To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo Read online

  Like everyone but the Africans, both companies have underestimated even the size, let alone the cultural and religious complexity, of Africa: no travelers in this age can reach Ethiopia from the East, and the profits from the voyages of discovery and commerce recently begun by Prince Henry the Navigator are as yet mainly knowledge, and self-knowledge. There is gold in the Gambia, and there is a trade in black human beings which is, as Lopez is concerned to demonstrate, just beginning to take the shape that will constitute one of the supreme flaws of the civilization of the West. There is also, up the Joliba floodplain, the metropolis of Timbuktu, commercial and psychological “terminus,” and Islamic cultural center, in which Diniz finds his manhood and Lopez regains his original identity as the jurist and scholar Umar; where Gelis consummates with Nicholas the supreme relationship of her life, hardly able as yet to distinguish whether its essence is love or hatred.

  On this journey, Godscalc the Christian priest and Umar the Islamic scholar both function as soul friends to Nicholas, prodding him through extremities of activity and meditation that finally draw the sting, as it appears, from the old wounds of family. Certainly there is no doubt of the affection of Diniz for Nicholas, and surely there can be none about the passion of Katelina’s sister Gelis, his lover. As the ships of the Bank of Niccolò return to Lisbon, to Venice and Bruges, success in commerce, friendship, and passion mitigates even the novel’s first glimpse of Katelina’s and Nicholas’ four-year-old son Henry, molded by his putative father, Simon, in his own insecure, narcissistic, and violent image.

  On the way to his marriage bed, the climax and reward of years of struggle, Nicholas is stunned by two blows which will undermine all the spiritual balance he has achieved in his African journey. He learns that Umar—his teacher, his other self—is dead in primitive battle, together with most of the gentle scholars of Timbuktu and their children. And on the heels of that news his bride Gelis, fierce, unreadable, looses the punishment she has prepared for him all these months: she tells him how she has deliberately conceived a child with Nicholas’ enemy Simon, to duplicate in reverse—out of what hatred he cannot conceive—the tragedy of Katelina. As the novel closes, we know that he is planning to accept the child as his own, and that he is going to Scotland.

  How Nicholas will be affected by the double betrayal—the involuntary death, the act of willful cruelty—is not yet clear. There is a shield half in place, but Umar, the man of faith who helped him create it, is gone. Nicholas’ own spiritual experience, deeply guarded, has had to do with the intersection of mathematics and beauty, with the mind-cleansing horizons of sea and sky and desert, and with the display in friend and foe alike of the compelling qualities of valor and joy and empathy: the spiritual maturity with which he accepts the blows of fate here may be real, but he has taken his revenge in devious ways before. More mysteriously still, the maturity is accompanied by a curious susceptibility he cannot yet understand, a gift or a disability which teases his mind with unknown events, unvisited places, thoughts that are not his. As much as his markets, his politics, or his half-hidden domestic desires, these thoughts seem to draw him North.

  VOLUME v: The Unicorn Hunt

  Thinner, preoccupied, dressed in a suave and expensive black pitched between melodrama and satire, between grief and devilry, our protagonist enters his family’s homeland bearing his mother’s name. Now Nicholas de Fleury, he comes to Scotland with two projects in hand: to recover the child his pregnant wife says is Simon’s, and to build in that energetic and unpredictable northern backwater a new edifice of cultural, political, and economic power. Nicholas brings artists and craftsmen to Scotland as well as money and entrepreneurial skill, making himself indispensable to yet another royal James. But are his productions there—the splendid wedding feasts and frolics for James III and Danish Margaret, the escape of the king’s sister with the traitor Thomas Boyd, the skillful exploitation of natural resources—the glory they seem? Or are they the hand-set maggot mound, buzzing with destruction, of Gregorio’s inexplicable first vision of Nicholas’ handsome estate of Beltrees? Is Nicholas the vulnerable and magical beast whose image he wins in knightly combat—or the ruthless hunter of the Unicorn?

