Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 4

  ‘Tell that to Tilde,’ Julius said.

  They went to tell it to Tilde. On the way, in between pricing the furniture, Julius learned that Nicholas had left before dawn for a series of meetings which (he gathered) might well last until nightfall. Nicholas would be compelled to see to his cargo, to report to the Signory, and to spend some time at the yard where his damaged roundship was being placed in dry dock. He had also (Gregorio said) sent to arrange several personal visits.

  ‘I can guess where,’ Julius said, though he couldn’t. When Nicholas was a boy, the whole of Bruges always knew where to look for him, give or take a hayloft or two. Of course, he was out of the kitchen league now. Ruminating, not without some nostalgia, Julius climbed the staircase and found himself confronting Loppe, planted foursquare at the top like a tombstone. Julius seized and shook his hand, while Loppe’s teeth and eyes shone. Until joining the Charetty company, Julius had never expected to find himself on any sort of terms with a Negro; but Loppe, of course, was unique. He hoped to God, again, that Tilde would behave herself. Gregorio opened the doors of the salon.

  Both the women were there. Margot got up and came forward. No one had ever worked out how a man like Gregorio, with his pedantic style and scrag-end face and abysmal swordsmanship, could attract and keep a handsome woman like Margot. Julius, like everyone else, had tried to fathom why the two didn’t marry, and had even asked two or three times, but without receiving much satisfaction. He could imagine several possible reasons. Julius himself, as it happened, was the result of an embarrassing slip by a celibate. He didn’t know where Margot came from.

  Mind you, youth counted for something and, even beside Margot, Tilde de Charetty didn’t come off too badly. She had missed her mother’s strong chestnut hair and high colour, but she was rounded all right where she should be, and her solemn expression suited the shape of her face, although her brow, like her temper, wrinkled too easily.

  After Marian’s death, Tilde had gone about in old-fashioned thick-folded robes, with her brown hair in tightly coiled plaits. As her manager, Julius had found it depressing. Recently, however, she had seemed to take stock, and sent her mother’s costlier clothes to be remade. Today her hair rippled loose from a caul, and she had on an exceptional pendant and an overdress grand enough to be bridal. She had behaved remarkably well, too, on the journey: six weeks from beginning to end, with all the roads crowded, and snow and mud over the Alps.

  Of course, she had travelled here from Flanders before, escorted that time by Gregorio. Now, she jumped up flushing as soon as the lawyer entered the room, and her expression changed to a smile. She had expected Nicholas, Julius saw. She had always blamed Nicholas for inducing her mother to marry him, and had a good deal more to blame him for now. That was why she was here. Concern for her trade was the least of it.

  Gregorio looked pleased to see her as well. He took her hand in his old-fashioned way and said, ‘Demoiselle, welcome to Venice. You look charming. We are all so happy to see you.’ He didn’t release her. He said, ‘You remember Loppe? Now factor for all the Bank’s sugar estates.’

  The flush and the smile had been for the man who was kind to her when her mother died. Loppe was the slave elevated by her mother’s apprentice. ‘I remember him, of course,’ Tilde de Charetty said. ‘That old broker at Sluys had him before we did. It must be useful, being able to swim.’

  Fortunately, in all the years Julius had known him, Loppe had never taken offence. He said, in his accentless Flemish, ‘Buoyancy, demoiselle, is always an asset.’ He had had command of five languages even when he first came to Bruges. He waited, and sat when Tilde did.

  Tilde looked at Gregorio. ‘Margot says you don’t mind our coming?’

  ‘No, of course not, although you’ve missed Nicholas. He’ll call on you as soon as he can, that I promise. Where are you staying? With the Medici bankers again?’

  ‘Yes. Margot seemed to think,’ Tilde went on, ‘that we might see Claes today. In a few minutes. When he steps in on his way to Murano. Perhaps we might go to Murano along with him?’

  She had called Nicholas by his dyeyard name, and you could see Gregorio didn’t much like it. Or perhaps it was the suggestion about Murano he didn’t like. Julius found his interest sharpening. Murano was an island one mile north of Venice. Why was Nicholas going there? He said venturesomely, ‘A voyage? In this heat, what could be better? Unless, of course, we should be intruding?’

  ‘Perhaps he has a wife there,’ said Tilde de Charetty. ‘Another wife. He seems very carnal by nature.’ She sat, her hands in her lap and her eyes modestly on them.

