To Lie with Lions (19 page)

‘The Cardinal Bessarion is still with us,’ the Patriarch said. ‘And a house full of erudite Greeks, and those less so. Zoe, the Cardinal’s ward, has also been painted. It is the salve of rich men: as a scalded head calls for lard, so they apply coats of paint to their vanity. The Duke of Muscovy has requested a portrait of Zoe.’

Julius sat up. ‘He wants to make her his Duchess?’

‘Perhaps. Moscow and Rome have discussed it. Then the business hung fire when Paul migrated to the Lord with his melons. Tell Nicholas. The King of Cyprus will be sad to lose Zoe.’

‘Zacco would never have married her,’ Gregorio said.

‘He bid for her. Zacco will do anything, will he not, to avoid consummating his marriage with Catherine of Venice? Tell Nicholas. Zacco needs him. So how is the Banco di Niccolò?’

‘Like all banks,’ Julius said. ‘Calling in its debts rather than lending money.’ He knew the Patriarch. If he couldn’t get Nicholas, he would be looking for gold. And they had lost enough gold already.

‘And what debts do you have in Cologne?’ said the priest. The pudding was finished, and the splashes had caked in the sun except where they still rimmed his lips, like salt round a goblet. ‘Or is it pledges you have been collecting?’

Gregorio grinned. Julius said stiffly, ‘Every merchant who sells to the Baltic has to have an eye on Cologne at the moment. Caxton’s there, writing books for the Duchess Margaret.’

He waited for the Patriarch to grunt. Caxton was English. He might be writing books, or even learning to print them, but he was in Cologne, everyone knew, because the town distributed cloth, and England’s exports had been blocked by the Baltic trading alliance called the Hanse. Cologne had broken away from the Hanse. In retribution, the Hanse had intensified its feud against England. Ships were being robbed, wrecked and sunk, to the extent that no one could even send an army anywhere safely. There might come a point – hence Caxton’s presence and his own – when Cologne’s privileges were costing too much.

He said something of all that to da Bologna. The Patriarch listened.

‘So you are working for the Lord’s peace. I commend you. Anna von Hanseyck, isn’t she called?’

‘The Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck,’ said Julius haughtily, ‘is a widowed lady of my acquaintance who lives in Cologne with her daughter, yes. She has been gracious enough to consult me about financial matters.’

‘She’s rich?’ the Patriarch said.

‘Not rich enough to finance a Crusade,’ Julius said. ‘And too much of a lady to merit having her name bandied about. May I offer you something to drink?’

‘Water. Water will do,’ said the Patriarch. ‘So tell me: what else you were doing in Cologne?’

He had heard rumours, obviously. Julius told him something, not entirely made up, about the Bank’s long-term plans. The Patriarch listened. He had paid for it with news of his own, and Julius didn’t mind gossiping.

Later, when the Patriarch had gone, Gregorio lay back in his chair, his scoop-nose red with the sun, and said, ‘You told him too much. Never mind. I don’t want to know about Denmark, it’s time I heard about Anna von Hanseyck. Tell me everything.’

Julius ran out of patience. He said, ‘You know everything. Christ God, you’ve read the documents; we’ve talked about it often enough. She’s the widow of Graf Wenzel von Hanseyck. When he died, she exchanged his land in the Rhine valley for gold, and I’ve helped her invest it. Half the Bank’s new ship is hers, and she’ll have a share in the profit.’

‘If there is a profit,’ said Gregorio mildly.

‘There’ll be a profit. My God, with Nicholas going to do what he’s doing? Anyway, she’s grateful. She needs help with her money and wants the Bank to advise her. I’ve said I’ll introduce her to Nicholas next summer. You’ll see her before that, if you’re keen. She’s coming to Rome with her daughter for Christmas.’

‘Her daughter?’ said Gregorio. Behind the question, Julius saw his wife Margot’s prompting.

‘Name of Bonne,’ Julius said. ‘Wenzel adopted her.’

‘But she’s the Countess’s daughter?’

‘I expect so,’ said Julius. ‘They have the same eyes and the same hair. I assume the child was the result of an earlier marriage, but of course she might be a daughter of sin. You must ask the Countess to tell you.’

Gregorio was grinning. ‘Touchy, aren’t you? I’m delighted. Really. We all thought you were going to die without ever coming across anyone worthy.’

