Caprice and Rondo

  ‘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.

  THE 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.

  IN THE DUKE’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.

  IN BRUGES, 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.’

  BEHIND 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 Ador
ne, 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.

  But when Nicholas pressed the cup again in his hands and, leaving him, went to empty the gold into the box he had prepared for it, Nerio did not protest; and he lifted the treasure when, as he left, Nicholas gave it him.

  It seemed that that would be all. But at the last moment Nerio had thrust back, and taking up that sophisticated, elegant leg had carried it off, graceful as Hermes, in the curve of his arm.

  IN A SMALL HOUSE in Ghent, Julius of Bologna had become reconciled with his wife after a period of unusual friction. With Nicholas dead, and Gelis for the moment inaccessible, Julius was inclined to see little point in remaining in Ghent, spending money, when he should be taking command of his business elsewhere. He had wanted to move immediately to Bruges, and then to Cologne, but Anna persuaded him to wait for a little. She still had hopes of talking to Gelis. The future of Bonne was at stake.

  He agreed, against his will. He assumed he might at least visit Spangnaerts Street, but she broke into uncharacteristic tears at the prospect, and he did not speak of it again. He did not tell her that he had tried to arrange a visit regardless, but had learned that both the Bank’s officers would be away. He wrote to them instead: questions about the present state of the German business; a long account of the trade openings he had created in Caffa (before it fell), Poland and Muscovy. He mentioned Nicholas once, in connection with Tabriz, and once more to ask about a tale that Ambrogio Contarini’s chaplain had seen him alive. He had not so far received an answer.

  After two weeks of it, Anna’s firmness of attitude, not for the first time, began to vex him. He knew a fair number of people in Ghent, but she seemed unwilling to entertain them, although she had little else to do. He began to wonder whether the separate couch, the abstraction, the uncertain moods were all truly due to the effects of her injury. He wondered if, in some unthinkable way, she missed Nicholas. And one day, rashly, he asked her.

  Afterwards, he went out into the cold of the garden, and sat and retched. She had not troubled to give him a direct answer. She had simply narrated, movement by movement, the process by which Nicholas had raped her; and then, sinew-cracking and soft, tickling and searing, hot and cold, and finally, unremittingly, brutally agonising, her sensations while he did it, and her longing to die, at the end. He had not even been a man, Anna said. He had not completed the rape. His enjoyment came from the violence.

  That night, Julius wept in her embrace, and the following morning, he had not wanted to leave her.

  He had only determined under duress to visit his usual tavern and only by chance had fallen into talk with a pair of dyers from Bruges who were able to tell him (now, when he had something more important to think about) that Diniz and the German were at home in the Charetty-Niccolò house. More than that, one of them said. Would you believe it, young Claes was supposed to be back? Not that the Bank would admit it. It made you wonder —

  It was as far as he got, since his companion pushed his head into his dish, and shortly after, they left. But it was enough. Kneeling beside his lovely, delicate wife, Julius said, ‘Now you won’t prevent me from going to Bruges. Now I am going to kill him.’

  This time, she did not try to stop him.

  Julius was already beating the froz
en road out of town when the herald of James, Earl of Buchan, appeared in Ghent to announce the long-awaited arrival of his master, Scotland’s envoy for peace between the Duke of Burgundy and Sigismond, Duke of the Tyrol.

  The town was ready. A cavalcade of honour was assembled, and issued in due course to bring the prince to his lodging. It was understood that the Earl’s visit would be a brief one, but the town was gratified to learn that my lord of Buchan would be pleased, as evidence of his delight in the forthcoming illustrious marriage, to attend the town’s banquet to the Ladies of Burgundy.

  He was assured that his brother-in-law Wolfaert van Borselen would be there, with all his van Borselen relatives. And the magistrates (they said) would consider themselves privileged if the Earl were to bring his full Scottish entourage, which included, as it happened, that adroit fellow, his merchant friend David de Salmeton.

  Julius left without hearing the news. Clémence brought it to Gelis van Borselen. Anselm Adorne heard it from his own sources and, summoning Nicholas de Fleury, informed him that he could now leave for Ghent. The purpose for which he had travelled to Flanders was about to be served. David de Salmeton was here, and the mischief must be halted before it could begin.

  Chapter 40

  BITTEN BY FROST, preserved in illusory ice, the phantom Kingdom of Burgundy, the dream of its Duke, the land that was to stretch from Champagne to the Middle Sea, lay white as alum the following morning, as it was to remain for five weeks.

  On the battlefield outside Nancy, it had started to snow.

  In Ghent, the magistrates responsible for the Hôtel de Ville banquet woke to darkness and fog. Lamps glowed from horn windows all day, and the lanterns which lined the grand route from the Gravenkasteel to the Town Hall were no more than ghosts, barely illuminating the ice of the little Leie, and the stiffened hangings and wreaths of the tall, painted houses beyond, and the motionless helms of the town guard, set like street pumps before them. By the time the Duchess’s cavalcade trotted through, even the bells and the cheering were muffled and the street tableaux, to the relief of the players, were cancelled. Everything congealed.