Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 8

  He continued in the same subdued voice. ‘Men act in such a way when they are excited. Even your father could not have quelled them, any more than we could, or the soldiers. They are not bad men, your people. They will feel shame tomorrow, and be easy to manage. But still, it should not have happened. If you want, we shall tear up the contract.’

  ‘He wanted to kill you?’ she said. ‘And someone else, yesterday? Why?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Nicholas. ‘I have come to success very young. I make mistakes. I am resented. I can only say, it will never happen again.’ He stopped. ‘If you want, I shall ask the Florentine to pack up and leave. I should see him, in any case.’

  ‘Oh, see him,’ she said. As the shock left her, some colour had returned to her face. She said, ‘The fault was that of the soldiers. I do not see how you could have prevented it. You tried to help.’

  He waited. She said, ‘Your hands are cut. Go and see to the welfare of your man, and then come to the office. I see no reason to disturb our arrangement.’ He watched her turn and walk off. She had not waited for thanks. After a few paces he heard her say to someone, ‘He is there. But be quick about it. It is nearly time to let loose the dogs.’ He saw she was speaking to Julius.

  Since he saw no point in returning to the house, and did not want to go to the booth, the conflict took place where he stood, in the darkening yard with its streams of hot and cold air, and its kernels of dull, glowing fire. Julius simply walked up and said, ‘The man you killed. He was a spy, not an assassin.’

  ‘The man I killed?’

  ‘You let him loose. You knew he was a spy. You guessed who paid him. You wanted to stop him confessing.’

  ‘Why should I want to do that?’ Nicholas said. He cast his mind back. During the chase, Julius must have questioned the soldiers. He hoped Julius was the only person they’d told.

  Julius said, ‘Because you didn’t want his employers to guess what you were up to. Because you’re damned well afraid of his employers, as we all are, and have picked your own dirty way of dealing with them. That man is dead meat, and all the rest of him flayed into ribbons and wrapped round that foul stack of glassware, because he confessed to something you didn’t want known. You do know who employed him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Well, so do I,’ Julius said. ‘He told the soldiers as soon as they touched him. He was paid by the nasty company you tricked into insuring your ship. The Vatachino told him to follow you.’

  Nicholas didn’t reply.

  Julius said, ‘So what was the secret you would go to those lengths to protect? Who is the Florentine?’

  Sometimes, if you let Julius blow off enough steam, you could divert him. Nicholas said, ‘He’s a man working with glass. You know my plans for the island. They could still be upset, and the Signory won’t release a glassworking permit for anywhere else. I want to keep it quiet for a time, and it was worth holding the spy for a while on a more serious charge. Then it would have been dropped, and he would have gone free. That is all.’

  ‘You let him escape,’ Julius repeated.

  ‘I thought he was dead,’ Nicholas said. ‘Damn it, why should I let him escape and tell the Vatachino all he knew, when he was already as good as in prison? Look, do you think we could go in? I’ve got depositions to deal with, and I don’t want to be here when they let the dogs out. Even if you think it would be appropriate.’

  ‘Where is the Florentine?’ Julius said. It had been inevitable.

  ‘It’s a business secret,’ said Nicholas austerely.

  Even in the dark, he could see Julius flush. Julius said, ‘I have shares in your God-damned Bank.’

  ‘Have you? Well,’ Nicholas said, ‘all right; but don’t tell the Charetty company.’ And he led Julius, expectant and softened, to the booth by the wall.

  He wished that, sometimes, fate would settle for drama or comedy. He wished that the more difficult events of his life were not always in terrible juxtaposition to the ludicrous. He had fading hopes that, one day, he would wake up and find that he was firmly in one successful mode, and about to stay there. He reached the low booth and rapped on the closed shutters.

  If he had been nervous of Nicholas before, the man inside was now frankly terrified. When he was persuaded at length to open the door, it was necessary to spend quite some time explaining the running about and the shouting. To make it worse, as they were speaking the dogs began barking again.

  ‘She promised,’ the fellow kept saying. ‘Monna Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi. She promised I should be protected. I shouldn’t be in Murano. I should be under guard in a city. I want to go back to the Strozzi in Florence.’

