Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 10

  ‘It will affect the Bank’s standing here, once it’s known,’ Godscalc said. ‘Corner should not speak of these things so freely.’

  ‘He was discreet enough,’ Julius said. ‘I have a feeling other news is going about, but I can’t put my finger on it. Ah, the trumpets. I must say, he’s arranged things very well. You must have been a great help to him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Margot. She understood, from Gregorio, that Julius was a shrewd man of business, and had been taking a close interest recently in the workings of the Bank. It struck her that a little feminine training wouldn’t do him any harm. She began to move away, to encourage people to gather where Nicholas wanted. She saw him come in, and look for her, and smile. Then he walked over to Tilde.

  It had not occurred to her until then that what Julius said was true. The Claes of Bruges had gone. Or perhaps, translated to a wider arena, the charming attributes were now more clearly seen for what they had always been. Then the trumpets blew, and the tree full of birds was wheeled on, drawn by child-cherubs.

  She and Gregorio had seen it prepared. There had been no time for a great artefact, one of the hand-carved witty devices which had absorbed Nicholas in Bruges and even in Trebizond, she had heard. It was simply a tree, with its branches laden with sparkling birds of every variety, made of feathers and plaster and paper. Set down, it began to revolve on its base, emitting sweet, trilling music. Speckled light, bright as ducats, swept over the coffered ceiling and the splendid doorways and the smooth painted faces of the women, rousing the facets from their jewels. They began, politely, to applaud even before they noticed its cause. Every bird on the tree wore an eyeglass.

  Nicholas clapped his hands, and stepped forward, smiling. Tilde’s face, looking at him, was glowing and young. Primaflora, thought Margot suddenly. The way he knows how to hold himself, how to choose the fine hose, the tunic, the shirt that became him; the way he uses his voice. Of course he knew how to judge what was called for this evening. He married a courtesan. All her arts are his, now.

  He spoke for no more than a moment: enough to thank them for their presence, and for all they had done to make him welcome in Venice. He hoped, in token of it, that they would accept a frivolity, and if the design was not wholly pleasing, that they would bring the lenses to the Casa Barovier at Murano, where there were as many again to exchange them with. That the glasses served any practical purpose went wholly unmentioned.

  The musicians, who had been silent, began to play. Cherubs tripped through the room, bearing ribboned trays spangled with spectacles. Ringed hands hovered, and dipped. The guests, their hands to their faces, ducked their heads up and down and moving, bumped into one another and laughed. They peered at objects and, detaching the lenses, held them at arm’s length to look through. They exchanged sets, and gathered round Nicholas, amused, asking questions. Godscalc stood silent, watching. Julius stood, his mouth slightly open, and then turned to Gregorio. ‘What it’ll have cost him!’

  ‘Seed corn,’ Gregorio said. ‘They will all come to Murano, and buy.’ Without the lappets, his face looked naked and drawn beneath a hat with a roll.

  Margot said, ‘Who is that?’

  A red-haired man, powerfully built, had appeared in the doorway, with other men dressed in black standing behind him. He looked about, taking his time, until his gaze fell on Nicholas. Then, signalling the others to stay, he began to shoulder his way through the room.

  He was noticed. The guests were too well-mannered to turn, or to fall silent, but few missed his journey to where Nicholas stood, and although those beside Nicholas moved accommodatingly to one side, they were not out of earshot. The man said, ‘Vander Poele? Nicholas vander Poele of the House of Niccolò? Your Negro didn’t seem to know where you were.’

  Chapter 7

  BESIDE MARGOT, Gregorio started to move. The priest Godscalc also began to walk quickly over to Nicholas. For a moment, Nicholas looked down at the man without speaking. Then he said, ‘I am Niccolò vander Poele. As you see, I am not precisely in hiding although not, I’m afraid, with leisure to talk to you. They should have told you so at the door.’

  It was true. There had been no message from below; no outcry even. At the doors of this chamber there were no servants to be seen, only the companions of the man who was speaking, dressed in the black robes of lawyers.

  The man said, ‘One makes one’s arrangements. In cases of fraud, there is a temptation, perhaps excusable, for those accused to try to abscond. My name is Martin, and I speak on behalf of the firm of Vatachino, merchants and brokers. The charge against you is a serious one. We can discuss it here, or in private.’