‘She is just a client,’ Julius said. ‘Mary Mother, if I went to bed with everyone I did a deal with, I’d die of exhaustion. You’ve got
marriage fever, that’s all. Go and find Tobie or John and drag them to the altar.’

‘There aren’t enough rich German widows to go round,’ Gregorio said, and ducked as Julius threw a plate at him. But as a matter of fact, Julius wasn’t angry at all, any more than he was disappointed that Nicholas was going to Scotland without him. Julius was quite content, ensconced in the splendours of Rome, and waiting for Christmas.

Chapter 8

L
ONG BEFORE HE
left Calais, it was known in Scotland that Nicholas de Fleury was returning to take up his business, accompanied by two mining experts and a pedigree cannon from Innsbruck.

As seed quickens to rain, so from east coast to west, the Bank’s dormant fleurets awoke to the touch of their master. Indolent on the high seas, Nicholas lived, as once before, from wave to wave, for the moment. With him in a locked chest were the letters which still had to be delivered, this time by himself. The documents for King James, from the Duke and the Chancellor of Burgundy. And the personal note for King James from His Most Christian Majesty Louis of France, to be handed over at a time of discretion, for it, like the other, requested the sender’s dear kinsman of Scotland to receive the sieur de Fleury with favour, and to give credence to what he would ask. Thus Nicholas de Fleury, serving two masters.

For the two weeks of the voyage, Gelis van Borselen and her husband were together for the first continuous spell since their marriage. Together, that is, in the sense that they travelled aboard the same vessel.

After Hesdin, the journey to Calais had been made bearable by the logistics of travel. Nicholas had a convoy to lead, and his wife was injured and needed attention. Her maid had departed, refusing to sail off the top of the world with two nurses. Gelis travelled to the coast in the cart with the child, and slept with the child and Mistress Clémence and Pasque, who cared for Gelis too. Nicholas shared the quarters and table of his officers: Michael Crackbene, le Grant and Father Moriz.

All of these came to pay their respects, but the first two had little to say and did not return. Only the sturdy bow-legged pastor sometimes remained, passing the time with the child and his nurses whom he had already befriended in camp. She was aware that he was available
if she wanted to talk. She had no wish to talk to a henchman of Nicholas. She had to build, and was still finding the bricks. She did not know, and would have been horrified to learn, that Mistress Clémence had asked Father Moriz to be her confessor.

The child had dropped readily into his old confiding relationship with her, which was exactly the same as the one he had with his nurses. Time spent with Mistress Clémence had confirmed what she could now deduce for herself: that in her absence Nicholas had been impeccable with the child, and consistently agreeable to the nurses. Mistress Clémence, true to her training, had offered no further comment on what had happened at Hesdin, and her manner to Gelis was precisely as it had been since the birth of the child.

In this at least, Nicholas had played fair: neither child nor nurses had been set against her. Only sometimes, in the knowledgeable eye and hoarse banter of Pasque
(c’est un bachique!)
did Gelis guess that something about Nicholas had appealed to the outrageous old dame and might, too, have touched the nurse of superior education, better able to conceal it. It was not unexpected. Gelis knew how Nicholas set about making friends.

She should have expected, therefore, that on board ship he would do what he did, which was to turn the same skills on herself. For the sake of the child, she shared as before the child’s sleeping quarters. The intimacy of marriage was therefore plausibly lacking, but in every other way he remained in public her husband and friend. When, watching the coast recede, she had found him at her side, the screaming Jordan clutching his neck, she had been dazed by the affectionate ease of his manner. He spoke to her as she had heard him speak to Tilde or Margot, or – long, long ago – to the gentle black girl whom his friend Umar had married. And Gelis, staring back at him dumbly, had had to fight an impulse to tears, because Umar and Zuhra were dead, and because he was acting.

Her son was screaming with joy. She had forgotten that Jordan had recently made his home for many weeks on a ship. She had forgotten that his father had first come to him like this, between water and air, on swaying decks, among the cords which Clémence had put up so deftly in the first moments on board.

The truth was, of course, that Nicholas was not playing fair. To Jordan, his father was the first person, the only person who belonged to a ship: the magician who might be anywhere from helm to forecastle, from the depths of the hatches to high by the flag in the rigging. And she had forgotten that Nicholas was happy at sea. Sailing out from Lagos bound for Africa on his wonderful ship the
San Niccolò
, she had never seen him so happy, except when she had made him so herself.

