Race of Scorpions

  Her eyes, grey as water, looked unseeing straight at him. ‘How terrible,’ said Primaflora.

  Nicholas, having got clean away, celebrated by taking a decision. By a route long and circuitous, he would convey himself southwards for the rest of the winter, stopping where he had never been. Cologne, for example. He had introductions to three people from Colard, and Godscalc’s name would produce more. He thought he might find something of interest in Basle. If he put off enough time, the spring campaigns would get under way and, one way or another, he would find where his friends were. The main army that had once been his wife’s had wintered, presumably, on the Adriatic. It was that part of the east coast called the Abruzzi that had seen much of the fighting to do with the challenge to Naples. It was there, or south of there that Astorre and his men would make for, he thought.

  And Tobie? Tobias Beventini of Grado was a short-tempered physician who had preserved his life at least once, and who had expected Nicholas to buckle down to business after the death of his wife. After a stand-up quarrel in Venice, Tobie had taken himself off to the Count of Urbino, who frequently led the Pope’s armies in the war to protect Naples from Anjou. Nicholas considered making towards Urbino to see what news he could find. It was on his way to the Abruzzi, and he had time and money to spare. Time and money to lose. Time and money to throw away, since there was nothing particular to spend them on.

  Alone for the first time in his life, he let chance dictate his route. He stayed at inns, and bought the services of a groom or a guide as he needed them. He fell into casual talk with the people he met, allowing the motley facts he was given to pass unexamined into his consciousness; ignoring the slots, the niches, the network into which he should be fitting them. If something roused his curiosity, he pursued it without haste for its own sake and surprised himself, sometimes, by discovering something very like a new pleasure.

  The first time this happened was in Cologne, where he stayed for six weeks. After that, he learned to foster some instinct which told him which place, which person, which road, which new experience was worth his attention. The journey, he began to see, was not unlike his first taste of Louvain and its library where, with Felix grumbling beside him, he had stepped from shelf to shelf, looking at books or unlocking and sampling them. He was crossing countries now, and scanning their offerings.

  His anxieties grew less insistent. Sometimes he would fall into conversation with a man and feel what he had not felt for a while, an inclination towards understanding and friendship. Towards the less appealing, he felt amusement, and very seldom irritation or anger. Having dropped the frayed network of commerce he began to see, or was reminded, that there were other worlds to be mastered in much the same way. Observations randomly made would arrive at a sudden coherence: from filling cells would emerge the full honeycomb of a well-founded interest. He made room for it all, as he had made room for his gear on his pack-mule. When riding alone he also began, very occasionally, to sing.

  He did not lack the chance of feminine comfort, but preferred to stay free. At times, he came close to admitting that this was unnatural. The easy love, the friendly tumbling of pretty girls had ceased when he married, and the constraint for some reason persisted. There had been one brutal exception: the night in Venice with Violante of Naxos. But Violante was the royal-blooded wife of a merchant, prostituting herself for amusement. For the rest, he had been told it was common: the impulse, after bereavement, to bury the dead in excess. Once or twice, he thought of what Anselm Adorne had told him. If he married, Tilde’s fears would be put at rest. He had not reached a point where Tilde’s fears were of importance. He kept out of churches.

  His movements were not, of course, uncharted. His career for eighteen months had been remarkable: in the small world of merchants, a newcomer, an accumulator of bankable wealth, was perceived as an opportunity as well as a threat. Those friends of Colard and of Godscalc’s who met him in Cologne were swift to convey their impressions to Bruges. The Medici couriers, cross-hatching Europe, wrote accurate dispatches, in cipher, to Italy. There were other agents, as well, who received commands and who made reports, in French or Flemish or, once, in Greek, on his journeyings. Punctually and efficiently, news of his every movement was carried to Anjou where, as it happened, Katelina van Borselen was staying.

  Who is Katelina? A woman in Anjou. So, once, Nicholas had diverted a question and he had not, in fact, lied. Katelina van Borselen was, although his own age, fully a woman: she had become, if recently, both a wife and a mother. She didn’t belong to Anjou, but could be found there. She came from a royally-connected dynasty in Flanders, and had divided her time since her marriage between Scotland and Portugal.

