Niccolo Rising (75 page)

A sequence of small, contemplative splashes emerged from the bucket. “You had a fire,” Tobie said. “Deliberate?”

“I know who did it,” Nicholas said. “I’m the target. While I’m here, they’ll be all right in Bruges. Now we have all this money, they can put the business together again.”

Tobie’s short mouth widened. His round, pale eyes stubbed themselves on his cheeks. He placed two hands on his stool, and lifting both dripping feet deposited them tenderly on a towel. He said, “Pray sit down. Take my bed. But don’t go to sleep before you’ve told me. How rich am I?”

Nicholas sat, with the care of a man who has ridden sixty difficult miles in extreme heat, and who is not feeling his best. He said, “Not as rich as I am, but you can hope to leave buttocks behind you. Why the sore feet? A new cure for piles? Are you vatting your patients and treading them?”

Tobie lifted one foot and started to dry it. “I’m glad you’re so happy,” he said. “And I only hope I’m worth as much as I deserve to be, after
riding all over Lazio with those two drunken miners of Zorzi’s. Messer Caterino Zeno was impressed, then.”

“Everyone was impressed,” Nicholas said. “We share the concession with the Genoese.”

Tobie caught his little toe in the towel and screamed,
“What?”

“Why d’you think I put you on to Camulio? We’ve got to work with the other merchants in Bruges. We need Adorne. We need the Adorno. Venice and Turkey may always fall out. And we could do with friends on Chios to keep an eye on what the Venetians are doing.”

The doctor’s bald head had flushed. The wispy hair by his ears swelled and released drops of sweat. He said, “I should have arranged it myself. You should have crawled all over those hills with two alum miners and an enlarging glass. The concession’s worth nothing once Tolfa’s discovered. That adventurer da Castro’s begun prospecting already with his astrologer friend. Did you know that?”

“No,” said Nicholas.

“And the name of the astrologer friend, my numerate colleague, is Zaccaria. Did you know that?”

“No,” said Nicholas.

“No,” repeated the doctor. “Then think about this. The French are already governing Genoa. The French would like to attack Burgundy. The French would like to get Sforza out and put their own man into the duchy of Milan. And the rumour is that they’re asking Venice to help them. So no Adorno, no Sforza, and no way of frightening Venice with the new alum mines. If Venice helps France to conquer half Italy, the next Pope will be French and Venice will work the new alum herself.”

Nicholas had opened his purse. He sat holding with both hands the paper he had drawn from it until Tobie paused, and then he leaned forward and offered it to him. It was covered with figures. Tobie took it and read them.

“Your share,” said Nicholas. “It’s banked as you wanted it.”

Tobie rubbed his nose, which was running, with the back of his hand. He read it again, his fingers making wet marks on the paper.

Nicholas said, “I don’t think, do you, that Venice will agree to help France? I don’t think France can afford to attack anyone unless perhaps the Lancastrian side wins in England. But they would have to win quickly, because they say the king of France is unwell. If he dies, the Dauphin would be king. Gaston du Lyon is travelling backwards and forwards because Milan and the Dauphin are planning an alliance already. And then – of course, someone will find the Tolfa mine. Maybe Zaccaria. But not quite yet. That’s the payment we’ve already got for our silence. And if we get only one consignment, a really big one, it will help. And there’s the silk deal.”

“What silk deal?” said Tobie. He was still staring down at the paper.

“To reassure Florence. I’ve arranged it with the Venetians. Florence gets a certain amount of cheap alum too, but in return for equal exports
of cheap silk to Zorzi in Constantinople. Florence also wants to trade in the Black Sea, but they haven’t a consul. Venice doesn’t want them to have a consul. If the Emperor of Trebizond and the Medici insist, Venice will see to it that the agent proposed is the Charetty company.”

Tobie slowly laid down the paper. “Breaking ciphers,” he said.

Nicholas grinned. “Honest trading,” he said. “We could invest in a ship. Felix would like it. Julius could run the whole agency. He would probably have to learn Turkish.”

The doctor’s pale eyes examined him, as if for an infection. The doctor said, “You’re half serious, I think. You’re thinking of outlets in case I’m right and you’re wrong and France expands into Italy? But soon the Dauphin may be king.”

“One day Felix will be head of the Charetty business,” Nicholas said. “And a sterner master, I suspect, than old Cornelis ever was.”

