The Spring of the Ram: The Second Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  “Not on this trip,” Nicholas said.

  “He’s planning a private expedition,” Tobie said.

  Sometimes, like this, they forgot he was married. He didn’t remind them.

  “All right,” Julius said. “You take the Amazons and leave us Violante. What’s she like, Nicholas?”

  “He doesna know,” John le Grant said. “Too busy talking of alum.”

  Nicholas said, “Think of your favourite woman, then double it. I have to tell you something about her.” He had flattened his voice, and saw them sober, responding. John le Grant said, “What?” Under the red brows his eyes were sharp as needles.

  Nicholas said, “She is a friend of Pagano Doria’s. She had an interview with him in Florence. I knew, because I had the house watched, but she doesn’t know that. So be careful.”

  Julius said, “You didn’t tell us. You mean she knows about Catherine?”

  “She may. But Catherine, I’m sure, doesn’t know about Pagano and the lady. The idyll is unmarred.”

  “But you still didn’t tell us,” said Julius.

  “I didn’t expect to meet her again. I’m telling you now,” Nicholas said.

  Tobie said, “Well, never mind that. What’s behind it? An affair on the side? It would have to be limited, with Catherine there every moment. So what? He’s Genoese consul, and she’s the wife of a Venetian merchant. It could be a league against us. It could be that she’s after his secrets?”

  “Or vice versa,” said Julius. He had gone rather pale. He said, “The alum, Nicholas. She could tell him there’s alum at Tolfa. I know it’s in the Genoese interest, too, to keep the discovery quiet, but Doria won’t worry about that, if he can spite you…And my God, you talked to her about this other quarry in Asia?”

  “Sebinkarahisar? That’s common knowledge,” said Nicholas. “As for Tolfa, you forget. Violante of Naxos is married to the rich and noble Caterino Zeno of Venice, who bought our silence to preserve the Venetian alum monopoly. Is she going to tell Doria about the new mine, and defy both her husband and the Serenissima? Surely not. Lovers I expect Zeno would manage to forgive. But if he ever learned that she’d divulged a Venetian stratagem to a Genoese consul…She’s too clever to risk it. Not for the sake of Pagano Doria.”

  “He charmed Catherine de Charetty,” Julius said.

  “Catherine is thirteen years old,” said Nicholas. “This woman is between twenty-five and two thousand. She also knows, by the way, about Astorre’s men. She was bound to find out, and I don’t see it can do any harm now. Anyway, I thought we’d continue to let her think we know nothing of her affair with Doria. If she has to be tackled, I’ll do it.”

  “I’m sure,” said Tobie. “And tell us, of course, all that happens. We shouldn’t like it to slip your poor silly mind again.”

  He tried not to be angry. For various reasons, it was quite hard. Of course, they had the right to question him. It was partly why they were here. Julius complained out of vanity and Godscalc—you had to suppose—because of his cloth. Only Tobie, when he attacked, applied the casual skill of a man dissecting a carcase. Yet, of them all, Tobie could sometimes come close to the bone. Of them all, too, he enjoyed girls with a natural and well-disposed liberality once shared by Nicholas. But of course their ways in that matter had parted. And now, banishing anger, Nicholas was left addressing the doctor with a somewhat inappropriate vehemence. He said, “Look. I had Monna Alessandra breathing down my neck. I wasn’t going to set off a rumour that might get back to Bruges about Violante of Naxos having secret assignations with lovers in Florence. Have a heart. Mine, if you remember, had my instructions nailed on it in Bruges. I’m to tell you everything. What I eat, where I go, when I shit…”

  “I hope you are,” Tobie said. “Telling us.” He looked unfriendly. Not threatening, but unfriendly, and even impatient.

  “Of course,” said Nicholas who, for the moment, felt unfriendly too. “Word of St Nicholas, patron of sailors, pawnbrokers…”

  “…virgins, and children,” said Tobie.

  You could always rely on Tobie to finish your thought for you.

