Scots Archer in France

  Euphemia (Phemie) Dunbar of Haddington Priory, daughter of George, Earl of March

  William Roger (Whistle Willie), Court musician

  Thomas Cochrane, master mason

  Thomas (Thorn) Swift, Edinburgh merchant

  Andrew Crawford, Edinburgh merchant

  Richard, his son
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  John Bonkle, merchant

  Andrew Haliburton, merchant

  The Duchy of the Tyrol

  Sigismond, Duke of Austria and Styria and Count of the Tyrol

  Eleanor Stewart, his wife, aunt to King James of Scotland

  Venice: Colonials and Diplomats

  Caterino Zeno, envoy to Uzum Hasan of Persia

  Martin, his clerk

  Violante of Naxos, his wife, niece of Uzum Hasan’s Christian wife

  Pietro, her legitimate son

  Nerio, exile from Trebizond, her unacknowledged son

  Catherine, widowed Queen of Cyprus

  Marco Corner, sugar-grower in Cyprus, her father

  Fiorenza of Naxos, his wife, mother of Queen Catherine and sister of Violante and Valenza

  Josaphat Barbaro, Venetian envoy to Persia; former consul at Tana

  Ambrogio Contarini, Venetian envoy to Persia

  Father Stephano Testa, his chaplain and secretary

  Augostino Contarini, his brother, sopracomito to Barbaro in Cyprus

  Francesco Contarini, Venetian governor of Albania

  Paolo Ognibene, Venetian envoy to Persia

  Bartolomeo Liompardo, Venetian envoy to Persia

  Genoa: Colonials and Diplomats

  Antoniotto della Gabella, Genoese consul at Caffa

  Oberto Squarciafico, Treasurer for Genoa at Caffa

  Christoforo, Governor of Soldaia

  Florence & Bologna: Colonials and Travelling Professionals

  Arnolfo Tedaldi, Medici agent in Poland

  Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli, Greek-Florentine nobleman

  Rudolfo Fioravanti degli Alberti (’Aristotele’), engineer

  Andreas, his son

  Pietro, his pupil

  Gothia and Black Sea Circassians

  Isáac, prince of Mánkup and Gothia

  Aleksandre, his brother and successor

  Abdan Khan, Circassian leader of Gothian armies