  ‘I have a choice?’ Nicholas said. ‘How courteous. In that case, I shall join you in the bottega below, but not immediately. I promise not to abscond: indeed my partner Signor Gregorio will go with you, and stay till I come.’

  ‘We are not, I am afraid, empowered to deal with Signor Gregorio,’ said the man Martin. Despite the red hair and blue eyes, his Italian had a tinge in it of Catalan, and his face was Latin rather than northern in style, its nose long, its jowls heavy. ‘It is here and now, with yourself, or below.’

  He was not, so far, speaking loudly, although it was clear enough from where Margot was standing. In the further parts of the room, the event might be passing unnoticed. Music played; the polite conversation continued, though muted. Nicholas said, ‘I rather think I shall throw you out.’ His own servants were moving towards him.

  The red-haired man looked at them. ‘Trained in your army? Even so, I might be heard to make a point or two before they knock me down.’

  ‘And I should be heard to make an answering point or two after you had gone. Or we could debate the points below, in the bottega, when I am ready. I am sure that is what you prefer. Gregorio, go with them.’

  Gregorio looked at him. The red-haired man stood still. Godscalc’s face was watchful and heavy but Julius beside him was bright of eye. Tilde looked frightened. For a moment, anything could have happened. Then the man Martin snapped his fingers.

  One of his clerks, holding a document, hurried forward. Martin took the paper and extended it to Nicholas. ‘Our claim for twenty-five thousand ducats,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to discuss, but since it seems to alarm you, I shall wait for you below.’

  His bow included not only Nicholas but all those within earshot. He retired, Gregorio leading the way. He and his men had gained the head of the stairs when Nicholas, following swiftly, said, ‘Wait!’

  The man turned, one foot on the step. Nicholas said, ‘It seemed to me that your view of the world could be bettered. Allow me.’

  His hands, touching the man Martin’s face, drew back and busied themselves with the back of his head. He stepped aside. Martin, frowning, his fists bunched, jerked himself violently free and switched his gaze to the salon he’d left. His eyes flashed.

  Margot saw she had made a mistake about the man Martin. His eyes didn’t flash. His eyes, greatly diminished, looked like fish eggs. The glare came, Margot saw, from a pair of eyeglasses fixed to his nose and securely tied to the back of his hat in such a way that dislodgement was virtually impossible.

  Whatever view of the world he had held, it hadn’t improved it. He groped with one hand. With the other, he tried to prise off the lenses. He staggered and began to fall down the steps.

  Gregorio made some effort to catch him, but Nicholas stood and watched him crash between the wall and the balustrade and finally slither full length to a landing. For a moment he lay, and for a moment Nicholas looked down at him. Then Gregorio brushed past and ran to drop on his knees by the fellow, while Nicholas returned to the salon.

  The doorway was crowded, and there was a good deal of laughter. Someone slapped Nicholas on the back. He said, ‘He’s broken them. I regard that as an insult. I shall deduct the price from the twenty-five thousand ducats.’

  The gentle laughter increased, and a passage opened to allow him to re-enter and move about, as before. T
here had been no point in concealing the crux of the encounter. They all knew what had happened by now, although no one there would be so ill-bred as to mention it.

  The Cyprus income had gone. The Signory had swept out half his reserves with a loan. And now he was being brought to law on some charge which, if proved, would convict him of fraud and cost the Bank the equal of a year of its profit.

  No one showed impoliteness, but at the same time, no one stayed long after that. As, group by group, the gathering thinned, Margot saw Julius quieten, and the stiffness of the smile on Cristoffels’ face. Godscalc, with a priest’s self-command, showed no alteration. Tilde she found she had lost.

  Searching, a little concerned, she found the girl outside the grand room, in the cooler air of the long gallery, looking down at the strung lamps and the glittering water and the swirl of gondolas departing from the garlanded jetty. Nicholas had been there for the final ten minutes; smiling, self-possessed, exchanging civilities as his guests settled back within their gilded silk canopies, visible in the dark only as jewel-sparkle, and teeth, and packs of bodiless lenses, withdrawing in silence, like wolves.