  She was married to Simon de St Pol, whose loathing of Nicholas was only exceeded by her own. And she was in Anjou, much against her inclinations, with the obese and powerful father of Simon, who frequently commanded her company on his travels. Jordan de Ribérac was the King of France’s adviser in financial affairs, and when he talked of business matters, she listened to him. She did not enjoy travelling with him. The alternative, however, was staying with Simon. And she was learning. If Simon’s business was to prosper, she had better learn.

  Katelina van Borselen had been twice now to the vast castle of Angers, fountain of all pleasures. Angers was a seat of René, King of Sicily, Count of Provence and Duke of Anjou whose son John of Calabria was in Italy, leading the new season’s fighting for Naples. The court of Anjou had a magnificence about it that Burgundy, for all its wealth, could never quite match. Katelina took away impressions of paintings and tapestries, ostrich plumes and grey and white taffetas and everywhere, manuscripts. King René, a man in his fifties with a young and beautiful wife, was himself the source and arbiter of half the beauty around him, and not merely the patron.

  Now, he had relinquished the struggle for Naples to John, his son by his first wife. He viewed from a distance the fortunes of his daughter Margaret, bred to battle like John, and fighting to preserve the English throne for her husband Henry against a fierce Yorkist claimant. To those who helped his children, King René opened generous doors. The Flemish Queen Mother of Scotland gave aid and shelter to Margaret. His nephew Louis of France (a race René neither liked nor admired) yet had the power to help not only Margaret but Duke John in Naples. René of Anjou was therefore willing to welcome Jordan de Ribérac and Katelina his son’s comely daughter, whose provenance from that viewpoint was quite excellent. René loved handsome objects, young and old, but the love was simply that of an epicure. His Queen, half his age, was his passion.

  She was with him now, in the spacious chamber he used as a workroom, and so were half the court, as well as Jordan de Ribérac and his son’s wife Katelina. On the table before King René was an elaborate painting; an illustration for an allegorical romance he had just invented. His eye on his brush, the King hummed to himself occasionally, and occasionally spoke, showing that he was quite aware of his deferential audience, and not averse to teasing them. When he required observations, or broke into discourse, it was frequently Jordan’s opinion he asked. He smiled kindly, now and then, at Katelina.

  No one, thought Katelina, could regard the father of her husband as an object of beauty. Once, the big frame, rolled in fat, might have belonged to an athlete. Now it was simply the bolster upon which hung his silks and velvets and furs, and within which his cruel wit resided. Before kings, he sheathed it a little. It was never quite absent.

  The King addressed him. ‘My good lord Jordan: we see too little of your lovely kinswoman. Why not leave her with us while you attend to your business in the south? Your fleet at Marseilles must be crying out for you.’

  ‘It is my common fate, your grace,’ said the fat man Jordan de Ribérac. ‘Also, as it happens, they are crying out for crew members. The Queen of Cyprus has sent her ship on to Nice, and her shipmaster is clubbing children and rivetting them into the benches.’

  ‘So you said. It is being looked into,’ said the Kin
g. He withdrew his brush and sat back, his eyes on the painting. He turned. ‘But of course, when they sail, your ships will sail without you? I am not surprised. They would sink.’

  ‘They frequently sink, whether I am on them or not,’ said the vicomte de Ribérac. ‘I prefer to leave adventuring to my son, Katelina’s husband.’

  ‘Then I trust he is faring better than mine,’ said the King. He selected a fresh brush, and dipped it in colour. ‘Your Simon has no taste for warfare? I have not heard, at any rate, that he has been persuaded to support Duke John in the war against Naples.’

  Jordan de Ribérac smiled, a matter of compressing several chins. ‘He has yet to master trade, monseigneur,’ he remarked. ‘I feel it will take a decade or two before he can successfully contemplate strategy.’

  ‘Is that true, madame?’ said the King over his shoulder. ‘Defend your husband. You know no man wins praise from this cynic de Ribérac.’

