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

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Of the others, neither Alexios nor Basil Amiroutzes possessed the same instinct, although on the other side Maria could counter at times from experience and Violante, from something a little nearer to their own skills. Catherine, the best natural horsewoman there, found them bewildering and became angry. It was then, from sheer intoxication, that Nicholas and Doria combined in a wordless, elaborate double-feint that left her bemused in a pivoting circle while the ball, already half over the field, was being driven between them to score yet another point for their side. Beside him, Tobie heard Godscalc say something under his breath, obscured by the noise of the drums and the trumpets. On his other side, Astorre was yelling with pleasure, but Loppe, he saw, was silent like himself.

  Now, gathered again in the centre, the riders cast longer shadows and the time left, you could see, must be short. Their mounts lathered and blown, both Nicholas and Doria had dismounted and changed to fresh horses. On both, the green and white silk was brown-stained and torn, and Nicholas had lost his hat: its brim had indented his hair above his darkened beard and dirt-splattered face. His eyes, ringed by wet lashes, were brilliant. Godscalc said, “Look at Doria.”

  Tobie turned, expecting a reflection of the same heedless enjoyment. What he saw was Doria’s stark profile as the man stood, watching Nicholas take the saddle, gay as a clock spring, and catch the reins from a jubilant groom. Godscalc said, “One of them has remembered.”

  The men had won six points. The women, hard as they fought, had only two. Violante, it was clear, wished another score as a matter of pride. This time, they crowded the men, each marking their opponent; and Maria and Violante herself set to pin down the two clowns, the two comedians. Then the girl Anna took the ball and, wrenching round her high-stepping, stout little horse, set out for the far end of the field without looking round, and without passing. They all stampeded after her.

  Catherine, streaking up to her side, prepared to protect her from the young Amiroutzes whose horse was coming in hard on the other side. Violante shouted to the girl just as she failed, twisting round, to hit the back-stroke that would save them. Instead, the youth’s stick caught hers and broke it. For a moment, the two horses jostled together; then Amiroutzes broke free and, pulling round, went to make for the ball at the same moment as Violante and Catherine. For a while, the three horses galloped side by side, with Alexios and Maria approaching on one side and Nicholas and Doria on the other. The sticks swung, and returned upright; the ball glittered and bounced, arched and soared from one to the other. They had crossed from the men’s half to the women’s when Pagano, stick flashing, rode straight in among the pounding hooves and trapped the golden ball as it hopped over Maria’s mallet head.

  He could not quite get away: there were too many around him, and this time the famous instinct had failed: Nicholas was beside him, and not where he could be the recipient of some cunning, impossible pass. For a moment, they were all close together except Amiroutzes and Anna, bumping and pushing. It was not surprising that, instead of hitting the ball, a mallet blow should take a horse or a person. Above the drums, it seemed to Tobie that he heard a woman’s voice scream. Next, from the swift pack of horses, he saw a pony canter off riderless while another, in the thick of the contest, suddenly staggered, throwing its rider.

  The rider was Nicholas. They were near enough to see him go down, and his horse drop to its knees and roll over, threshing. Loppe jumped to his feet. The injured horse lay on its back, with the others milling around. Nicholas lay curled under their hooves, his arms over his head as they drew back. Doria, flinging his reins to someone else, slid from the saddle and disappeared: Violante of Naxos also dismounted. The horses drew back, showing grooms and pages running already from either side. The injured horse started to squeal. The lady Violante, in smeared cloth of gold, was kneeling in the dirt beside Nicholas, her hand on his shoulder. Beyond, Pagano Doria was stooping over someone else. Loppe had gone. Tobie made to go after him. Godscalc’s hand, stretching out, gripped him hard. “No. Remember.”

  He had forgotten. Heads come off at this game. Your services will not be needed. It was, of course, all part of the plan. No one could mimic as Nicholas could. In the distance he could see a grey beard he knew, its owner hurrying over the ground. He said, “All right. It’s one of the physicians. But we ought to go down in a moment, or it’ll look very odd.” He paused and said, “Who else was hurt?”

  “The poor little bitch,” said Astorre compassionately. “It’s the demoiselle’s little lass, Catherine. She won’t get away to Kerasous now. And there’s her damned husband free as air and Nicholas maybe done for.”

  “Not from the way he was lying,” Tobie said. “But I suppose we’d better make sure.”