  ‘Of course,’ Nicholas said. He avoided looking at Julius. ‘You may go where you please. But only here can you work with cristallo. I understood this was your greatest ambition?’

  ‘It is true,’ the man said. (‘Monna Alessandra?’ Julius murmured.)

  ‘And you are having success? It is providing the results that you hoped for?’ (‘And her son Lorenzo,’ Nicholas murmured back.)

  ‘Beyond my wildest dreams,’ said the Florentine, looking from one to the other. ‘It is true. It is unsurpassable.’

  ‘May we see?’ Nicholas said ‘It is new and wonderful to us all.’

  He watched the man rise and disappear. Julius said, ‘What have the Strozzi to do with it?’

  ‘They supply barillo, salt-marsh weed, for the soda ash. They know the market. Monna Alessandra wants to make a lot of money almost as much as I do.’

  He watched the Florentine coming back with the flat-lidded box in his hands. They had been discussing these boxes, he and Gregorio. He didn’t think they were as good as they should be. He saw Julius frown as the thing was set down. It was perhaps a foot square, and all of three inches deep. The Florentine opened the lid.

  Artists always wanted to draw Julius, although he rarely had the patience to let them. His face would have looked well in marble; the blunt symmetry of the cheekbones and the straight, classical nose were enlivened by the slanting, archaic eyes with which he examined his fellows. Trained on the box, they were blank.

  ‘You’re staggered, I knew it,’ said Nicholas. ‘So many sets! You’ve never seen so many, and look at the binding. It’s leather. And the box. Two long double wells, and look how every piece lies without touching. Near vision on this side, and long sight on the other. Try one. Tilde’ll love it.’

  And before Julius could move, he lifted one of the Florentine’s artefacts out of the box, clipped it on to the other man’s nose, and sat back on his heels, gazing at him. ‘Now that,’ said Nicholas, ‘is what I call a miracle. You look like Catullus. Or Vitruvius, maybe. Or you would, if they ever wore spectacles.’

  ‘Spectacles?’ Julius said. He moved his chin carefully up and down. Behind thick circles of glass, his eyes looked like ships’ biscuits. The upturned V on his nose gave him an air of fearful surprise which was not entirely misleading.

  ‘Rodoli da ogli precisely,’ Nicholas said. ‘Never before ground quite like this. Never before created from the special pure glass that only the Barovier know how to make. That lot, once the permit comes through, is destined for the Duke of Milan. After that, the King of Naples. Then Rome. Then Flanders. Then France, Spain, Germany, England. Every court will want to have them.’

  ‘They’re all blind?’ Julius said. He pulled the lenses off, with some difficulty. His face had gone red. ‘It’s a wonder they manage to win so many wars.’

  ‘Scholars need them,’ Nicholas said. He put a pair on his own nose and peered about in a bemused way. ‘Painters, teachers, men of the church, men of the law. Ordinary people as well, but they can’t afford them. Courtiers? They seldom need them, of course, but they’re not going to refuse if their short-sighted prince suggests that there is nothing more dashing than a bit of glass on the nose. They’re a mark of nobility.’

  ‘You hope to make them one,’ Julius contradicted. His eyes were beginnin
g to sparkle.

  ‘No, they are. The Strozzi family have been acting as dealers for years, but their glasses are not very good. The market is there. We just have to step in and capture it.’

  Julius was staring at him. He said, ‘I see what makes people want to put you quietly out of the way. Who will this make you popular with? Apart from your better-known enemies?’

  Nicholas considered. ‘I don’t think the Medici will like it very much,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think they would bother to kill for it. Sir, my colleague is in ecstasies over your lenses.’

  ‘He is?’ said the Florentine. He looked pleased. He added, ‘I get little company. Perhaps you would both stay and share a flask of wine?’

  ‘We must go. But,’ Nicholas said, delving into his purse, ‘you will permit us to come back, and drink our health meantime? There is so much to ask and to see. That is, if you feel you could bring yourself to stay? I must tell you, such genius should not be wasted in Florence.’

  ‘You are kind. You are kind. Yes,’ said the Florentine. ‘Under such patronage as yours, an artist must flourish. Monna Alessandra said so herself.’

