“Meet who?”
“All of you,” Gradenigo said, “but especially Johanna.” He winked. “He admired your diving costume. As did all of Venice.”
“I assume he admired mine as well,” Jaufre said in a silken voice.
“All of you,” Gradenigo said hastily, “the entire Wu Company is bidden to dinner at Ca’ Gradenigo on Saturday next. Bring your best stories, because he will expect you to sing for your supper. But now.” He smacked his hands together. “Let us construe.” He cocked an eyebrow. “How would you feel about leading a shipment of goods to Lyon?”
“Where is Lyon?” Shasha said.
“And what’s there?” Jaufre said.
“A city in France about a hundred and seventy leagues west of Venice,” Gradenigo said, “and a trading fair in France where the House of Gradenigo has a permit to buy and sell.”
“Who trades there?” Johanna said.
Gradenigo smiled. “Everyone.”
Firas raised an eyebrow in Shasha’s direction. “That certainly sounds comprehensive,” she said, and Johanna hid a smile.
It was as well that the dinner with Gradenigo’s cousin didn’t take place until the following Saturday, as it took that long to get all the grease off.
On Monday they met again with Gradenigo on the Grand Canal. “You will be coming with us to Lyon?” Jaufre said.
“Are you mad?” Gradenigo looked horrified. “The first sailing of pilgrims takes place next week, and besides, I am building my own merchant galley down on the Arsenal and I’ll want to be here when she launches. You will be on your own, my friends.”
Johanna and Jaufre exchanged glances. They preferred it that way, but— “And you’ll trust us with your cargo? You may never see us or it again.”
Gradenigo grinned. “Considering that I don’t have to share a year’s worth of profit with the Doge? You could plunge over the edge of Mount Genevre and I’d never miss the income. Enough of this now, come with me.”
They followed him to a large warehouse of solid construction secured by a padlock the size of a newborn babe. Venice liked its locks large. Gradenigo led the way inside. “What will you have? Greek antiques from Rhodes? This is said to be the head of Athena by no less than Praxiteles.”
“Definitely not,” Jaufre said, and Johanna said firmly, “Much too bulky.”
Gradenigo shrugged. “Ah well, if I can’t sell it here, it will go with the rest of the marble to Rome and be burned into lime. Sponges from Calymnos, then? Olive oil from Kerkyra? A Gozurate mat, perhaps? See the leather, both red and blue, and the birds and beast embroidered in gold. A fine piece, worthy of any lady’s bower.”
Johanna caught sight of a bundle of cloth and caught it up. “Silk from Chinangli! Where did you come by this, when the roads to the East are overrun by the armies of Barka Khan and Hulaku and Ogodei?”
The Venetian smiled. “If there is a market for such a thing, a way will be found to supply it.”
Gradenigo led them deeper into a labyrinth that appeared to contain a sample of all the riches of the known world, cloth from Flanders, silk from Lucca in Italy, leather from Spain and North Africa, furs from Germany, spices, wax, sugar, alum, lacquer again from the East, grain, wine, dyes, cotton, flax from Egypt. In the stables behind the warehouse Gradenigo housed horses and livestock from Gaul to Africa. In one small room, reinforced, this one locked three times over and heavily guarded, he kept gold and precious stones.
“Anything anyone could ever want,” Johanna said.
He looked at Johanna, fingering his beard. It was clear that he wondered at her lack of awe. She looked down at the hems of her trousers and repressed a smile.
The arrangements were straightforward. Gradenigo drew up a commenda, which set out the details. The investor, Gradenigo, would supply the goods and take three-quarters of the profit. The merchants, Johanna and Jaufre, would put up the other quarter, take possession of the goods for trade, and do the transportation and selling.
Reading it, Jaufre said, “We have a free hand, then.”
“Yes,” Gradenigo said. “It is up to you what you do with the goods and where you go to sell them. When you return, however, you will note that you must make a detailed and fair statement of profit and loss.”
“And if we didn’t?”
