Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 11

  ‘And the loans will mature,’ Julius said.

  ‘In five years,’ Nicholas said. ‘Oh, we shall have money. But we have to live through the years that are coming before that. So I have a plan.’

  He had had a plan for a long time, Godscalc realised. He had admired the Vatachino, as he had said, for the quality of their strategy. He had matched it himself, trying to forecast, step by step, what they might do. He had seen, perhaps, only some of the campaign against him, but knew enough of their gifts, and their flamboyance, to guess that some sort of climax was planned. And so he had elected to hold a reception, and thereby chosen, himself, the date of his own downfall.

  Godscalc sat. Nicholas said, ‘I am leaving tomorrow night on a venture which should bring us all the money we need. I hope to do so unseen. The day will be full of formalities: it will be seen that we are paying, and that we are not evading our obligations. It will shortly be obvious that the Bank’s prospects have never been better. You will have one year during which you must exert caution, but after that, all should be well. Since I shall be taking the risk as well as the opprobrium, I have a favour to ask, of him, of you and of Margot. I want Gregorio with me.’

  Cristoffels had flushed. Godscalc said, ‘You have no right. You excluded Gregorio from your confidence. You are committing him to something he knows nothing of, and cannot understand.’

  ‘But you are here,’ Nicholas said. ‘You will tell him. You will direct him to refuse. You will refuse yourself, no doubt.’ His eyes were on Gregorio.

  Gregorio said, ‘This is something Lopez knows? The night –’

  ‘The night Loppe rowed me to San Michele,’ Nicholas said. ‘I went to speak to da Mosto about his discoveries. I have spoken to others. In time of war, princes need money, and ships. In a war of religion, a ruler who cannot storm Constantinople himself will support an exploit with a Christian objective, which will cost him nothing and might bring him fame. I want to sail down the west coast of Africa as far as da Mosto has gone; and land; and find a way, if it can be found, to Ethiopia.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said Julius.

  ‘You have no ship,’ Gregorio said. The lath of his nose, in the lamplight, looked white, and his cheekbones had sharpened.

  Nicholas kept his gaze on him. He said, ‘The papal commander has freed our galley at Ancona for this one purpose. Half the cargo I brought from Cyprus has also gone to Ancona, where the Vatachino can’t touch it. I have a master, and the crew is being hired. As soon as I join her, we sail … Father?’

  Godscalc realised he had closed his eyes. He opened them. He said, ‘Go on. I do not want to be included in any part of what you are saying.’ He waited, and Nicholas looked away.

  Cristoffels said, ‘But …’

  ‘But what?’ said Julius. ‘He’s demented.’

  ‘… but would you take a galley south past the Pillars of Hercules? Out of the Middle Sea and south? It would need a caravel, or a roundship.’

  ‘We have a roundship,’ Nicholas said.

  They took a long time, Godscalc thought, to see what he was driving at. The craft, the contrivance, the devices that had brought them all here to this room, listening to the obvious, inevitable solution to all their difficulties. Then Julius said, ‘The Doria? Nicholas, you incredible bastard. You’ve hit on the idea of recovering the Doria? Where is she?’

  ‘Portugal,’ Nicholas said. ‘We’ve repaid the insurance. I feel we may as well have the use of her until the courts decide in our favour. She shouldn’t be too hard to take.’

  ‘Well, that makes sense,’ Julius said. ‘But after that, why not bring her back? You don’t really want to battle down to Madeira and the Senagana and fight your way across Africa, do you? Anyway, you’d find yourself face to face with …’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘All those who invited him there,’ Gregorio finished. ‘You brought the letter. Portugal is where Jordan de Ribérac went with the Doria, and Diniz his grandson. Portugal is where Simon has gone, and where all his business interests are – Portugal and Madeira and Africa. Portugal is where the van Borselen family went, to recover their grandchild. Simon issued the challenge, and Nicholas all along meant to take it up, and has made it impossible for us or anyone else to prevent him. Stop him, and the Bank fails.’

  As once before, it was Cristoffels who stirred uneasily. ‘But …’ he began.

  ‘Go on,’ said Godscalc gently.

  The young factor cleared his throat. ‘But with such competition, what cargo could he bring back that would save the Bank in a year? With respect?’