  In Jordan’s company, Katelina was driven to feel pity, sometimes, for Simon. She treated the jibe, in any case, as a loyal wife should. ‘Monseigneur, I have no need to make excuses for my lord Simon. Wherever tournaments are held, his name is recognised. He loves independence, and will follow his fortune. That is why he is in Portugal, with his married sister. Her husband needs Simon’s help to market what he grows, and he has joined them in business. They have formed a new company.’

  ‘In Portugal?’ said the King.

  The fat man answered before she had a chance. ‘Or in its remote, safer colonies far from Flanders. Simon has a running war with a bastard of his first wife’s in Flanders. He feels secure in Madeira.’

  ‘That isn’t true!’ Katelina said.

  René smiled. ‘Pray go on. My lord Jordan?’

  ‘About the bastard? Nicholas vander Poele, he calls himself,’ said the vicomte, folding his heavy arms and contemplating the ceiling. ‘An unfortunate youth with a talent for numbers. He married his employer, killed all his nearest relatives, and made a great deal of money bringing Venetians and gold back from Trebizond. It is said that the Queen of Cyprus intends to recruit him.’

  Katelina sat up.

  ‘Indeed?’ said the King. ‘On what grounds have you formed this expectation – Ah! The gossip from Sor de Naves’ Sicilian carrick in Nice?’

  ‘Your grace is percipient,’ de Ribérac said.

  ‘My grace has finished,’ said René. He laid down his brush, wiped his hands, finger by finger, and turning, rose. So did everyone else. The widow Spinola, who cared for the royal jewels, said, ‘A masterpiece, my lord king.’ The man called Lomellini agreed. There were a lot of Genoese in Anjou. There were men of many nationalities. Perrot, the King’s own confessor, bore a name well known among merchants in Bruges. The King employed also a Scotsman whose son was an Archer in France.

  She heard King René asking about the man Roland Cressant, and the fat man replying. He was familiar with the Archer bodyguard of Louis of France. To secure the King’s goods, Jordan de Ribérac was permitted on occasion to borrow their services. They were all young and stalwart and Scottish and took the place, she supposed, of his own disappointing heir. She didn’t suspect him of vice. As she had reason to know, his tastes ran to women, not men. And to food and drink, she supposed. About his private life, she was glad she knew nothing.

  The King’s painting was exquisite, and they had returned to it. De Ribérac, straightening, exclaimed in his sonorous voice. ‘Masterly. By every standard, delightful. His grace has been more generous with one wing of the angel than he has with the other.’ He raised his eyes to King René, who smiled.

  ‘I have met one man who is not a sycophant. M. le vicomte, you are right. To you, and you alone, I entrust the task of making both angelic pinions identical. Perhaps your lovely good-daughter will aid you. So I can hope for no practical help from that noble jouster, your son?’

  ‘From Simon?’ said Jordon de Ribérac. ‘Whatever side he joined, it would lose. Whereas from me you will extract angelic feathers, from Simon, you could hope only for lead.’

  ‘My lord exaggerates,’ said Katelina.

  ‘Do I?’ said Jordan de Ribérac. He had bright, cold eyes, set in a face coloured and smooth as a child’s. He said, ‘Then perhaps you will persuade him away from his ledgers. I can offer no other hope.’

  ‘Why, my lord Jordan!’ said the King. ‘Is your family sterile of warriors? What of the bastard grandson in Flanders? He at least has frightened your son.’

  She wanted, this time, to shout a denial. Unshakable in his hatred, Simon was not afraid of Nicholas vander Poele. Like his father, he despised him. Jordan said, ‘The youth Nicholas? Bastardy does not, fortunately, make him my grandson. If he were, I would control him. Nicholas, according to my latest information, is indeed going to Italy. Unhappily, he proposes to fight against Duke John of Calabria, not for him.’

  King René appeared struck. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘I thought you said he was going to Cyprus.’

  ‘The Queen has invited him. I cannot tell if he will accept. Certainly he is on his way to take part in the Naples war first.’ Jordan de Ribérac paused, and in his face Katelina thought that she saw a new mildness. He added, ‘If they meet, your honoured son has my full permission to kill him.’