  Julius nearly laughed. Instead, he said hastily, ‘We kept hearing gossip.’

  ‘There was something, a matter of form,’ said Gregorio. ‘Nicholas has no ties at present. I don’t really see why you shouldn’t come with us to Murano. Nicholas and I have an appointment, but you could pass the time viewing the island. And you can exchange all your news on the way.’

  ‘He’s not in prison then?’ said Tilde de Charetty.

  Gregorio, rising to summon a servant, turned and stood still. ‘No. Why should he be?’

  ‘We heard about yesterday’s killings. Didn’t he kill someone yesterday? And these stories of what happened in Cyprus. You know. That’s why we’re here.’

  Gregorio came back. He said, ‘I thought you were here to make sure he respected your dyerights in Bruges.’

  He’s worried, Julius thought. He’s not sure of Nicholas. But now he rather likes the idea of our meeting him. Why?

  Tilde said, ‘Tommaso Portinari says vander Poele has turned into a soldier and got a taste for killing, the way some people do.’

  Like an extremely deep bell, the soft voice of Loppe contradicted her. ‘I should not say so, demoiselle, and I was in Cyprus.’

  Tilde turned her head. ‘I thought you were on the sugar estates.’

  ‘Then perhaps,’ Loppe said, ‘let me say that I was in the boat yesterday when the two men were killed. One was an assassin, and the other his hireling. Meester Nicholas shot one of them only, to preserve his own life.’

  ‘And that is true,’ Gregorio said. ‘If you want to know more, Nicholas will tell you, I’m sure, when he comes. Meanwhile, I should much rather hear your adventures. Let me send for some wine, and perhaps something to eat.’ He went again to the door.

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Julius. ‘But to return to the shooting. Who paid the assassin? Do you know?’

  A servant appeared. Gregorio spoke to him before he replied. Then he said, ‘It seems to have been an Egyptian. Someone from Cairo with a grudge against Nicholas.’

  ‘Because of the massacre of the Mamelukes in Cyprus. We heard about it in Bruges,’ said Tilde de Charetty. ‘Claes. I couldn’t believe it. Tommaso Portinari –’

  ‘You heard in Bruges?’ Gregorio said.

  She looked at him in the way Julius knew all too well. She said, ‘I told you, that’s why we came. Because of the letters from Cyprus to everyone. I don’t really think Nicholas will want to keep his Bruges bureau open now, do you?’

  ‘Letters to whom?’ Gregorio said. He came back and sat down.

  ‘To virtually everyone. She’s right,’ Julius said. ‘The Scots, the Portuguese, the van Borselen family. I’m not surprised Nicholas is afraid for his life. I’m only surprised a Mameluke got there first. I hope he’s well guarded.’

  Gregorio looked from Julius to Tilde. He said, ‘And that really is why you’re here, I suppose? If Nicholas dies, you’d like to know our contingency plans for the Bank?’

  He sounded brusque. More interestingly, he hadn’t asked who sent those informative letters from Cyprus to Flanders and Portugal. He didn’t need to, Julius supposed. Everyone, including the insurers, knew who had stolen from Cyprus with the Doria, the Bank’s missing roundship. Everyone knew that the letter-writer was the same person. ‘It’s nothing to do with us,’ said Julius in a mollifying way, shaking his head several times in Tilde’s direction
.

  Tilde said, ‘But the Bank is rich, isn’t it? If they kill Nicholas, Meester Gregorio, will you get all the money?’

  There was the kind of pause that often followed Tilde’s interventions. Then Gregorio said, ‘All the founding members of the Bank possess shares. Those of Nicholas would go to his heirs. The names of these are his own concern, surely. And as it happens, he’s quite well protected. I think you might even count on his survival.’

  It was unlike Gregorio to be caustic with Tilde, but Julius couldn’t blame him. The brat had come here, for sure, chiefly to witness the denunciation and downfall of Nicholas. But there was more to it than that. If Nicholas died without contriving to marry again, Tilde and her sister might have a very good claim to inherit.

  Nicholas arrived half an hour later, bringing with him the heat of the May afternoon and, Julius supposed, an excellent briefing from Loppe, who had excused himself earlier. The doors opened. Tilde half rose and sat down. Julius got up and walked forward and found a reminiscent smile sliding on to his face. He said, ‘You bastard, you look just the same.’

