Caprice and Rondo (94 page)

‘Yes, there is,’ Kathi said. ‘You kept your word to yourself and your family. You didn’t betray her. We found out for ourselves. But she is
relentless. Even Julius is at risk, never mind your own family. Once he knows you are alive, he will try to fight you. And she will let him.’

He looked at her, his lips shut. She said, ‘Everyone knows at least a little, barring my uncle. If you want to blame someone, blame me. Also Gelis and Tobie and John. Within the company, the secret is out. It needn’t become public; it’s enough that my uncle knows that David de Salmeton is coming, and his precautions will serve against both. But you must realise that there is no need to escape. You are not alone any longer. We are here.’

‘You are mistaken,’ he said.

And, her eyes full of pity, Kathi said, ‘No. We have proof.’ And told him everything.

At the end, she did not touch him, as Anna had done, so that he took his own time to lift his head from his hands and look up at her. Her face looked pinched.

He said, ‘You do know everything, don’t you?’

‘Tobie is a doctor,’ she said. ‘As I tell it, the story sounds bald, but he spoke of it all with compassion. He understood Esota. He understood Jaak and the girl. He made us all see how it happened.’ She paused. She said, ‘She is beautiful, and has so many gifts. You must, many times, have felt close to her.’

‘She knew who I was,’ Nicholas said. ‘She begged me to give her a child.’

‘But—’ Kathi began. She sounded stricken.

‘I know,’ Nicholas said. ‘It was meant to sicken me, later.’

It was late. The brazier glowed. Despite the warmth, he felt stiff, and his arm ached. He remembered, abruptly, what else had happened today. He said, ‘The news about Jordan de Ribérac. Does anyone else have to be told?’

Her face was hollow: she looked as tired as he felt. She said, ‘About the Vatachino connection? My uncle and Wodman won’t make it public, I’m sure. Someone ought to tell Diniz in confidence, and perhaps the rest of the Bank. Who else is there? Ah! You don’t want Gelis to know?’

He said, ‘She will have to know. I should like to have the chance to tell her.’

‘That should be easy enough,’ Kathi said. ‘She’s shut up in Ghent. She won’t hear anything there. And Jordan de Ribérac must be the least of her troubles.’ Her eyes scanned him, in the way Tobie’s did, and her voice became sober and quiet. ‘Don’t leave us,’ she said. ‘Between us, we shall see this finished, as it should be, without shame.’

‘It is too late for that,’ Nicholas said. ‘But yes, I shall stay. I have seldom found my private life the subject of a company project before.’

The words made her check as she rose, and he was sorry, but found it
impossible to add anything normal. She bade him good night, her eyes clear, and went out, leaving him the candle, and the brazier, and the half-open door.

He shut it, and went to lie on his bed.

T
HE
COLD
DEEPENED
.

In the Hof Ten Walle at Ghent, the lady Gelis van Borselen was seated on the floor with her son, companionably mourning a broken mechanical toy, when Clémence entered. Drawn to her feet by her expression, Gelis joined her. ‘News of Tobie?’

‘There is always news of Tobie,’ Clémence said, which was indeed true. ‘This is news of your husband. Good news. Come and sit. Now. Your instinct was right, as we knew it would be. He is alive. He is well. He is in Bruges.’

It was all there was to know, and it was only a whisper, not to be repeated; not to be told even to Jodi for safety’s sake. But hugging her resistant son later, Gelis returned to the whisper over and over. He is alive. He is well. He is in Bruges. And soon, please God, they would face one another again, and say what should have been said long ago.

I
N
THE
D
UKE’S
CAMP
at Nancy, all incoming news paid its debt to distance and snow, and the fate of Nicholas was still an unresolved question. Tobie, penning his regular letters to Ghent, had said a great deal about discomfort and boredom, but less about the Duke’s increasing irascibility; the temper that had killed a man, against all the chivalric code, for carrying news to the besieged inside Nancy, so that Duke René, to save face with his allies, hanged one hundred and twenty Burgundian prisoners in retaliation.

Robin, reared on dreams of chivalry, possessed of that rare brand of selfless rectitude to which Nicholas owed his life, had been revolted. Astorre, his experienced antennae trained rather on the activities of the Count of Campobasso, that well-known renegade, merely pointed out that Nancy still had provisions for two weeks, and no doubt would end it all after that.