  King René considered, the velvet drape from his hat falling gracefully upon one slender shoulder, the bows of silver and gold sparkling on the breast of his coat. He said, ‘There would be a dramatic nicety about such a thing. I see that. Better still, of course, if it were to be his cuckolded father who killed him. My lady here should tempt my lord Simon from Portugal. He would listen to her. The Heart as Love’s Captive. The theme of my book, my lady Katelina.’

  He smiled, sweeping past her. He was, in fact, genuinely amused. René of Anjou relished these encounters with Jordan de Ribérac whose brain, of all others, he suspected to equal his own. The vicomte came to Anjou for many reasons. This time one of them had to do, the King suspected, with the little lady called Katelina. It was interesting, too, that the conversation had turned so insistently on this improbable young man from Trebizond. It was clear that the fellow incensed the dear vicomte. It was also a recognised truth that the best way to be quit of a man was to set a woman upon him.

  Watched from every quarter, the war for Naples renewed itself, and soon the antagonists were locked in their annual struggle. In high summer, Nicholas rode into Urbino, and unsurprisingly found it was empty. The Count had been south for weeks, on campaign in the duchy of Sora. The Albanian army, with Astorre, was further south still. Nicholas rode south. Three days later, he approached Urbino’s encampment.

  Once, briefly and insignificantly, Nicholas had seen action under the Count of Urbino. Federigo da Montefeltro was of that breed of landed mercenaries who fought under contract for money. Then, when each winter came, he took his fee back to Urbino to spend it on matters truly close to his heart: on beautiful buildings, on paintings, on manuscripts; on his people, his lands, his côterie of poets and scholars. Nicholas could see why Tobie wished to study this prince. He himself had, at that point, no thought of depriving Urbino of Tobie.

  The sun was still high when he picked his way down to the Chiento valley, and making his business known, was escorted into the encampment. A wait followed. The place, he observed, was in a state of fevered activity. As he watched, a tent was deflated. They were marching then; in which case Urbino might well be too pressed to see him. He sat at ease, without especial impatience. He was still waiting and watching when Tobie emerged from a hospital tent.

  The physician stopped. The Duke’s secretary, who was walking behind him, stopped as well, and followed his gaze. ‘A dealer of some kind, from Bruges. Do you know him? He wants to have words with the Count.’

  ‘Nicholas vander Poele,’ Tobie said. He dragged his black cap off his crown and then slapped it on again, as the sun struck his bald head. ‘Trebizond. The Charetty company.’ He stared through the dust at the distant figure of Nicholas, who was not lo
oking at him. Some tailor had cut him a light-weight doublet in dun-coloured silk that set off his height and reduced the bulk of his artisan’s build. Or his physique had altered, as had his face. In profile, it was firmer on its large bones, with a line or two where there had been no room before. His skin had kept the even mid-brown which it had acquired in the East, and which never grew deeper. At that point, vander Poele turned his head in his direction, and the two familiar pockets appeared in his cheeks, although he neither shouted nor waved. The secretary, whose name was Paltroni, said, ‘I take it the Count ought to see him?’

  ‘I suspect so,’ said Tobie. ‘I suspect he might be going to get a lot of money, and maybe a useful small army. Shall I find out?’

  ‘You do that,’ said the secretary. ‘I’ll warn the Count.’ He peered, with interest, at the distant man. ‘I thought he was somewhat younger.’

  ‘So did I,’ Tobie said. He left Paltroni, and walked off to Nicholas. To vander Poele. He thought of him as vander Poele.

  Nicholas said, ‘You’ve warned him not to see me on any account. Are we still speaking to one another?’

  ‘I’ll do it in sign language if you like,’ Tobie said. ‘It was your company. You had a right to break it up. What do you want here?’

  ‘To make an investment,’ Nicholas said. ‘I suppose the Count can do with some help.’

  Tobie scowled. ‘So you’ve had a slow look round us all, and it’s Astorre you’re going to amuse yourself with. Why not leave him alone? Why not go back to Venice and give Gregorio some reward for his trouble? It was Gregorio who set up the Bank for you, and got kicked in the teeth for his efforts.’

  Nicholas thought, his lips in the kissing position. ‘You don’t think the Count of Urbino needs money and troops?’

  ‘I’d be a fool to say that. You’ll be in his tent in a trice, with your heels smoking.’