  ‘How disappointing of me,’ Nicholas said. ‘Thriving on money, I suppose. How are you? And Tilde? You’ve caught me, I’m afraid, in a crisis. Would tomorrow be better? Or do you really want to come with me to Murano?’ Julius stopped smiling.

  Quite apart from that discouraging greeting, Nicholas did not, in fact, look quite the same. The stupendous brocade must have impressed the shipyard, if not the Palace. His hair had been brushed straight and compelled to stay that way under an expensive hat of fine straw. Below it, his face had the stretched look that comes after long travelling and dubious food. Julius, recently consulting his mirror, had noticed that he looked almost the same way himself.

  It accounted also, Julius hoped, for the present attitude of high-handed detachment: not something Nicholas had ever been guilty of in the past. Half the time, in the old days, he appeared to be sitting inside your mind. Today, he showed no desire to come closer than spitting distance, even when he turned his attention to Tilde. His gaze, mild enough, reached her face by way of the stuff of her gown and her pendant. And Tilde, sustaining the survey, tilted her head and returned him a smile that made Julius wince.

  Nicholas gave no sign at all that he noticed it. He said, ‘It sets you off, as is perfectly fitting. I don’t want to quarrel. We shan’t do you any harm with our branch. I have nothing to do with dyes now.’

  ‘I know. You lost the royal dyeworks in Cyprus, didn’t you?’ Tilde remarked. ‘To the Vatachino. Julius says the Vatachino are going to be the big new power in trade.’ If you looked closely, you could see she was breathless.

  ‘Everyone in business has a frightening story about the Vatachino,’ Julius said quickly. ‘They’ve got a foothold in Bruges, and they’re into every damned thing.’

  ‘Especially dyes. Perhaps you ought to be watching them instead of me,’ Nicholas observed, still very mildly.

  ‘Julius isn’t refining sugar like you are,’ Tilde said. ‘Julius thinks we should stick to our business. The Vatachino must have cost you quite a bit, this last year or two.’

  ‘It’s kind of you to be worried,’ said Nicholas. ‘But I have tried to hold my own. Would you forgive me? I must get out of this rig before going.’

  Julius always appreciated it when Nicholas made a mistake. He said, ‘Yes, we heard how you were holding your own. You tricked the Vatachino into insuring our old friend the Doria before the old man sailed it out of Cyprus with Crackbene. I hope to God you’re not going to Portugal after it? Or maybe you don’t need to. Did the grasping devils pay up?’

  ‘They paid up,’ said Nicholas. ‘Margot, will Tilde need some sort of head covering? It’s not a long way, but we’ve a barge to tow with us. Suppose we leave as soon as we can?’

  ‘… Because you know who is waiting in Portugal,’ Julius continued, cheerfully unrelenting. ‘The old man sent letters about you. The widow’s there, and her son. The girl’s family are going, from Bruges. I’ve got a letter for you from her husband.’

  He fumbled for it in his purse, while trying not to miss any reaction. He could never understand how Nicholas hid what he was thinking. My God, he must have come all the way from Cyprus knowing that Simon was the first person he’d hear from. He found the packet and handed it over, expecting Nicholas to open it, or walk off to read it. Instead he said, ‘Why not tell me what’s in it? You know already, I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, you can imagine,’ Julius said. Gregorio was glaring at him, and that pretty woman didn’t look very pleased. He cleared his throat. ‘Not knowing any different, they do blame you for everything. They say they will deal with you here if they have to –’

  ‘Deal with me?’

  ‘Kill you. They will come to Venice if need be, but they would prefer you to come west and face them.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The bereaved families,’ Julius said.

  ‘Oh. One by one or all together?’ Nicholas asked. He glanced at the hour-glass.

  Julius said, ‘The old man likes to lay his own traps. His son is the lad who’ll come after you. Really, you’d better explain. Whatever you tell them, we’ll back you.’

  ‘So Simon has challenged me,’ Nicholas said. He still held the letter unopened.

  ‘You killed his wife,’ Tilde de Charetty said. ‘You killed his sister’s husband. You imprisoned his father and nephew, and you would have killed them as well if they hadn’t escaped.’ Margot got up and put an arm round her shoulders. The girl trembled.