He still appeared to think that he would be home for Christmas. It annoyed him extremely to learn that the King of Portugal was on his way, in the flesh, to ask his cousin Duke Charles to finish the war. You got the same kind of thing all the time from the Pope and the Emperor and the King of Hungary, but they didn’t trouble to come in person and tie the camp into knots.

The garrison in Nancy, feeling its dried meat and sour milk, if not its
oats, made a sudden sally, set fire to a whole row of tents and seized some guns and provisions. The Duke was furious, and Astorre was not best pleased himself. A mercenary deserved a tight, well-led army. He tried to think of one.

I
N
B
RUGES
, the fortress of the Hôtel Jerusalem was penetrated, after some lengthy preliminaries, by the director and chaplain of the Hof Charetty-Niccolò in Spangnaerts Street, and Diniz and Father Moriz laid eyes, for the first time for three years, on the discredited patron they had sent into exile.

Nicholas, liberated for the occasion into the luxury of Adorne’s empty parlour, greeted them mildly, in the way of a visitor renewing a passing acquaintance. Disconcerted at first, Father Moriz began, without comment, to respond in the same way. Diniz, highly uncomfortable, answered questions about Catherine and Tilde and extracted, painlessly, their stepfather’s scribbled endorsement of Catherine’s marriage. Then Nicholas asked after the daughter of Diniz and Tilde.

‘Daughters,’ Diniz said, his face lighting. ‘Marian and Lucia.’

‘Lucia?’ Nicholas said. His voice had warmed. ‘For your mother.’ And after a moment, ‘How proud she would have been.’

It seemed to Diniz that he could be natural at last. He said impulsively, ‘I shall tell my daughter. When she is old enough, I shall tell her how her grandmother died, and what you did, you and Julius.’

‘You must do as you please,’ Nicholas said. ‘And Julius now? He must be anxious to know if his business survives.’

‘We correspond,’ Moriz said. ‘That is, he has written to us. He has proposed several times to come to Bruges, but never at a time when Diniz or myself can be present.’

‘That seems wise,’ Nicholas said. ‘Now, what can I tell you that would be helpful?’

They talked about business. It was as effective as any discussion they had had in the past — more so, because of the maturity now so evident in Nicholas. It might have lasted longer had it not inevitably strayed towards the personal. The subject of Gelis and her informed assistance in Venice, Bruges and Ghent was mentioned only once (by Father Moriz) and dropped immediately. Diniz, speaking of business intelligence, had been moved to blurt out, ‘We got your messages after you left. And the money. Why give us your money?’

‘I am afraid,’ Nicholas said, ‘I have no idea what you mean.’

But their dismissal came when Diniz remembered his grandfather, Jordan de Ribérac. He sat, his dark eyes full of anger and shame, and said, ‘How could he do it! He set out to ruin the Bank, and me, and you,
and was too base to admit it. He even let Gelis join him.’ He broke off and said, ‘I always thought Adorne might be behind the Vatachino.’

‘He didn’t know until Wodman told him,’ Nicholas said. He rose from the chair. ‘So that is sufficient? I was glad to hear all your news. But we ought, perhaps, to avoid becoming too close as yet.’

Returning home, Moriz had halted Diniz in the midst of a tirade. ‘What did you expect? He let us down, we sent him away, and he has come back without leave. He is bound to be cautious. Also, by chance, we know far too much — all the most personal details of his childhood; all about Anna. She is still his family, and we have the power to destroy her.’

‘But he needs us,’ said Diniz.

‘He knows that,’ said Father Moriz. ‘Today, he set the tone for all our future meetings. The next one is the one that will matter.’

B
EHIND
HIM
, Anselm Adorne had re-entered his parlour, and chosen to invite Nicholas to remain and take wine with him. Then he asked to be told about Caffa.

It was, of course, to be expected. The loss of the Crimea was the worst blow that the Genoese Republic could have sustained, isolating their precious island of Chios, in which much of Adorne’s fortune must be wrapped up. His cancelled mission to Tabriz had had a personal importance as well as a public one. Replying, therefore, Nicholas took infinite pains to describe and then analyse the situation as he had found it, and then, continuing, to develop his assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Uzum Hasan and, so far as he could judge, the Ottoman Empire. Lastly, he spoke of the Tartars and Muscovy.

It took a long time. Occasionally, Adorne would interrupt with a question, and often he himself paused, in case he had misjudged what was wanted. But he was allowed to continue, and by the time he had concluded, two wine-flasks had been emptied and Anselm Adorne, a little flushed, was scrutinising him from his chair. He said, ‘I used to be reckoned to have a hard head for liquor.’