  They were carrying Catherine off. You could see a lot of rather pretty brown hair, and a young hand dangling. Real, or part of the plan? Doria was walking quickly, looking down at her, with her helmet clutched in his hands as if he’d forgotten it. The palace doctor, leaving Nicholas, hurried over to him. Nicholas, turned to lie artistically on his back, still had not moved. From among the people standing over him, Loppe walked quietly to meet them. “Nothing bad. They don’t want to move him just yet. Kicked and trampled, but nothing broken, they think.”

  Tobie stared at him in surprise. Not Nicholas the actor, this time. Nicholas the brain-addled patient. Tobie sighed. Then he said, “And the girl?”

  Loppe said, “Here is Messer Doria.”

  It was Doria, turned back. He looked a little pale from the shock, and also surprisingly drained. It had been a hard game, and an abrupt ending. He said, “They tell me our young friend will survive.”

  Godscalc said, “We saw the lady your wife. Is she badly hurt?”

  “They can’t tell me,” said Doria. “They’ve taken her to the Palace. The Emperor himself was good enough to insist. She’ll have the best attention. The doctor says she has been…The horses trampled her.”

  Tobie said, “I should be glad to help if I can.”

  Doria looked at him. “Thank you. But they are skilled, I think. They’ve told me I can see her whenever I want. Live there, if I want to.”

  There was an uneasy silence. Astorre said, “Good horsewoman. Played a brave game.”

  “It was a good game,” said Doria. His eyes went past them to where Nicholas lay, and stayed there. Then he said, “I have things to collect,” and turned and walked away, limping a little.

  In a while, two men came with a carpet to remove the Florentine consul so that the games might go on. In the tent they took him to, he eventually stirred, and was rather wretchedly sick; and then allowed Tobie without resistance to reassure himself that nothing was indeed broken. The Emperor had sent an emissary to enquire after his health several times, and Violante of Naxos had called once.

  Nobody had cared to introduce the subject of Catherine’s accident, about which Nicholas could as yet know nothing. At the end of it all, Tobie wrapped him in blankets and set him, propped up, to await transport back to the fondaco. He sat, Tobie saw, in exactly the way he always sat after a beating: without complaint or expectation of anyone’s interest. He was probably going to be sick again. He was lucky to be alive. It took no leap of the imagination to recognise that Doria had tried in the end to get rid of him, and had been foiled, or had failed. Then the persistent Venetian woman paid her second visit and, admitted this time, looked down at her late, wan opponent with interest. She was clean and changed into womanly silks, although her face, under the paint, betrayed recent exertion. She said, “We should have scored a third point.”

  “In heaven,” said Nicholas, “you probably did.” It was the first sentence he had produced and indicated, well enough, that it was not going to be the first of many.

  Violante of Naxos said, “It was your own fault. You know that. None the less, I am sorry. But the rest went according to plan. That is what I came to say.”

  “All of it?”

  “Everything. You have three days to rest, an
d review your own stupidity.”

  He sat looking after her, appearing pleased and sick at the same time. She had reached the door when he managed a question. “Who saved me?”

  “Oh, Alexios,” she said. “You have nothing to thank me for.”

  “Six points,” he said, with queasy contentment.

  Chapter 35

  LUCKILY FOR THE STATE of his health, the prophecy was correct, and Nicholas did have three full days in which to rest his battered bones after the Feast of St Eugenios. Seeing no reason to rest his brain also, he spent them holding busy meetings in the shade of the garden, dressed in the sort of loose buttoned robe whose uses he had been taught in the Palace. As the heat advanced, even Father Godscalc left off his gown and tended to be seen, when at the fondaco, in shirt and hose like the rest, although never quite so informal as Astorre, who would strip to the waist the moment he came in off the streets and stand, as once Julius had done, letting the spray of the fountain jump off his frilled scars and furred pelt. The prophecy was correct, but failed to indicate that three days of peace were all any of them were going to get, never mind Nicholas.

  He was holding a discussion, perched on the back of a long marble settle with his sandalled feet on its seat, when the interregnum was doubly brought to an end; burst asunder first by the arrival of Astorre himself, still fully dressed and straight from the Citadel. They heard him roar from the garden entrance. He leaped the steps and bounded forward, still bellowing. “The mist has lifted, and there’s a beacon! The fleet is coming! Sinope has fallen, and the Turkish dogs are sailing this way!” Godscalc and Tobie scrambled up from the grass, and Nicholas slid to the ground quickly and joined them.

  It was a relief. It was almost a joy. For Astorre, the professional soldier, it was a joy. He looked incandescent. Standing around him, they had begun flinging questions and extracting answers when there was another thunderous crash in the outer yard, followed by the disputing voices of servants. The door to the garden was flung open a second time with such violence that they all broke off and turned.