  ‘On the Bank’s very own ship. Well, they got their own back,’ Nicholas said. ‘I take it you don’t want to come to Murano? I’m enjoying the talk, but it is getting late.’

  ‘You’re not answering?’ the girl blurted out. Margot’s hand tightened.

  ‘You didn’t ask me anything,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘She was wrong to ask you,’ said Julius. ‘But –’

  ‘She was wrong to ask me,’ Nicholas said. ‘This is my house, and this is something I will not at present discuss. I should have thought the reasons were obvious. If you think you can talk about something else, I shall be delighted to have your company. Excuse me, if you will, while you think about it.’

  In the end they went to Murano, largely because Tilde, although shaken, was determined, and nothing, really, would have stopped Julius. Waiting while Nicholas changed, and Margot took Tilde to her chamber, Julius strolled with Gregorio to the landing-stage. He said, ‘Do you know what happened?’

  ‘In Cyprus? I know what happened, but not why it happened. I don’t know why he won’t explain either, but he always has reasons: I’m not going to push him.’

  ‘Perhaps you don’t want to know,’ Julius said. He waited, and then said, ‘It affects the Bank. Rumours.’

  Gregorio said, ‘Of course he knows that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have written to me. He’s said he’ll decide in four weeks if he’s leaving. I’m willing to wait until then.’

  Julius said, ‘I hear a whisper that he’s taken an island.’ He didn’t say how he knew.

  ‘It doesn’t mean he’s going to stay,’ Gregorio said. ‘He has a factor and two fiefs in Cyprus. He’s free to go anywhere.’ He paused. He said, ‘Would it be breaking a confidence to tell me what was in the letter from de Ribérac’s son?’

  ‘Breaking a confidence!’ Julius said. ‘He wanted me to read it aloud as he wrote it, and make copies for Catherine and Tilde. That letter was written in sulphur.’ He fell silent a moment, remembering.

  Gregorio said, ‘It was his wife who died. The worst thing that could possibly happen. Nicholas and this violent man, at war with each other for years. And now this.’

  Julius said, ‘If Nicholas told me he had nothing to do with the death of Simon de St Pol’s wife, I think I should believe him. So why doesn’t he? The wretched man is convinced it was part of some great murderous scheme to leave him a widower, and that his only child will be the next victim. The grandfat
her thinks so as well. They’ve even sent the boy off to some hiding place.’

  ‘They don’t usually agree, Simon and Jordan de Ribérac,’ said Gregorio absently.

  ‘This time, they do,’ Julius said. ‘By God, they do. Although it was apparently all the old man could manage to prevent Simon from coming straight here to turn our wealthy young friend into pigfood. Instead, they’ve sent him this letter.’

  ‘Which says what?’ Gregorio said.

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to read it?’ said Nicholas, appearing briskly. He tossed the paper, open, towards Gregorio, who caught it just before it reached the canal.

  Nicholas said, ‘It’s not very newsy. It gives me two options. I can remain here and die a bankrupt poltroon, killer of women and gentlefolk. Or, if I wish to call myself a man, I am invited to pursue my lord Simon in his various homes and places of business and be prepared to meet my match in both areas. It doesn’t sound very enticing.’

  He had paraphrased the letter which was, as he said, very short. He had omitted the third accusation made against him. Julius saw Gregorio, reading, halt at the relevant passage. Nicholas, he realised, was watching him. Loppe, who had also arrived, plainly dressed, had walked to the wharf. Julius said, in some discomfort, ‘You see, death isn’t enough. He wants to ruin you. He says you set out to subvert his company.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Nicholas said. ‘He sent his entire family to dismantle mine. Isn’t that the whole object of being in business?’ Gregorio folded the letter and Nicholas took it back, displaying a smile and both dimples.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Julius said.

  ‘Go to Murano,’ Nicholas said. ‘I haven’t got a ship that can go anywhere else. Julius, get the girl, will you? I haven’t time to wait about till it’s dark.’

  They embarked as soon as Tilde came, studiously composed. Reared in Bruges, she was accustomed to water. She stepped down beside Julius into the Bank’s big lagoon boat, while Nicholas and Loppe took their seats. Gregorio, jumping down, spoke to the oarsmen, who wore the Bank’s livery. Beside them were two men-at-arms bearing the Lion of St Mark on their breastplates.