Jordan was crowing, and Nicholas was looking at her with an easy replica of the open, generous smile that he had turned, too, on Tilde and Margot, on Katelina and Marian, on Umar and Zuhra and herself. His eyes were pin-sharp as a kite’s and even held some amusement. She walked away.

Of the others on board, John le Grant saw what was happening but ignored it. He belonged to Scotland and was reasonably interested in coming back, and extremely interested in the opportunities lying ahead of him. He was not at all interested in the marital problems of Nicholas. That said, he twice received the rough edge of Mistress Clémence’s tongue for showing the child tricks with tinder and alum.

Moriz, being a priest, was here for the opposite reason. He should be in Venice, not here: there were sensible reasons why Nicholas had expected him to stay behind, apart from the fact that he knew nothing of Scotland. Both he and Nicholas knew that he was here because of what had happened with Gelis. When Nicholas allowed him to come, it had been a sign of exasperation, not acquiescence. These days, Nicholas wouldn’t lose sleep over a small German priest threatening hellfire.

The same view, Father Moriz had found, was held by the lady. She had kept him at a distance on the journey from Venice to Brixen, as she was polite on the journey to Calais and after. He was not a patient man. The first rough day at sea, when the child was to be seen drenched to the skin and whooping with glee in the grasp of Mistress Clémence or his father, Moriz marched below to the lady.

She had looked surprised but had admitted him. She had been writing, with difficulty. He helped her stopper her ink; she had already turned over her papers. She was undisturbed, he saw, by the motion. He wished he could say the same. Shortening matters, he sat down and said, ‘I am here to tell you, madame, that I am not your husband’s spaniel nor am I yours. I see you are in difficulty, and I am a man of experience. I propose therefore to offer myself as a mediator. What may I do for you?’

She secured the last of her pens and sat back, her free hand nursing the arm that was bound. ‘Difficulty?’ she said. ‘You are very kind, but truly there exists no special difficulty. Or if there did, it has been resolved.’ Her colouring was so fair that he couldn’t determine the state of her health, or her feelings. Her eyes, of a very pale blue, were not as grave as her voice.

Moriz said, ‘In my opinion, your husband has forced you to come, perhaps by threatening to deny you the boy. I am willing to speak to him, if you will tell me what to say.’

She looked at him. Something slid over the floorboards, hesitated,
and slid back again. Above, there was a regular bumping. Gelis van Borselen said, ‘I am not, myself, short of words. If it seemed that a third person might help, then I should gladly invite you. But Nicholas and I understand one another very well.’

‘I am sure you do,’ Moriz said. ‘I think you are under pressure to stay.’

Gelis rose, steadying herself with one hand. She said, ‘Please don’t trouble. There is no pressure. I want to stay.’

‘Because you want this wrangling to go on?’

The motion was slackening. He rose as well, keeping his balance, trying to read her calm face. She said, ‘Ask him if he wants to stop.’

She was waiting for him to leave. He stood in thought. Then he said, ‘I have to tell you that I think he is stronger than you are.’

She returned his look, swaying in silence. ‘You think so?’ said Gelis. She watched him shake his head and walk to the door. When he got there she said, ‘Speak to Nicholas. He will tell you the same.’

Isolating Nicholas, as he must, was more difficult. The chance came on a day of light seas, and Moriz’s journey was vertical, since Nicholas was perched high aloft in the mast-basket. He showed no surprise as the priest settled beside him. ‘You’ve come to talk about Gelis,’ he said. His voice, snatched by the wind, sounded mild.

‘You haven’t thought,’ said Father Moriz, ‘that she might take her own life if you go on? She was close to it in Venice.’

‘No, she wasn’t,’ Nicholas said. ‘And she won’t, any more than I should. You don’t know her.’

‘And you do?’ said Father Moriz. ‘So tell me what she holds against you.’

‘That my name is no longer Claes. That I marry too many people. That I have an illegitimate child. Godscalc surely told you,’ he said.

‘But this has gone on for three years between you,’ said Moriz.

‘We like it,’ said Nicholas. ‘That is why we never quite kill one another. But those who interfere might be less lucky.’

‘No one could be less lucky than Gelis,’ said the priest. ‘What will happen next time? Do you reduce her to her bed, or her grave?’