  The priest Father Godscalc, for one, fears Nicholas’ purposes in Scotland. Loving Nicholas and Gelis, knowing the secret of Katelina van Borselen’s child, guessing the cruel punishment which her sister has planned for Nicholas, the dying Godscalc brings Nicholas back to Bruges and extracts a promise that he will stay out of Scotland for two years, and so remove himself from the morally perilous proximity of Simon, the father-figure whom he seeks to punish, and Henry, the secret son who hates him more with every effort he makes to help him. Nicholas agrees, and turns to other business, mining silver and alum in the Tyrol, settling the eastern arm of his banking business in Alexandria, tracking a large missing shipment of gold from the African adventure from Cairo to Sinai to Cyprus. These enterprises occupy only half his mind, however, for the carefully spent time in Scotland has confirmed what he suspects, that the still-impotent Simon could not in fact be the father of the child whom Gelis has in secret borne and hidden, and who, dead or alive, is the real object of his quest. In a stunning dawn climax on the burning rocks of Mount Sinai, Nicholas and Gelis, equivocal pilgrims, challenge each other with the truth of the birth and of their love and enmity, and the conflict heightens.

  The duel between husband and wife finds them evenly matched in business acumen and foresightful intrigue, tragically equal in their capacity to detect the places of the other’s deepest hurt and vulnerability. But Nicholas is the more experienced of the two, and wields in addition, or is wielded by, a deep and dangerous power. One part of that power makes him a “diviner,” who vibrates to the presence of water or precious metals under the earth, his body receiving also, by way of personal talismans, the signals through space of a desperately sought living object, his newborn son. The other part of the power whirls him periodically into the currents of time, his mind aflame with the sights and sounds of another life whose focus is in his name, the name he has abandoned—the vander Poele/St Pol surname whose Scottish form, Semple, is startlingly familiar to readers of the Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett’s first historical series.

  The professionals Nicholas has assembled around him have always tried to control their leader’s mental and psychic powers; now a new group of acute and prescient friends strives to fathom and to guard him, from his enemies and from his own cleverness. Chief among these new friends is the fourteen-year-old niece of Anselm Adorne, the needle-witted and compassionate Katelijne Sersanders, who finds some way to share all his pilgrimages as she pushes adventurously past the barriers of her age and gender. The musician Willie Roger, the metallurgical priest Father Moriz, and the enigmatic physician and mystic Dr. Andreas of Vesalia add their fascinated and critical advice as Nicholas pursues his gold and his son through the intricate course, beckoning and thwarting, prepared by Gelis van Borselen. In the endgame, as Venetian carnivale reaches its height, this devoted father, moving the one necessary step ahead of the mother’s game, finds, takes, and disappears with the child-pawn whose face, seen at last, is the image of his own.

  Yet there is a Lenten edge to this thundering Martidi Grasso success. Why has Nicholas turned his back on the politics of the crusade in the East to pursue projects in Burgundy and Scotland? Who directs the activities of the Vatachino mercantile company, whose agents have brought Nicholas close to death more than once? Have we still more ambiguous things to learn about the knightly pilgrim and ruthless competitor Anselm Adorne? What secrets, even in her defeat, is the complexly embittered Gelis still withholding? Above all, what atonements can avert the fatalities we see gathering around the fathers and sons, bound in a knot of briars, of the house of St Pol?

  Judith Wilt

  Boston, 1995

  Part I

  Summer, 1471

  Prologue:

  THE CHUTE OF LUCIFER

  Chapter 1

&nb
sp; AMONG THE RICHER class of dealers and traders, the kidnapping of the heir to a bank signifies trouble. Some investors snatch back their ducats at once, assuming that half an ear and a ransom note are about to arrive at the counting-house. Those with propositions to make do not make them. Invitations drop off. The market oscillates; the Bourse proceeds to lose bottom.

  Finding itself assailed by such rumours in Venice, the Banco di Niccolò took immediate measures to quash them. Fortunately, its management was adroit. Business clients were calmed by Gregorio, the company lawyer. The well born were embraced by the handsome notary Julius, and left heartened. The heir to the Banco di Niccolò, they all learned, was aged two. And the kidnapper was the Bank’s founder himself, the child’s legitimate father.

  The client was occasionally puzzled. ‘Ser Niccolò, you say, stole away his own son?’

  ‘Following a disagreement with the lady his wife. An irrational impulse. Ser Niccolò will tire of the boy in a week.’

  ‘Tell me if he does,’ said one client at least. ‘He can have my son instead. I would pay to have the turd stolen. And meanwhile, the Bank goes on as usual?’