  Chapter 16

  IN BRUGES, IN the same month of March, the skies fell on the lawyer Gregorio of Asti. He should have been prepared. Ever since the letter from Pagano Doria in Florence, the house at Spangnaerts Street had felt like a smothered volcano. Against all his advice, Marian de Charetty had told neither her friends nor her household about her daughter Catherine’s elopement and marriage. Through all her preparations during the last weeks of February and the beginning of March, she remained adamant. Until she returned with the facts, no one else was to know of it—not even Tilde. Catherine de Charetty, the world was led to understand, had been sent from Brussels to Florence to complete her education. And there her mother was planning to visit her.

  Once before she had made this mistake, and failed to take a son into her confidence. Being only her lawyer, Gregorio could not persuade her that she must, at the very least, break the news to her remaining child, Tilde. She remained as strong in her obstinacy as in everything else: as if to give way in one thing would allow all the rest to crumble. And she seemed hardly to see the embarrassments. The natural questions of Lorenzo di Matteo Strozzi, whose mother resided in Florence. The stir among her fellow brokers and dyers, that the demoiselle should feel free to travel for pleasure, with half her company already absent. And, most predictable of all, you would think: the surprise and resentment of Tilde who, though the elder, had never been offered such an adventure. And believed, of course, her mother was going to Nicholas.

  At least, Gregorio thought, he had been able to disabuse her of that idea. Long before her mother reached Florence, Nicholas would have gone. Either forward, or back.

  Apart from the practical, there was little enough he could do for Marian de Charetty. February had been a month, he could imagine, of empty anniversaries. Last year, he had not been here for the Shrove Tuesday carnival; but he supposed it had meant something to Nicholas, and to the demoiselle also. Their marriage had followed in five weeks.

  It was the time of year, too, when young girls like Catherine and Tilde, guided by parents, sometimes found husbands through the traditional intermediary of the carnival. Last year, both the demoiselle’s daughters had been under age. This year Tilde, at fourteen, had looked forward to the delights of attending, properly gowned, unhampered by Catherine.

  Instead, Marian de Charetty, explaining nothing, had locked herself and her daughter into the house all that day, and had turned away all who called, pleading sickness. Gentle Tilde, roused to weeping rebellion, had been rescued at last by the coaxing of Anselm Adorne’s wife who called and, with the obstinacy of a good lady accustomed to public life, had refused to leave without Tilde and her mother.

  After that, the little distance between the demoiselle and her daughter remained, and widened as the plans for the mother’s journey filled all her days. Stress made her over-meticulous. Gregorio was primed again and again on his duties, as were all the others in the good team that Nicholas had left: Cristoffels and Bellobras, Henninc and Lippin. The demoiselle would take with her Tasse, the maidservant from Geneva who had sought her out when her master’s business collapsed. For the rest, she would hire men at arms to escort her. Florence might be her ultimate destination. But only Gregorio knew that she was travelling first and foremost to Dijon in Burgundy, to wrench the truth from her brother-in-law Thibault de Fleury, who was seventy and senile but had still, according to Pagano, signed the marriage papers of his god-daughter Catherine.

  It would not be a pleasant visit. Thibault de Fleury was also the grandfather of the bastard Nicholas, and had been ruined by him. Thibault de Fleury’s first wife had borne the mother of Nicholas. The sad, dead, profligate mother, who had been rejected by her cuckolded husband—the cuckolded husband to whom Nicholas, grown, had become anathema. It was, of course, why Nicholas had been sent from Bruges. While his mother’s husband still divided his time betwee
n Flanders and Scotland, neither Nicholas nor the Charetty company could feel safe from his hostility.

  Meanwhile, it was to no one’s advantage to publish the connection between Nicholas and the Scottish lord Simon. Certainly Simon and his second well-born young wife would never contemplate doing so. In the Charetty company, the secret belonged only to Gregorio, Tobie and Julius, who had received the confidence of the demoiselle after last year’s disasters.

  Gregorio had told no one else; not even Margot, his discreet and sensible mistress of many years. But sometimes when she wondered aloud, as they all did, about the nature of the marriage between the Widow and the young man who had been her apprentice. Gregorio would say, “Don’t grudge him comfort, for I think it brings him that. His own family have had none to give him.”