Paolo smiled. “Surely it’s obvious. If you wish to continue in trade, you must cultivate a good reputation among the investors. If you do not, if you are suspected of dishonesty, trickery or thievery, no investor will ever back you again.”
“I suppose you investors talk to each other.” Jaufre didn’t make it a question.
Gradenigo’s smile widened. “Of the honesty and dependability of merchants, most certainly. Of the trade itself…” There was no need to complete the sentence.
“Spices,” Shasha said, ignoring Johanna’s grin. “Pepper, and nutmeg.”
Gradenigo grimaced. “I’m low on spices. See Tomasso on the Street of Spices, tell him I sent you and that I expect his very best price or I send you to Enzo instead.”
“Paper?” Jaufre said doubtfully.
Johanna shook her head. “Too bulky, too heavy, too subject to damp.”
“But it fetches an excellent price in Lyon,” Gradenigo said, and waved off their protests. “Don’t discount it immediately, is all I ask. Perfume?”
They settled on spices, perfume, glass vials always in demand for oils, potions, unguents and tinctures, pearls and such other gemstones as Gradenigo had in stock, and since they agreed on oil in spite of its weight and the bulk of its jars they decided they might as well include paper in their trading stock, after all.
“What do you want us to bring back?
“Wool,” Gradenigo said. “And if you run across any gold or silver ingots going cheap…” He laughed at their expressions. “Wool,” he said. “I’ll be happy if you bring back nothing but packs and packs of wool, preferably English wool.” He stroked his beard. “When my new ship comes off the ways, I may look for a route to bring English wool to directly to market in Venice, without having to pay out extortionate fees to all those overland middlemen.” His eyes gleamed. “I could start my own house, independent of my family.”
Johanna and Jaufre and Shasha managed to spare a few moments to lay in their own goods. Jaufre, from his experience on the Rialto, specialized in jewelry for the discriminating—and wealthy—buyer, along with his usual store of manuscripts, scrolls, and books, too, in spite of the space they took up. Johanna found a dealer in antiquities down on the Grand Canal who had never heard of the Polos and was happy—for a price—to help her lay in a good stock of curiosities, including two chess sets made from ebony and ivory, one fashioned after the court of Genghis Khan and complete with long mustaches, the other made in the image of a Persian court, with the pawns made in the forms of dancing girls, which Hayat examined critically. “The maker of this set hadn’t been within a league of a harem.”
While the three of them were stocking their pack train, Hayat, Alma, Hari and Félicien took the opportunity to visit Padua, where Alma had heard there were some fine frescoes. They returned aglow with discovery, or at least Alma did, and Félicien was busy writing a song about the experience so Johanna assumed he was aglow, too. “Giotto, he’s the artist, we wanted to meet him,” Alma said. “But he was away in Assisi, alas.”
Behind her back, Hayat rolled her eyes.
Alma looked at Johanna imploringly. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to Rome? There are many examples of classical architecture there that I would like to see.”
“You didn’t see enough Roman ruins in Palestine?” Jaufre said, remembering his time as a pilgrim guard with a shudder.
In two weeks they were ready. Their last night they held a farewell dinner in their lodgings, to which they invited Moreta and Peter. “It’s good you are leaving,” Moreta said. “My mother is so angry that you managed to circumvent her ban that I think she might be thinking of hiring assassins.”
J
ohanna shrugged. “That’s all right, we’ve got one of our own.”
Firas sighed. “So discreet, young miss, as always.”
They ate well, drank well, and sang road songs, and were generally happy to be once again on the move. “All of you?” Moreta said, her eyes lingering on Tiphaine, who scowled back.
“I’m going with them,” she said fiercely. “She bought me. She has to take me.”
Johanna raised her hands helplessly at Moreta’s look.
Moreta looked at Alma and Hayat, who sat close together on the bench the other side of the table. “And yourselves?”
Alma smiled. “I was too long held in one place. I am not done moving yet.”
“Where she goes, I go,” Hayat said.