Nicholas relaxed. He said, ‘One has practice, among Slavs.’

Adorne said, ‘You know that what you have presented is a perfect report. The dispatch an ambassador is expected to supply at the end of his mission.’ His gaze, despite what he had drunk, was still excoriating.

Nicholas said, ‘Ludovico da Bologna will bring the Pope something like it, and the Pope will probably disregard it. No one has ever understood or even believed what Father Ludovico has told them. Rulers give feasts with nobles dressed up as Persians and Turks, dancing and miming to laughter. Ambassadors from Georgia and Mingrelia are
reviled as impostors because of their bald heads and strange clothes. Only Venice — and it is to her credit — only Venice, with all her far-travelled envoys, knows that this is what these peoples are like, and these their customs. Venice made Ludovico a priest, even though they had to lie about it to Pius. He is a hero.’

There was a silence. Then Adorne said, ‘Ask him if he will give me his report.’

‘He will,’ Nicholas said. ‘He was your representative. He did what he did because there was no chance that a Genoese would succeed. You would have been killed. You will get his report. You will also have mine. I have written it out for you to give to the Duke.’

‘Present it yourself,’ Adorne said. His gaze remained penetrating.

‘It would prejudice my trade, if I return. I would rather you betrayed Uzum Hasan’s secrets,’ Nicholas said. ‘Unless you object.’

‘You imagine you can bribe your way back?’ Adorne had said then, abruptly.

‘I think it unlikely,’ Nicholas had said. It was no more than the truth, and made him feel uncommonly gloomy.

He remembered presently finding his way to his room, and his bed. When he next wakened, it was because someone wished to take him elsewhere, to a larger room without bars, where the door was neither guarded nor locked. In the long journey home, he had taken one step, perhaps.

It did not mean that he was in free communication with anyone. He saw Kathi, usually in the children’s room, where he had been introduced to the rowdy vigour of Margaret and the chubby sweetness of Rankin. They spoke of nothing personal, but she made no objection to fulfilling some unusual requests to do with paint, and small wood and metal objects, and springs. He renewed his acquaintance with Phemie, but never stayed with her long. The same applied to Dr Andreas, who sought his company more than he appreciated, once Nicholas had learned all he wished to know, which was the whereabouts of his young and lissom friend Nerio.

Since Nicholas was not allowed to go out, Nerio came to the Hôtel Jerusalem, on a day when Adorne was absent. He looked at first sight the same: the beautiful boy who, dressed as a girl, had shamed Adorne’s son in Venice, and then in Rome, and who had spied on Nicholas and Violante his mother in Cyprus. The exile from Trebizond who had become a guest, with his compatriots, at the Burgundian court.

In the light from the window in Nicholas’s room, it could be seen that time had passed. Nerio was twenty-four now, his skin coarsened beneath the light paint, his eyes anxious under the languor. He came in, none the less, like a courtesan, and, clasping his hand, stretched to
kiss Nicholas lasciviously on the cheek. ‘My dear! No more a banker! A scarred and beautiful giant, bruised by Fate, striding relentlessly onwards!’

He drew away, with his triangular smile, and then glanced down, for Nicholas still held his hand. ‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said.

‘Why?’ said the boy. But the paint stood out on his cheeks.

Nicholas said, ‘Your father is dead.’

It was like breaking the news to a girl, you might say, except that Nicholas had seen bearded men sit weeping like this, mewing in the extremity of their distress as the story unfolded. He had kept a flask of something strong for the time when it ended, but the boy crouched on his seat and did not touch it. Nicholas sat not far away, and said nothing until the sobs died, and Nerio lifted his head from his fingers. Nerio said, ‘He would be here but for you.’

‘I didn’t ask him. I didn’t know,’ Nicholas said.

The immense, drowning eyes were full of anger. ‘Why you, and not me?’

‘Both of us,’ Nicholas said. ‘Whatever he believed was to happen, you have a role. He told me.’

‘But without him,’ Nerio said.

‘Would you have him live on in pain?’ Nicholas paused. ‘I told you that he had left all the gold he had hidden for you.’

The lead-heavy wood had cost him something to bring across Europe, but Nerio lifted it in both hands and flung it from one side of the room to the other. A joint gave, and a few coins spun and settled. ‘Do you think that I care?’ Nerio said.