  That year, Marian de Charetty had taken the trouble to ask to meet Margot, and had approved of her. When, in March, he completed his first twelve months with the Charetty company, the demoiselle had invited them both to a gathering of all those who served her in Spangnaerts Street, and had thanked him publicly for all he had done. Her father and his had, long ago, been friends. When privately, later, she asked him why he had not married, he had felt he owed her the truth: that Margot was already tied in marriage, and could not be released.

  But for that, he thought she might have even confided Tilde to their care, for a home had to be found for the girl in her absence. The shortest trip, to Dijon and back, would keep the demoiselle from Bruges for six weeks. A return journey to Florence would take twice as long. If she had to stay to start legal proceedings over the marriage, the demoiselle might not see her business or her elder daughter much before the Flanders galleys arrived in the autumn. If she did go to law, Gregorio proposed to join her in Florence, whether she wished it or not.

  So matters stood when the two letters from Nicholas came. Marian de Charetty had been absent on business all that day. At dusk, Gregorio had dismissed the clerks from his office but stayed at his own desk for an hour, studying papers and checking over the day book by the light of the good wax candles his employer allowed him. When the bell rang at the gate, he heard the porter go out, and soon afterwards someone knocked at his own door. It was one of the Charetty couriers, still spurred and cloaked and unfastening a satchel of letters among which was one for him, and one for the demoiselle, both from Florence and both sealed by Nicholas.

  It was an occasion, a budget of news from young Claes. That is, from Nicholas, the demoiselle’s husband. There was no getting rid of the courier, who knew no more than the last stage of its transport from Geneva to Bruges. Gregorio sent for mulled wine and told the fellow to sit and got some of the news of the journey while he took the letter up to his desk and unfolded the wax paper and severed the threads.

  He knew the code so well by now that he got the gist at the first scanning. Then he picked out the items written in clear and entertained the courier—and the man who came agog with the wine—to a crisp resumé.

  “It’s their last letter from Florence. They’ve acquired a fine galley from the Medici, and were expecting to sail right away. They’ve got their cargo of silk, and a good many other commissions and a full crew, he says, of experienced men. Their captain’s John le Grant, the engineer from Constantinople. And best of all, they’ve been given authority. The Medici and the Emperor’s envoy have appointed the Charetty company to represent the Republic of Florence in Trebizond.” The ring in his voice was hardly forced. Nicholas, by God. He had done it.

  The courier, sprawled on a bench, rested his heels on his spurs and raised an arm in a burst of euphoria. “Here’s luck to you, Claes, you young bastard.”

  “Gregorio?” said a curt voice behind him.

  The courier got up quickly, stumbling. The manservant jumped to one side. Gregorio, his black skirts hitched on his desk, put his own hot wine rapidly down and stood, the letter still in his hand. He said, “Demoiselle.”

  Marian de Charetty came into the room as she was, her cloak still fastened, her hood fallen back from her headgear. She walked to Gregorio and then turned to the other two men. She said, “You may go.”

  The manservant had already slipped through the door. The courier, uncertain, gave her a bob and, still holding his cup, bent and hauled up the satchel and made hurriedly for the door. On the way, he turned and threw a comical glance at the lawyer. Gregorio knew better than to give any sign in reply.

  Once or twice since Nicholas went, he had seen her angry like this. She never quite lost her high colour, but it settled on the rim of her cheeks, and brought out the brilliant blue of her eyes. As a girl, it must have suited her. Tonight, with her face sharpened with worry, it distressed him. Surely, now, a casual reference to Nicholas should not upset her so much?

  Then he saw, from her fixed gaze, that she had not even heard, very likely, what the courier said. Her anger was all for himself.

  She said, “Sit down. Is that a letter from Nicholas?” She wrenched apart the clasp of her cloak. He heard it tear. But when he moved to help her she moved away and, labouring with the weight of the cloth, flung the garment on a stool. Then she walked to the high chair and sat on it. “Well?” she said. “Read it.”