  Then Father Godscalc chose to intervene at last, and Nicholas, who had laid his arms on the table, drew them back and sat upright, his head poised, his eyes level.

  Godscalc said, ‘If he were going to Ethiopia, I doubt if he would bring back his life, and certainly not the magic mirror and jewelled sands of the legend. But of course, he is going somewhere rather nearer and much more rewarding; although, it is true, few merchants have managed to find it. But not every merchant has Loppe, do they, Nicholas? In Loppe you have a guide and an interpreter as well as a friend; someone who will follow you anywhere, whom you can expose to any trial and who will not complain. You are taking Loppe to the Guinea coast that he came from, and you expect to bring back all you desire: what will baulk the Vatachino and frustrate Simon’s prospects; restore the Bank and establish you as the wealthy man you now want to be. You know what is drawing him? He is going to the market no white men attend. He is going to sail up the River of Gold.’

  He knew it was useless. He knew, no matter how clearly or how bitterly he spoke, that few of them would see the iniquity of it. Julius appeared transfixed, even translated. On the face of Cristoffels was a growing, confused admiration. Only in Gregorio and Loppe did he see something different. On Gregorio’s face a sort of resignation; and in Loppe’s face, uncharacteristically, anger.

  The anger was for him. Loppe said, ‘I think, Father, that I look like a man. Do I seem to you to have the brain of a child? Do I seem to you like a girl, running after a protector?’

  Godscalc was silent. Then he said, ‘No. I insulted your intelligence, and your manhood. It has been a long night. I am sorry.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Loppe, ‘we have all said enough.’ His eyes were on Nicholas.

  Rose-coloured light filled the low windows, and a seagull wailed. Nicholas said, ‘Yes. We can leave the rest till tomorrow. There is a bed for Father Godscalc?’

  ‘I shall show him,’ said Loppe.

  Outside, although the stairway was dark, there were sounds of distant bustling, and the muted clatter of kitchen activity. Loppe said, ‘There is a place next to Cristoffels.’ On the top floor, he stopped at a door.

  Godscalc said, ‘I didn’t mean to belittle your friendship. I am concerned for him, too.’

  Loppe turned. He said, ‘He will go, no matter what.’

  ‘I realise that,’ the priest said. He paused. He said, ‘In the boat, his answers – half his answers – were meant to mislead. I wish I knew the truth of the other half.’

  In the dark, he could see nothing of the other man’s face. Then Loppe said, ‘The man Tristão Vasquez died as he said. He had stolen vine cuttings for Madeira. The plan was that the lady Katelina should also die, as in the outcome she did. Those who arranged it were the Queen and the lady Primaflora.’

  ‘His wife?’ the priest said.

  ‘Nicholas didn’t know. He thought he had purchased the demoiselle’s safety. Instead, both she and Diniz ended in Famagusta, where she died.’

  ‘Which Nicholas was besieging,’ Godscalc said. Loppe was silent. Godscalc said, ‘And the boy Diniz. Nicholas had freed him, but his grandfather went to extraordinary lengths to take him away?’

  Loppe said, ‘You don’t understand, do you? The family may never admit it, but Nicholas and Diniz are cousins. Nicholas knows it. Diniz, I think, knows it is possible. On Cyprus, Nicholas and the boy built a friendship. After years of hatred, the
demoiselle Katelina also learned to know him, and understand. Nicholas stayed with the demoiselle till her death. He saw Jordan de Ribérac denounce the boy’s trust as unnatural and snatch him away. That is why Nicholas couldn’t race after him. It would only have made matters worse.’

  Nothing stirred. ‘Oh, Lord of Mercy,’ Godscalc said. Then: ‘She died in the siege?’

  ‘Of wounds and starvation. Diniz starved with her, but lived. Nicholas shared their last weeks in the city. He will never speak of it. Many things happened on Cyprus,’ said Loppe. ‘Tobie, John, all of us know them, or guess them. But that was the most terrible.’

  A boat rocking, in darkness. And something unsaid which even Loppe knew nothing about. ‘He will have to speak about Cyprus,’ the priest said, ‘if he goes where I think he is going. He wants to make his peace with Simon, with Jordan, with Tristão’s widow? He will never do it. And there is the sister.’

  ‘The sister?’ Loppe said.