  ‘I’ll wager she did,’ Julius said, as they bowed themselves out of the door. ‘What percentage is she to get? How much did you leave him just now?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ said Nicholas. ‘It’s very noisy. Why is it so noisy? Oh, great God, they’ve let out the dogs.’

  He walked with Julius to the landing-stage to see him board the Bank’s boat and leave with everyone else to return to the city. On the way, recollections of the early part of the evening returned, naturally enough, to chafe Julius, but to a milder degree.

  Nicholas was able to explain that the bodyguard, from unsolicited good feeling, would support their story that the dead man had been a would-be assassin. Gregorio knew he was not, but affirmed that accusing the Vatachino would do more harm than good. Julius, applied to, agreed that something should be done about the Vatachino company; brokers, dyers, sugar refiners and malign opponents.

  ‘They’re devils in Bruges,’ Julius said. ‘A man called Martin, making deals where he shouldn’t. It’s damaging everyone’s business – Simon’s as well as ours.’

  ‘A man called Martin?’ Nicholas repeated.

  ‘Yes. Was that the man who poached your dyeworks in Cyprus?’

  ‘No. That was a man called David,’ Nicholas said. ‘Two men in the field, therefore. Who else?’

  ‘That’s all I know of,’ said Julius. ‘And the man or men who operate them. But I’ve no idea who they are.’

  ‘Then perhaps we ought to find out,’ said Nicholas.

  Within sight of the boat, Tilde jumped out and ran towards them. She looked frightened. Nicholas said, ‘Tell her about the spectacles. That’ll cheer her up. Gregorio knows.’

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Julius said. ‘I thought you did everything on your own nowadays.’ He smiled at Tilde, who had abruptly arrived, and, flicking her cheek, turned her to walk with them back to the boat. She held his arm. She had heard the story of the glassworks assassin. She was close to alarmed tears.

  Gregorio, watching all three approach, didn’t rise, Nicholas noticed, and appeared dry-eyed to a degree. Here and there in the lawyer’s schooled face were traces of a number of unhelpful entrenchments that needed to be thought about. Loppe, seated beside him, said nothing, which sometimes made Nicholas angry.

  Nicholas said, ‘And what a day of good cheer it has been. Have you had a merry time, friends? So did we. Blood, carnage and sack, and now, although less exciting, the Magistracy of Murano in its pomp. But be not disturbed. He that is greatest in office is but a statue of glass.’

  ‘When are you coming?’ said Gregorio. He spoke in Italian.

  Nicholas switched to Tuscan and made it quite loud. ‘Who can tell? Go to bed. We have a fricassé to bury.’

  ‘You’re frightening Tilde,’ said Julius impatiently, getting into the boat.

  ‘No, I’m not. Her Italian isn’t good enough. I’ll call on you. In a week.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Julius said. ‘I’ll be round tomorrow with Godscalc. I forgot to tell you. Father Godscalc is here.’

  ‘Is he?’ said Gregorio.

  ‘Is he?’ said Nicholas. ‘We must try to keep him in business.’

  He waved them off and walked back to the glasshouse rather slowly. Undeniably, Julius had had the last word.

  Chapter 6

  DURING THE DAYS that followed, the act of watching Nicholas vander Poele became a popular Venetian pastime. Among the watchers, no doubt, were those who wished him no particular good. The remainder were divided among those who were captivated by his energy, his person, or his habit of making himself the centre of a welter of bloodshed.

  He gave them plenty to look at, even though he was equally skilled (as his colleagues discovered) at evaporating when he wanted no witnesses. They saw him (he had his own two-oar barchetta by now) being swept along this canal or that, usually with his manager or some other colleague beside him. They saw him cross St Mark’s Square at noon with a column of retainers and emerge from the Palace having, so rumour said, paid for his Venetian privileges, including his house, with a loan which would give the captain-general a few peaceful nights.

  They saw him on foot, always accompanied, running up and down bridges and along footpaths in many different quarters: by the quays, or among the network of workshops where the weavers were, and the craftsmen in carpentry. He was seen coming out of a rope-walk, and going into a sugar refinery. He was interested, it seemed, in rare books.