  “There is one for you,” said Gregorio.

  It lay on the table beside her. He saw her look at it, with the first hesitation she had shown. Then she picked it up and, taking a knife, opened it with precision. He guessed that the reading of her husband’s letters had been, until now, a private ceremony with its own place and hour, silently cherished. Tonight, the moment thrown away, she was reading. And he saw, in the remorseless light of the good white wax candles, that she looked haggard.

  At the end she said, “Yes. And now, show me yours.”

  She had never asked to see one of his letters from Nicholas before. He said, “It will be the same. This business of Julius and Cardinal Bessarion. Did he steal the money? Did you make him repay it?”

  “I have never heard of the transaction before. Does it matter? If Julius took something, he will have restored it. He has not the boldness to cheat in great matters. I am merely being informed so that, if required, I can support the claim Nicholas appears to have made. Cardinal Bessarion will, I am sure, bear witness for Julius. The lord Cosimo will accept his endorsement. His commitment to us will be uninterrupted. Give me your letter, please.”

  He said, “It is the same. It’s only got some market prices in cipher, which I can’t make out until I work out the code. What matters is that Nicholas has seen nothing, clearly, of Catherine, but is sailing on the same route. He’s bound to find her. And what’s more, according to this, he has met Doria, and knows at least that he’s a troublemaker. He helped denounce Julius. He’s going to Trebizond as the Genoese consul.”

  It had appalled him, that news. She looked as if nothing more could appal her. He paused, trying quickly to choose the best argument. He said, “Demoiselle, if Catherine is unhappy, Nicholas will have found her by now. Perhaps he is already on the way home. None of us will grudge it if the venture fails because of that.”

  She said, “If you do not give me your letter, I will send for men who will take it from you.”

  He gave it to her, because her eyes were shining with tears, and he knew that it was lost, the secret he and Nicholas had tried so hard to keep. After a while she said, “I am sure you know the cipher by heart. Tell me what these passages say.”

  Then he said, “You know, I think. Demoiselle, we tried to spare you, that was all.” After a moment he said, “Give me the letter, and I will read it for you.” Even then, he did not look down at it; but found himself saying, “How did you find out?”

  “Did you think,” she said, “that I would leave anything undone to find the nature, the business, the past, the prospects of the man who abducted my daughter? You discovered so little, didn’t you? The men I sent found out more.”

  He said, “What have they told you?”

  Her eyes had dried. She said, “That Pagano
Doria did not own the round ship he sailed on. He was merely hired to crew and equip it, and sail it first to Genoa, where he was meant to establish a trading base. After that, he was to take it to Trebizond and set up an agency in the name of his master.” She looked at him bleakly. “It was not hard to find these things out. The ship had been impounded in Antwerp since the arraignment of its owner for treason. Now it’s called the Doria. Then it bore the name of its first owner. The Ribérac.”

  He was silent.

  She said, “You recognise the name, of course. Jordan de Ribérac was accused by the French king last year of treason. He would have suffered death, but he escaped to the family lands he still held in Scotland. The French took his French money, his French lands and his ships, but missed the trading cog he had just sent to Antwerp. Full, as it happened, of arms and armour.”

  Gregorio said flatly, “From Gruuthuse.”

  “Yes. Like everyone, he traded with Louis de Gruuthuse. So. I have no need to tell you, I see, who the vicomte de Ribérac is. Or that he has an estranged son who is my husband’s bitterest enemy. My lord Simon found the round ship in Antwerp. He realised it belonged to his father, and claimed it as such. Then, knowing Pagano Doria, one supposes, for a seaman and an unscrupulous rogue, he empowered him to pursue and, I expect, destroy Nicholas, taking my daughter as lure. You knew that. You knew Simon of Kilmirren was behind all Doria was doing. And you did not tell me.”

  “No,” he said.

  “But Nicholas knows?”

  “Of course. I sent word. I half-killed a courier…” He broke off, and said quietly, “He has known about Simon from the moment he set foot in Florence. But not, of course, about Catherine.”