  ‘Don’t you remember, the only sister of Katelina van Borselen? Her mother is dead, her father ailing, her sister killed, she thinks, in the feud between Simon and Nicholas, and Katelina’s child left a half-orphan far from Flanders. There is a family crushed, and no one but Gelis to speak for it. She left for the south as we came here. She will be in Portugal now, with the Vasquez. And there is tragedy brewing, for Gelis van Borselen holds only one man to blame.’

  Loppe said, ‘You speak as if Nicholas didn’t know it. Do you think he planned all this without planning that too? He will deal with his family, and the Vatachino, and finding the gold that he needs for the Bank and the Charetty.’

  ‘He will try. He may succeed,’ Godscalc said. ‘Intrigue is his life, as we saw today, as you saw on Cyprus. Intrigue, and danger, and a taste for what he transforms, often enough, into high adventure. But whether he means it or not, people die.’

  ‘It is a hazard,’ said Loppe, and gave a wry smile. ‘He told me, long ago, not to trust him. It is good advice. One does not leave him, however.’

  Even where they stood, it was now light. Godscalc said, ‘I remember. I remember what was said in the boat. And yes, I shall go with you.’

  He went to his room then, and prayed, and realised that all through his prayers he had been thinking of a tap on the door which had come, once, in Trebizond. But of course men grew, and changed, and tonight the tap did not come.

  Chapter 8

  AS ACCURATELY REPORTED by Godscalc, the demoiselle Gelis van Borselen, accompanied by a small but cowed bodyguard, had left Flanders for Portugal and had arrived, full of purpose, at the Algarve home of her dead sister’s husband. The demoiselle Gelis had found Simon absent, his child and father invisible, and her sister’s killer hourly expected to descend on a household of twittering women of whom the most agitated, by far, was Simon de St Pol’s sister Lucia, who begged her sister-in-law, sobbing, to stay.

  She remained, since that had been her intention, but found it remarkably wearing. The name of Nicholas vander Poele could hardly be mentioned: even so late as today, an incautious word could provoke an outburst. ‘I hate him!’ had screamed Lucia de St Pol e Vasquez, throwing herself on the floor which was of marble, although furnished with cushions. She was Scottish, and perhaps used to rushes.

  ‘We all hate him,’ said Gelis, wincing a little.

  ‘He is a murderer. We shall die here, with no one to mourn us. He is a classical monster, a Crocus.’

  It was an interesting thought, so far as it went. ‘Chronos, perhaps?’ Gelis said. ‘The father who ate all his children?’ There were two members of the Vasquez household in the room, who gratefully left when she nodded. She wondered what other guests usually did.

  Lucia lifted her head. She said, ‘My father Jordan devours all his children. That is why he is so fat.’ Then she began laughing and crying together. She had fallen, as always, without disarranging a strand of her bright yellow hair.

  Gelis sat, looking out at the sea. The wind was in the wrong direction. After a while, the widow said with a touch of petulance, ‘He hates Simon and me. He wants this brute vander Poele to come and kill me.’

  She was probably right. Gelis reflected that the same might even be true of the woman’s son Diniz, who was about the same age as herself and who had not stayed, either, to defend his dam from the brute vander Poele or his grandfather. Then she thought she might be maligning the youth. He had gone to join the Christian fleet. He hadn’t even known, very likely, that Claes was on his way to the Algarve. Claes, or Nicholas. He didn’t use his servant’s name now.

  Since she had arrived on this interminable visit, Gelis observed that they had all been given adequate notice of vander Poele’s westward itinerary. Merchants in four Spanish ports had been notified, and dispatches relayed as far to the north-west as Lisbon. You would think he wished to advise all his enemies. Indeed, he had. Simon, having issued his challenge, was absent.

  She wondered if Claes could know that Lucia was here, unprotected. She wondered if Claes had learned that her own father was dead, and that if he dared to come he would certainly find her here, preparing for retribution. She assumed that he did. With Claes, you left nothing to chance.

  Lucia’s sobs were fading. In a moment, if nothing happened, they would be renewed. Gelis van Borselen rose. She said, ‘You must be brave. Remember the letters from Katelina. She didn’t blame Nicholas. We may all have misjudged him.’ She stooped and gave the woman her hand.