  ‘As usual,’ the notary Julius always agreed, tilting his classical head and occasionally smoothing the silk on his uppermost knee. ‘That is, Master Gregorio will be in Venice, as always. I may have to go to Cologne.’

  That was between February and March.

  The news spread.

  The Duchess Eleanor of the Tyrol heard the tale from a band of noble pilgrims from Venice on their way home to Bruges in the Low Countries. Their leader Anselm Adorne broached the subject. ‘You will have heard. Nicholas de Fleury has disappeared. A dispute over a child. I am sure his company will keep you informed of it.’

  ‘Nae doubt,’ said the Duchess, who was Scottish. They had been hunting from her castle of Brixen. She finished feeding her dogs and, wiping her hands, picked up her embroidery. Despite her lack of youth and her girth, she was as adept in the field as she was at fending off probes about mineral rights. She said, ‘And how’s the wife taking it then? Glad to get rid of them baith?’

  ‘Glad!’ exclaimed Adorne’s son drolly. Adorne’s niece Kathi screwed up her face.

  ‘Katelijne?’ encouraged the Duchess.

  ‘Gelis is very sad,’ said the girl.

  ‘Sad. Deary dear,’ said the Duchess. ‘Mind you, that’s a handful, that fellow Nicholas. And you’re a mite peaky yourself, my wee lass. Come to me later, and I’ll find ye a potion. And how did ye manage on Cyprus? Is yon feckless lad Zacco properly married yet?’

  That was in the middle of March.

  The King of Cyprus, who was not properly married yet, heard the news in the third week of March, in the hills where he was hunting with leopards. Two days later, his party somewhat depleted, he rode back to Nicosia and called to the table the envoys of Venice, of Rhodes, and of all those other peoples who were immediately threatened by Turkey.

  ‘It appears,’ said Zacco of Cyprus, ‘that despite all he promised, the padrone of the Banco di Niccolò is not to fight at our side. De Fleury has fled. He has abandoned us, and his God. I cast him off. I wait to hear what you offer instead.’

  The man from Cairo sighed; the Venetians shuffled; and the Treasurer of the Knights of St John muttered under his breath. The consul for Venice said, ‘There is, my lord, the joy of your coming consummation with our daughter your Queen.’

  In Rome, the news was handled by the Bank of Niccolò’s agent Lazzarino, who sought to present his patron’s dramatic exit as an episode in a family tiff. Such acceptance as this received was then abruptly overturned by the Patriarch of Antioch, come in March with an envoy from Persia to press a Crusade on the Pope.

  ‘Nicholas de Fleury?’ roared the Patriarch, a hirsute Franciscan blessed with resonant organs. ‘The self-serving Ser Nicholas de Fleury, who put the fleshpots of the West before the fight for his Church in the East? Well may he vanish. And when he materialises once more, wherever in Christendom that may be, he will find my crucifix at his jaw and my fist at his snout to change his mind for him.’

  ‘He has taken a child?’ said the Persian thoughtfully.

  ‘Because the mother annoyed him. He himself is no more than a scab on the good name of huckstering. But of such persons the Lord can make use – with your help and mine,’ said the Patriarch.

  The news came in April to Scotland, where Nicholas de Fleury had several homes. The high-born ladies of Haddington Priory were especially shocked. ‘A baby so young! He snatched the child from its mother and vanished! What will the poor lady Gelis do now?’

  A letter from Bruges had acquainted them with the news. ‘Sir Anselm declares,’ said Phemie Dunbar, to whom it was sent, ‘that the lady Gelis was quite wild in her despair, combing Venice for news of the boy. Sir Anselm grieved for them all, and so did young Katelijne, but they could do nothing about it. We are to give the news to Sersanders his nephew.’

  ‘So what will the lady Gelis do now?’ said Betha Sinclair her cousin.

  ‘In her place,’ said the lady Phemie, ‘I should wait.’

  ‘Obviously. M. de Fleury will tire of the child,’ the Prioress said.

  ‘No,’ said Betha. ‘But I’ll make you a wager. When he’s ready, he’ll make sure his lady wife knows it. And if she wants the boy, she’ll have to come to him, not the other way round.’

  ‘How terrible!’ said the youngest nun, her face rosy.