  Tilde was crying. She said, ‘He’s going to lose me my business. Mother meant him to help. Now, when we need him, he’s useless. He’s only an apprentice, you know.’

  ‘You don’t need him,’ said Margot. She put her arm round the girl and drew her close. ‘I think he will help you, for love of you and your mother. But you don’t need him. You are going to be all your mother was. Don’t be afraid.’

  ‘It is not the end of the Bank of Niccolò,’ Gregorio said. ‘It is close to it.’

  Dawn was near. They sat, supporting themselves in their various ways on the stools in the counting-house of the Casa Niccolò: Gregorio and Cristoffels; Julius and Godscalc; Nicholas and Lopez, who had admitted them. Tilde had been induced to go home by the Martelli, and Margot in her wisdom had retired.

  Nicholas said, ‘Tell me what happened again.’ He sat at Gregorio’s table, and before him were the ledgers Gregorio had given him as soon as they had come in, and sheets of paper on which he had already begun, as he spoke, to scribble columns of figures.

  He was not penitent, Godscalc saw. He was concerned with the Bank’s position, and nothing else. He also wanted to know why the man Martin had not waited to see him; what he had said to Gregorio; what he meant to do next.

  Gregorio said, ‘Of course he couldn’t stay after that. He was quite badly bruised. He’d been laughed at. He made very little effort to elaborate on the paper he’d given you, but, if you read it, I’ll tell you what his demands are. Why did you do it? He’d given in once. You could have talked him round somehow.’

  His voice died. Nicholas, making notes, skimming his way through the document, paid no attention. Godscalc, drawing on what he knew of him, saw that everyone here was irrelevant; that the mechanism in that twenty-three-year-old felicitous mind was performing its accustomed ritual and, like one of his own ingenious artefacts, would eventually present what it had wrought. He saw that Julius was watching Nicholas eagerly, and that Lopez was watching Julius.

  The silence lasted no more than a moment. Then Nicholas threw down his pen and, pushing the papers away, flung out his arms, easing his shoulders. He yawned, shuddering, and re-opened his eyes. They were enormously bright.

  ‘Well?’ said Julius.

  ‘The Vatachino want twenty-five thousand ducats. If we pay, it is the end of the Bank of Niccolò. And, of course, the Charetty company, if you can’t manage without us.’

  ‘That isn’t possible,’ Julius said. He looked sallow.

  ‘You want the actual figures?’ Nicholas said. ‘Eighty thousand ducats in stock and capital, less the Vatachino’s twenty-five thousand. Less twenty thousand we’ve loaned to the Signory, less ten thousand Bonkle has loaned out in Bruges – that was the news Gregorio was looking sick about – less two to three thousand for the investments we’ve begun in hemp and printing and weaving, which we can’t now go on with, and a forfeit of at least five hundred from withdrawing from the lease of the island, and a loss of three thousand if we aren’t allowed to.

  ‘On the income side, a loss of up to eighteen thousand ducats a year if the Cypriot trade has been throttled – that’s the news I was looking sick about. Leaving a reserve of nineteen thousand ducats: too small to meet any major withdrawals, never mind pay for fresh business. Income from deals already completed might, added to that, keep this building and its staff for a year. Any run on our funds before that would leave us bankrupt. And of course there will be a run on our funds.’

  ‘By the Vatachino,’ said Gregorio slowly.

  ‘By people who owe them a favour, at least. Take time to admire them, Goro. They are superb; they are artists. Everything came together tonight, even the news from Bruges and Cyprus, where the disasters were only partly their doing. And last of all, this crushing demand for restitution for fraud.’

  From sallow, Julius had become red. He said, ‘But you’re talking of paying it. So you’ve given them some sort of case. What have you done? If we have to close, it’s not going to be the Vatachino’s fault, is it? It wasn’t the Vatachino who got the Muslims slaughtered in Cyprus. You weren’t helping the Bank very much when you flung the superb and artistic Martin down the stairs.’

  ‘No, but it did me a lot of good,’ said Nicholas mildly. ‘Now do you want to hear the good bits?’