  The woman said, ‘You’re treating me as a child. Your sister wrote them when she was dying. You said so yourself. She would put whatever he told her. He turned my boy Diniz against me. He is trying to destroy every friend Simon has. He’s a fiend in disguise.’ She struggled to her feet, and allowed herself to be placed on a settle. She exclaimed, ‘How could he leave me, my father! He should be here, defending his Lucia!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gelis. ‘I shall do what I can in his place.’

  She kept all the hatred out of her voice; otherwise the poor woman would lose what few wits she had.

  She sat and thought about a broker called David de Salmeton.

  The wind was in the wrong direction, which irritated Nicholas, although it was not always possible to detect it.

  Gregorio of Asti didn’t mind in the least. ‘I really ought to get out more!’ he shouted to anyone who would listen. ‘That’s what Nicholas said!’

  He had proclaimed it before, when the first euphoria of sailing out of Ancona had struck him; and had repeated it since, against various states of the wind. A deskbound man all his life; a man whose only travels for years had been by horse or by mule from one inkwell to another, Gregorio had suddenly received the sea and the sky, and the absence of Margot was his only regret.

  From the moment of their departure, the purpose of their voyage had been made clear to all on board the Ciaretti, from her new Ragusan captain Triadano to her mariners and her benches of oarsmen. Whatever their owner’s ultimate mission, their first purpose was trade: to land and sell on the Spanish and Portuguese coasts the goods entrusted to them by merchants, and to buy in return what they could bring back and sell for profit. Then, with or without their owner, they would return.

  It was known, of course, that having reached as far west as a galley could naturally sail, vander Poele meant to transfer to some other ship for a venture that had to do with evangelising rather than trade. Only the three men travelling with him – Gregorio, Godscalc and Loppe – suspected what ship he intended to use. And when the ports of call were selected – four in Spain and one at Lagos in Portugal – only these three knew, or assumed they knew, that the call at Lagos was the only one of the five that really mattered. Which was not strictly correct.

  The truth was, in any case, that the sea swept such problems away; swept away all the conventions and burdens of normal life. The big, crowded ship became home. Whether under magnificent sail or propelled by brown, chanting oarsmen, she throbbed with noise and vigour and movement, with laughter and argum
ent, with an apparent disorder which, on the blare of a trumpet, could resolve itself into a tattoo of running feet; a display of speed and precision which turned Gregorio dumb.

  Then later, under the stars, there would be singing and good food and gambling, and talk. But the talk was about ports, or weather, or women, or fights; or if Nicholas were there, a competition to do with some game, or verse, or story he had just invented. It was not about why they were here.

  For Godscalc, the tap on the door had never come. He hadn’t interfered with the last visit Nicholas had paid to Cardinal Bessarion and his household of expatriate Greeks. He had even agreed to be present at that final encounter, and received with him the Cardinal’s blessing, and the letters which would release their ship and smooth their path at the end of the voyage.

  He saw, with shamed anger, the faith these churchmen placed in them all. This young man was to open a new way to Prester John’s kingdom, isolated by the Mameluke wars. Ethiopia new-found would march side by side with her Christian fellows against the forces of evil and ignorance: the churches of East and West would emerge triumphant as one glorious whole.

  Afterwards, he had said to Nicholas, ‘I will make you hold to that. I warn you. I will not be forsworn.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Nicholas. ‘I heard you the last time.’

  On that last, frantic day, the priest had found it in him to set his hand to whatever was needed. He had taken his share in the talks which persuaded Cristoffels to exchange Venice for Bruges, where he would manage Tilde’s business, while Julius gave up Bruges for Venice in order to take Gregorio’s place at the Bank. The way had been adroitly prepared, and Nicholas had unhurriedly presented his case and unhurriedly obtained their agreement. The priest watched the flush with which Julius concealed his pleasure, and the war in Gregorio’s face as love and anxiety fought with the longing for change. Nicholas had judged it well.

  With Tilde, it had been different. Julius, left to coax agreement from the youthful head of the Charetty company, had met with plain fury. Tilde, storming from the Martelli Palazzo to the Casa di Noccolò, had begun to accuse Nicholas of plotting to ruin her business and ended in Margot’s room, unkindly betrayed by her nerves and her stomach.