The doctor got up. He walked in his bare feet to the tent door and rattled on the post, and when his servant came, sent him off with the bucket and a list of instructions. He turned back and, sitting down, picked up his hose. He said, “They skirmish on the plain sometimes at night. Daytime too. Nothing serious. They shout at one another and issue challenges but that’s all they can do. Until someone sends us more troops, we can’t get past that bastard to Naples. Do you like hens?”

“In their proper place,” Nicholas said. “Why? Do you have some?”

“Twenty thousand,” Tobie said. “We took a lot of mules too. Oxen. Sheep. You probably noticed the fields after you got over the Tronto. The corn all cut clean and threshed. Good farmer lads, these Urbinati.”

The door opened. He went on dressing as a table was unfolded and set, and platters laid on it. A wine-jug and cups made an appearance. Someone carried in and propped up a second bed. Nicholas got up and sat down at the table. He said, “What did they do with the corn?”

“Took it to market,” said Tobie. “And sold it to the needy peasants and their needy lords for a lot of money. And that’s just for their living expenses. You should see what the commanders have picked up in the way of treasure. You haven’t asked if I’m with Lionetto.”

Now he had started eating, Nicholas was so hungry his jaws ached. He said, “I don’t need to: you’re sober. Why did you stay in the Abruzzi?”

Tobie said, “Count Federigo asked me. The commander.”

Nicholas said, “And?”

The doctor said, “For a condottiere, he’s fairly uncommon. You’ve heard. He rules Urbino, and Urbino’s no paradise. His only riches are soldiers. They’re good, too.”

Nicholas looked at what he could see of the other’s face over a chicken. He said, “You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Tobie sharply. He tore the fowl to pieces.

The meal was long over and they were asleep in the darkness when
there came the only alarm of the night, and that was not from the enemy. It was Lionetto who ripped the tent lacings apart and kicked the beds, one after the other, the lantern swinging in his hand. The first thing Nicholas saw, turning over and looking up through narrowed eyes, was the bush of shoulder-length carroty hair, the bulbous nose, the skin uneven as tweed in the lamplight.

Lionetto’s smile rarely displayed, as now, his obelisk teeth. He said, “There’s Greek for you, and names for all the unnatural vices. That’s the brat I flung in the sea. It didn’t cleanse him.”

Nicholas returned the gaze, lying quite still as he was. His skin sparkled with sweat.

Tobie jerked into sitting position. One lamplit nostril had curled like a snail. He said, “The lord Federigo has sent for him perhaps?”

“Now I’m sorry to hear that,” said Lionetto. “So Urbino is tainted as well. Is this wine? You don’t mind. The news has made me thirsty. Oh. There now. I spilt it.”

The trail of wine crossed the floor, and the wrinkled sheet on Nicholas’ bed, and ended in a pool at his throat. Lionetto laughed down at him, the goblet tilted still in his hand, and Nicholas continued to gaze back, saying nothing. “You look better now,” Lionetto said. “Wet.”

Behind, Tobie was on his feet, scalp glittering, eyes round and threatening. He said, “And he’s got more patience than I have. You’re drunk. I’ll report it.”

“Drunk?” said Lionetto. He strolled back to the table, hauled out a stool and sat on it to refill his cup. He said, “Half the camp’ll be drunk by tomorrow, illustrious medical man. Drowning our sorrows. Hiding our poor little fears. What’ll the high-handed widow do now? The pawnbroker’s daughter that thought she was a man. But you showed her she wasn’t, didn’t you, wet boy? Married her. Didn’t bed her. Couldn’t bed her. But got the business. What business? Burnt business and all her little soldiers gone and dead. Poor old bitch.”

Nicholas sat up. “News from Naples.”

The doctor, arrested staring down at Lionetto, suddenly leaned forward and knocked the wine out of his hands. “Is it? News from Naples?”

Lionetto roared. Nicholas acted, scooping up the fallen cup, filling it, and thumping it in front of the captain. Then he stood, his hand on the doctor’s elbow, holding him. “Tell us,” he said. Veins of wine crawled and tricked over his skin. He shivered.

Lionetto said, “If you go outside, you’ll hear Piccinino’s men starting to cheer in a minute. The survivors are just coming through. Naples is lost. Ferrante’s dead. The army’s smashed. And you know why? Because the handgunners hadn’t been paid, and crossed to the enemy. Ferrante had Duke John and all his army penned up in Sarno. Instead of starving them out, he attacked them. And the handgunners stood on
the walls and shot red holes through their helms and their cuirasses until there was no one left to fight.”