  Father Godscalc heard himself sigh. Looking round, he saw that none of them knew what Nicholas meant. That most of them, although loyally backing him, had felt a fraction, at least, of what Julius had just expressed. All except Lopez, in whom he discerned a curious tension.

  Nicholas said, ‘It all rests, as Julius says, on the fraud claim, which will have to be paid. The Vatachino are taking us to law for exacting insurance for a ship which was not our property. The sum they ask, which is extortionate, refers to the amount they paid us for the loss of the ship, its apparel and tackle and cargo, as insured omni risicum, periculum et fortunam Dei, maris et gentium. It demands the forfeit of the premium, which was eighteen per cent, and a further forfeit for the loss of interest on the moneys wrongly paid us, and for the fraud to which they were exposed.

  ‘The ship, as you may have guessed, was the Doria, which was stolen from me in Cyprus and which I had insured with the Vatachino, but under a pseudonym. Its original name was the Ribérac.’

  ‘Owned by Simon’s father,’ Julius said. Despite himself, Godscalc supposed, his eyes rested on the scar Jordan de Ribérac had once inflicted.

  ‘Owned by the vicomte de Ribérac, stolen by Simon his son, and given me as a prize by the Emperor David of Trebizond. The Emperor is dead, and Simon will hardly admit to a crime, so the rights of the case will take some time to prove. In the meantime, the Vatachino has obtained a court ruling that the money must be returned. The Signory, to whom we have been generous recently, have been unable to reverse the decision, but have advised that it would be sufficient if the Bank supplies material assets to the value demanded. What Martin gave us tonight was a list of such assets.’

  ‘Which are?’ Julius said.

  Gregorio answered. ‘The house we occupy, which is worth six thousand ducats. The island we have leased for the making of glass, and all the raw materials we have deposited on it. The business we have established for the making of eyeglasses on Murano, and all the stocks connected with it. And lastly, the roundship Adorno, which brought Nicholas from Cyprus, with her cargo, as at present in store at the Basin.’ He stopped. ‘The good news, Nicholas?’

  It was Cristoffels who said, ‘But this house isn’t ours. It was a gift from the Serenissima.’

  ‘Therefore,’ Nicholas said, ‘the Vatachino cannot possess it. Likewise, the making of eyeglasses is based on the premises of the Barovier, heavily financed by the Signory and upon whose reputation the export of Venetian glasses depends. In return for housing the Florentine, I supply the Barovier with extremely cheap sand, barillo and cullet
, not to mention some very good alum. The Signory have ruled that the work of the Florentine is unassailably connected with the Bank, and must not be transferred.’

  Julius said, ‘But can you keep up those cheap supplies without the Levant? What about the barillo?’

  Nicholas smiled at him, using both dimples. ‘From Spain. Courtesy of the Strozzi.’

  Godscalc said, ‘So your eyeglasses are safe, and your house. But the island?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve lost the island,’ Nicholas said. ‘And everything for glassmaking that is on it. The Vatachino are willing to take it in lieu of part of the debt. They seemed to know all about it already.’

  ‘Well, everyone knew,’ Julius said. ‘Didn’t they?’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Nicholas?’ Gregorio said.

  Julius said, ‘I didn’t know it was a secret.’

  ‘Nicholas?’ Gregorio said again.

  Nicholas said, ‘Gregorio wants me to tell you that I was quite glad that you went there, because I was rather hoping the Vatachino would buy out our lease. I never meant to make glass. The Signory were quite happy for me to specialise in my lenses. They would prefer the glassmaking shops concentrated on Murano. In fact, I don’t think they will allow a glassmaking licence to anyone else.’

  Godscalc got to his feet rather suddenly. He said, ‘I am beginning to feel uncomfortable. You used Julius to draw attention to the island. The Vatachino bought the lease, and it’s useless?’

  The large, bright eyes were watchful, but neither defiant nor remorseful. ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘But of course, if you consider the ship, the balance is entirely redressed. I understand they have already taken possession of the Adorno where she sits being refitted. And the cargo has been sealed in the warehouse. It means we have no roundship, but only eight thousand ducats to pay. And, of course, we shall argue the case and may eventually win it.’