“And you, boy,” Moreta said to Félicien. “You have quite a following in Venice. You could make a good living here, in spite of my mother. Especially now that you stand in Gradenigo’s favor.”
“I have learned all the songs I can in Venice, lady,” Félicien said.
And you, sir knight?”
“I, too, am a Frank, lady, and have been long gone from home.” Alaric burped.
“And you go with them,” Moreta said to Shasha, and to Firas, “And you go with her.” She smiled.
“And we go wearing our own company’s badge,” Tiphaine said, proudly displaying hers, which had once more replaced the Gradenigo ship.
Johanna looked at Peter, who sat a little back from the rest. “And you, Peter? Now that your master is dead? Will you be leaving Venice?”
“I will, young miss,” Peter said, and acknowledged the shadow of sadness that passed briefly over Moreta’s face. “But not north. I will be going east, with Captain Gradenigo’s next shipload of pilgrims. I have a wish to die with the wind of the steppes once again in my ears.”
“The latest news says that Ogodei still holds much of the area west of the Terak,” Johanna said.
“He is a Mongol,” Peter said. “I am a Mongol. He will let me pass.”
She felt for the lump at her waist, the jade cylinder of her father’s bao, the square solidity of his book. They were the only things left to anchor her to her beginnings.
“I will hate to leave you behind,” she said.
He smiled. “Look forward, young miss,” he said. “Your grandfather always did.”
They took two boats over to the mainland at dawn the next morning, where their pack train awaited. Johanna heard a piercing whinny and a demanding stamp of hoofs, and ran to North Wind to bury her face in his mane. First he leaned against her, and then he tried to step on her foot. It had been a trying winter for both of them.
“Here,” Jaufre said, cupping a hand. She placed her foot in it and he tossed her into the saddle. To him her smile was as radiant as the sun just breaking over the horizon. He couldn’t stop the answering smile from spreading across his face.
Impulsively, she stretched out her hand. He caught it in his own, and they stared into each other’s eyes. Or they did until North Wind did a combined hop-skip-and-jump, skittering like a foal, and broke into a trot. Johanna leaned forward to pat him on the neck. “On the Road again, North Wind!”
His stride lengthened into a smooth canter. She looked over her shoulder, laughing. “Well? Come on, everyone! Let’s go!”
7
Lombardy, Summer, 1324
They soon discovered that travel in Europe was nothing like travel in Cathay, or in Persia for that matter. The Road was marked by steles built by the Great Khan. Each of the cities along its many routes had clean, well-maintained caravansaries for travelers and their livestock, or at the very least campsites, all of which came under the protection of the cities who built them and, not coincidentally, charged fees for their usage.
Here there were few roads worthy of the name, even fewer of which were signposted and of those few almost none were reliable. Lodging was a free-for-all of inns, all of them independent businesses and most of them verminous. There was no oversight from the various cities next to whose walls they were built, and there was no oversight from the city fathers, which left travelers prey to assault, robbery, and sometimes even murder.
On the other hand, the string of cities from Venice to Milan presented multiple opportunities for trade. Wu Company neglected none of them.
Verona boasted forty-eight towers and a ruler of martial temperament who was constantly at war with his neighbors. But he was also vitally interested in his fellow man and no sooner had word arrived in his court of visitors from storied Cathay than members of Wu Company one and all were summoned before him. They washed off the dust of the road and arrayed themselves in their finest clothes and sallied off to entertain as best they could the honorable Cangrande della Scala, ruler of Verona and various surrounding subjugated cities as well. He had a lantern jaw, intelligent eyes and was of medium height, with the broad shoulders and muscled arms of a man more comfortable with a sword in his hand than a scepter. They had been required to leave their weapons in the outer chamber but one of his aides whispered in della Scala’s ear and his eyes lit up. “Let us see these swords of yours, my friends.”