He drank off the wine and looked up grinning. “Astorre’s men. Using handguns you bought for him. Now he’s dead, and you’re both safely here with the condotta money.”

“Be quiet,” said the doctor. He was looking at Nicholas, who had shivered again.

Nicholas said, “No. They were fully paid. Julius would see to that. And Astorre had control of them.”

Tobie said, “It hardly matters.”

It didn’t, of course. Astorre. Julius. And Felix.

Lionetto said, “Well, it matters to the statesmen, I dare say. Now France can put their candidate into Naples. But I’m all right. A contract till September and I can go back home. Or cross back to Piccinino.”

Tobie said, “What’ll happen now?”

“Here? Piccinino has nothing to do but stay there on his hill, blocking our way. Maybe in a week or two, the Duke of Milan and the Pope will raise more troops and try again. Another thousand and we could offer the little Count battle. We could march south and take back some of the towns that used to be under Ferrante. But we couldn’t take Naples. That needs a whole new force on the east.” He cocked an ear. “I told you. Listen.”

Through the stuff of the tent there had appeared, bright and dim, the blooming of many lamps, and the red of revived fires. You could hear the confused sound of talk, getting louder, and a braying and barking as livestock were roused.

“I thought you’d like to be among the first to know,” said Lionetto. “That’s not a bad wine. I’ll take the jug with me.”

He left. No one spoke. Nicholas released the doctor’s arm and moved alone to stand where the doorway canvas hung open. As Lionetto had said, the news had now reached the enemy camp. The cheering from the hillside was faint, but getting louder. “And now?” said Tobie’s voice with deliberation. “Another set of figures?”

Nicholas stood in the doorway and listened. The cheering that was getting louder was different from the cheering on the opposite hillside. You could never mistake it for a victory shout. It was a straggling, sympathetic acclaim, accorded to men who had fought well, and lost. It came from their own encampment. Under Nicholas’ grasp, the tent flap gave way. He stared at the ripped cloth in his hand, and then let it go. He said, “I was wrong. I should have hit him.”

“My God,” said Tobie. “Is that all you can think of?”

Nicholas didn’t answer. Sweat and wine seemed to be running all over his body, and his heart beat like a cannonball bounding on hide. Then he said, without turning his head, “Come and look.”

As soon as he came, Tobie stood still as he had done, listening and looking as all about them the tentless spaces filled with shouting men,
half-dressed or naked. And then, as he had done, began to catch sight of riders, filing through the gates of the encampment and pushing through the crowd and one by one dismounting, among the cries and the torchlight. Weary men; wounded men. Men who had survived the rout at Sarno and who had ridden, not safely back to their homes, but here, to join the flag of their other army.

Brands clustered about them, offering glimpses of unknown faces and unknown features. Then, suddenly, something familiar: the moustache of a man called Manfred, a horse-master. The black, helmetless head of a Hungarian crossbowman with his neck wrapped in white cloth. Two men in tattered black: one sunburnt and thin, and the other straightbacked and muscular with slanting eyes and a classical nose, who slid from his horse one-handed, the other wrapped in a sling.

“Julius,” said Tobie aloud. His voice sounded odd. “And there. Behind him. Astorre. Holy Mother of God, you should have hit him. I should have killed him. I will kill him. Lionetto knew they were safe.”

The words followed Nicholas but he paid no attention to them, being already deep into the crowd with his head down, making his way to the battered file of men still stumbling in. He touched them all as he reached them and passed – Manfred, Godscalc, Abrami – the shoulder, suddenly come on, of Thomas, whose grey face turned, full of surprise. Astorre, who dismounted heavily, chin in air, eyes half-closed on each side of his nose-piece. Lukin. And black Loppe, his face empty. And then Julius, standing still and looking at him.

Beyond was Felix.

Felix said, “Oh, there you are. I said he’d be here. We’ve had quite a battle. You really should have been there. How many men did I kill? I forget.”

“Eight, you said,” said Julius. He hadn’t moved.

Nicholas stayed where he was.

Tobie’s voice said, “That’s my tent over there. They’re putting up another one beside it. I’ll help Nicholas see to the men and your horses. There’s plenty of food. Ask for what you want. Have you seen the Count?”

Astorre said, “We’ve just come from his tent.” His voice creaked.