  And people, of course, visited the Ca’ Niccolò. It was said that he had brought strange things from Cyprus – weaves of silk and patterns of carpets of a kind rarely seen – and was investing money in having them copied. It was said that, in between selling his cargo, he was buying many things, of which the cheapest was hemp seed. It was said (but the Collegio didn’t confirm) that he had acquired an island north of Murano, and imported all that was necessary to erect on it the world’s finest glasshouse. It was said that he was spending ducats in the style of a prince, and much of it on entertaining. This last, Gregorio could endorse.

  He had been half-prepared for this phenomenon: the correspondence from Cyprus had foreshadowed it. Translated into physical terms, the shock of one man’s vitality had brought the building to life. Now, as well as the crammed hours of talk and travel, he found himself executing the role of a banquet-manager.

  He and Margot, of course, had entertained, although not on this scale. It was his job, as well as his pleasure. His weakness was poetry, but he was fond also of music, and had found himself a master who would teach him the finer points of the fiddle and psaltery. They were acquainted with painters and writers and had a circle of friends with whom they played cards and took wine, as well as the grander circle of clients who would come, now and then, to sit in their courtyard and listen to some new composition, and whom they would attend on some formal, slight occasion in return.

  He knew, of course, that many of those same noblemen had land and interests in Cyprus, and that their higher involvement was or had been with Nicholas. This was borne out by the frequency with which Nicholas disappeared into their homes. Most of them lived near the Rialto, having the money and the mercantile interests to justify it. The social life of the Bank lost Nicholas periodically to the Loredani and the Corner and the Bembi, to the Contarini and the Zeno. Sometimes Gregorio and Margot were commanded to accompany Nicholas, even though it was not entirely sure that they had been invited.

  The homes so treated generally belonged to merchants with young, lively wives, and especially those living in matrimony with the three princesses of Naxos, one of whom had been at Trebizond and two on Cyprus at the same time as Nicholas. Gregorio never discussed this interesting aspect of life at the Ca’ Niccolò with Julius, although Julius frequently asked.

  The personal life of Nicholas engaged Julius a great deal. When calling to chat to Gregorio, whic
h he did remarkably often, he always brought the conversation round to where Nicholas spent his nights. It was, of course, a recognised courtesy that well-run houses should be made known to a newcomer, pending his choice of more exclusive companionship. Nicholas would receive no lack of advice and no lack of offers for the latter, Gregorio thought, as each host showed himself eager to help. He was surprised, himself, at the quality and good looks of the candidates, until he remembered the existence of Primaflora. On Cyprus, Nicholas had not only chosen a courtesan, he had married her.

  To Julius, Gregorio always said, ‘I don’t know what he does, it’s up to him. But after the last two, I don’t see him rushing to marry.’ There were times when he regretted summoning Julius. He was filled with foreboding by the presence of Tilde and her accusations and acrimony.

  He was relieved, consequently, when the situation between Tilde and Nicholas seemed, with time, to be easing. Whereas Julius always seemed to find Nicholas absent, Tilde’s occasional visits to Margot often led to a passing encounter, and once to a trip to his office, where Nicholas showed no objection to Tilde seating herself by his table and asking a number of pointed questions about mercantile matters.

  He answered her, Gregorio noticed, with remarkable candour, taking for granted – which was true – that she had long known the basics of business, having helped to run her own since her mother died. As the conversation developed they sounded like cronies, each taking turns to ask and to comment. Then Nicholas, having apparently judged her capacity, launched into a proper description of the joint agency he was planting in Alexandria, quoting harbour dues, custom taxes, bribery scales, fondaco charges, storage costs, range of goods per season, and percentage profit after freight and insurance, all mixed with examples and anecdotes, and suffused with a kind of dream-like enthusiasm that was, Gregorio thought, only half manufactured.

  It worked with hardened merchants and clerks; it didn’t fail to bewitch an aggressive, plain girl of seventeen with a good grasp of business. When at the end Margot came to take her away, her colour was heightened and her flattened nose shining. She hadn’t asked any more questions about whom he’d killed lately, or who would run the Bank when he was dead. Gregorio thought she would probably cool down outside, and then wish she had. He made to leave, but Nicholas called him back to his seat. Nicholas said, ‘They’re not doing well.’