These were sent for forthwith and a great deal of time was spent examining and discussing the weapons. Della Scala was a little disappointed in Jaufre’s smiling insistence that he was a trader first and a warrior only at necessity. Della Scala and Alaric got on much better, especially after he sent for wine and other refreshments for his guests. He did have a few questions about Cathay and even more about Ogodei when they let fall that they knew the Mongol warrior. He stroked his beard as he listened to Johanna describe in flat, unemotional terms the siege and ultimately the utter destruction of Talikan as she had witnessed it the year before.
“A man to be reckoned with,” della Scala said, some moments after she had finished.
“My lord,” Johanna said, and hesitated.
“Speak freely, and without fear,” he said. “You are my guests.”
Having been steeped in the history of the eternally treacherous battles of the court of Everything Under the Heavens from birth, she doubted that meant much.
But Alma spoke up. “Mongols are not to be reckoned with, my lord,” she said. “An opponent has two options. Submit, or die to the last man, woman and child. If a city resists his forces, when the Mongol wins, and he almost always does win, my lord, he will then send in teams of men to kill every last living survivor. Those few he allows to remain alive are usually soldiers he conscripts into his army.” She paused, and glanced at Hayat. “My friend and I were citizens of Talikan, and we saw these same things with my own eyes, so I know them to be true.”
There was a brief, appalled silence, and then Jaufre said smoothly, “Of course it is not a decision that any Western ruler would have to face, my lord. Ogodei and the Mongols are thousands of leagues to the east, with many strong nations and an entire sea between.”
“Of course,” della Scala said, a twinkle in his eye. “You have a singer of songs among you, I am told.”
“We do, my lord,” Jaufre said, effacing himself, and Félicien came forward, lute in hand. Della Scala motioned for a stool to be brought and the goliard disposed himself to play a tune involving a farmer, his wife and a traveling monk that had the court roaring their appreciation.
When Félicien finished his impromptu concert della Scala said, “I understand you have a magnificent white stallion in your train.”
“We do, my lord,” Johanna said.
“I would like very much to see him,” the lord said, Johanna perforce went to fetch North Wind from the inn outside the city walls. Della Scala’s eyes lit up, as so many pairs of eyes had lit up before during their travels. He ran his hands over the stallion’s back and legs, Johanna keeping North Wind on a very short rein for fear he might nip the royal buttock for its owner’s presumption.
“Some scarring of the legs, I see,” the lord of Verona said.
Johanna thought of the weeks in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. “We have ridd
en some rough trails together, my lord.”
He stood back and gave the stallion a critical examination, nose to tail. “Is he fast?”
She said blandly, “He has won a few races, my lord.”
Della Scala looked at Johanna, a question obvious in his eyes, and she said, hurriedly, “Alas, my lord, North Wind suffers no one on his back but me.”
The royal eyebrow raised. “You? A woman?”
She forced a smile and shortened the rein even more when North Wind moved restlessly. “Even so, my lord. We formed an attachment when he was very young.”
North Wind snorted and tossed his head, shortened rein be damned.
Della Scala grinned. “I daren’t risk my own dignity,” he said conspiratorially, “but…” He cast an eye around the courtyard. “Piero! Come here. Try out this fine steed’s paces.”
Piero, a young noble in a velvet tunic lavishly embroidered with gold thread and silken hose, swaggered into the center of the courtyard. “Of course, my lord.”
Johanna felt the tension on the rein slack as North Wind went very still.
Every member of Wu Company stepped as far back as they could without actually leaving the courtyard. The courtiers and their ladies, in their innocence, pressed forward for a better view. Johanna took a deep breath, exchanged a pregnant glance with Jaufre, and offered an arm to della Scala. “The sun is very hot this morning, is it not, my lord? Allow me to find you a bit of shade.”
The corners of the royal mouth quirked but he took her arm and she urged him to a place where the city wall cast the most shade and was coincidentally as far from the action as she could put him, halfway up a flight of stairs leading to the top of the wall. “Your view would be best from here, my lord.” She kept the sentence as much as possible to a suggestion and not a plea.
Silk and Song Page 49