  Most importantly of all, the news came that same month to Picardy, where the armies of France faced the armies of the dukedom of Burgundy across the banks of the Somme. Trivial though it might seem, the report caused each ruler to act.

  The Duke of Burgundy sent for his captain of mercenaries. ‘I am disappointed, Astorre. Your company is serving me well. But I am told that your patron has vanished – fled, some are saying, to the detriment of his Bank. Is this true?’

  Captain Astorre had fought under better men than the Duke, including the Duke’s own late father. He employed his comfortable voice. ‘My lord Duke, you well know that Master Nicholas turned his back on the gold of the East in order to help you settle this quarrel with France. No doubt he or his officers will come to tell you themselves, but I can assure you of this: the Bank stands in good name, and I and my men have all the arms and silver we need to keep our bond to the Duchy of Burgundy.’

  As it happened, the Duke knew this was true. It didn’t lessen his annoyance with the vanished Nicholas de Fleury.

  In the castle of Ham, over the river, the King of France sent for his fiscal adviser. ‘You were in Venice. Indeed, my dear vicomte de Ribérac, you have been absent these two months when we needed you. Now we hear this troublesome banker is to support Duke Charles instead of ourselves. Or has he some other patron in mind? We are told he has vanished.’

  One could seldom tell, within such a volume of flesh, whether Jordan de Ribérac was disturbed. His voice remained mellow. ‘Monseigneur is well informed. M. de Fleury has left his lady wife, and wishes apparently to deny her access to their son. The situation will resolve itself. The Bank is secure.’

  ‘We spoke of this before,’ said King Louis. ‘You were unable to bring me the child.’

  ‘I have not given up hope,’ said Jordan de Ribérac. ‘A banker’s son reared at the Court of France might prove a jewel of some price. We speak of maintaining Lyons, reversing the Tyrol, seducing Savoy, keeping Scotland in thrall. My lord knows what de Fleury has done to our harm.’

  ‘He may be reconciled to his wife,’ said the King. ‘He may have many more sons. Where is the lady?’

  ‘Searching for him, of course,’ said the vicomte. ‘But I am told that latterly she has abstained from her quest, no doubt recognising that her husband cannot remain absent for ever. She is on her way to Cologne, I am told, with the company notary Julius.’

  ‘A comely man?’ said the King.

  ‘A man who has found a fortune and a place in society through the success of the Bank. But not, I unde
rstand, an athlete of the bedchamber.’

  ‘Perhaps his tastes will now change. Tell me again about the redoubtable M. de Fleury. He is a kinsman of yours?’

  The vicomte did not sigh, but the cost of his restraint could be glimpsed. ‘He is a bastard of my son Simon’s dead wife. My son Simon, who keeps my castle in Scotland.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Louis. ‘Then if he comes here, I expect you to bring him to see me. I speak of M. de Fleury, not your son.’

  ‘I have sent my son to Madeira,’ said the vicomte; and this time he exhaled like a jet from a pudding.

  Of the three people who. all this time knew where Nicholas de Fleury might be found, two had been trained to distrust him, and one was too young to hold an opinion.

  Several weeks before the baby (now kidnapped) was born, Clémence de Coulanges had come to serve Gelis the mother, and had stayed to tend mother and baby. Convent-reared, convent-trained, Mistress Clémence was a lady as well as a nurse, even though her parents (report said) had neglected to wed before dying. Her elderly amanuensis Pasque was neither a nurse nor a lady, but, grumbling, fetched and carried and washed, and chivvied the wet-nurse when the time came to hire her.

  Pasque was in the last resort respectful of Mistress Clémence, who held herself upright as a hat-stand of wood, and had been born, you would say, middle-aged. Pasque was even more in awe of her employer, the lady Gelis van Borselen, who carried her babe with the spunk of a countrywoman, even though the child was her first, and a desperate burden. It did not seem right to Pasque that the Lady’s husband should stay so long overseas, and never ask for her.

  It seemed downright cruel that the Lady gave birth to her fine son alone, struggling in agony hour after hour, while her husband neither sent nor tried to come till weeks after. And by then even Mistress Clémence knew that something was wrong, although the Lady never offered a confidence. It was Madame Margot, the Lady’s companion, who told them that the lady Gelis was afraid that her husband would take against his new son, and so the boy must be hidden.