  Pagano Doria stood on the steps. He walked down them and crossed the grass steadily. He came to a halt before Nicholas. “Where is she?” he said.

  She had promised three days. The three days were over. Nicholas said, “Your wife is safe. Come indoors to my chamber. And Father Godscalc. Tobie, Captain Astorre, you’d better begin. I’ll be back.”

  Doria stood where he was. He said, “I’ve just come from the Palace. I had to break into the Gynaecum. Catherine isn’t too ill to be visited. She isn’t there. She hasn’t been there for two days.”

  The priest said, “You are owed an explanation, and will have it. But what Nicholas says is correct. Madonna Catherine is out of the City, and you should be thankful. We have just heard. The Turkish fleet is coming to Trebizond. She is well away.”

  “I’m sure she is,” said Doria. “You son of a whore, you’ve got rid of her. I was afraid you would, in the end. Something subtle, I thought, that the old woman couldn’t blame you for. I never thought you’d throw the girl to the Turks.”

  “Didn’t you? You said she could serve a squadron all winter, and still be eager,” Nicholas said. He heard Tobie draw in his breath. “You even offered to lend her to me. What made you think I wouldn’t use her if you did?”

  Doria smiled, without charm. He said, “Ah. She’s here, then?”

  Nicholas said, “No. You quelled my interest in women. She came to complain of your general performance, and asked our help to get her home safely. We gave it. She was knocked unconscious, but that was all that was wrong. As soon as she recovered, she escaped the Palace and we helped her leave Trebizond. She is in no danger from Turks if she travels to Georgia.”

  “I suppose not,” Doria said. “Unfortunately, she is my wife and has no leave to travel anywhere unless I permit it. The law and I must therefore pursue her. The law and I must therefore punish, of course, the man who separates wife from husband. Return Catherine. Or I shall take the case to the Emperor.”

  “Why not?” Nicholas said. “Although he does have other things on his mind. In fact, I’m not sure that he believes that you and Catherine are married. He would be entertained, I suppose. He’s never met a Genoese consul before who couldn’t satisfy the wants of a thirteen-year-old.” He kept his voice low, although clear enough. There was no point, now, in having this out somewhere else. The others stood where they were, in absolute silence.

  Doria said, “If I told you that you were right, and the marriage was never made legal, would you tell me where she is?”

  Nicholas laughed. He said, “Hardly. What would you want with Catherine de Charetty if she weren’t your wife?”

  “I trained her,” said Doria. “It’s a pity to waste it all on a party of Osmanli seamen. But no. You sent her east, you say, in the opposite direction. Where she’ll be safe until she can get back to Bruges and reap half of the Charetty inheritance. Of course, I believe you.”

  “I’m afraid you will have to,” said Nicholas. “And now, we are busy.”

  He had been watching Doria’s hand at his side. For a moment he thought he was going to draw the knife from its sheath, as a different man might have done. But Doria only looked at him, frowning, as if the face he saw was not the face he expected. Then he recollected himself, and became the sea prince again. “My poor, dear Niccolò. If she is about, I dare say I shall find her. If not, consider the report I shall have to make to your wife. You have, of course, made trial of the girl as I offered. Perhaps you appealed to the commoner parts of her ancestry. Perhaps she has a taste, already formed, for her mother’s apprentices. Perhaps she even thinks you will make her richer than I should. What a story for Bruges, and the lord Simon my patron.”

  Since there was nothing in that to worry about, Nicholas let it all pass over his head. Doria knew about Marian. He didn’t know about Simon’s wife Katelina. It was a pity that Tobie and Godscalc both did. “Indeed,” Nicholas said. “I hope Catherine will be able to tell it herself. If you prove to be married, you will have every right to claim her in Bruges. But not until the proof is produced. And meantime, you’ve seen the last of her here.”

  Doria said, “I see you have no idea who you are dealing with. I shall see you in a Flemish law court. If not in a court a little more summary, and a little sooner than that.”

  He turned. He had got to the steps when Nicholas spoke, on an impulse. He said, “She is not with me, and is well protected.”

  On Doria’s face, as he left, was a trace of scorn and a trace, rather stronger, of mystification. Nicholas waited until the garden door closed, and then, turning, went back to the others. Astorre was red. He said, “Did he say all that? The bastard! His own wife!”

  Nicholas said, “She’s safe now. Forget him. Look, let’s get on with this. How many men on board, do they think?”

  Later, Tobie tried to re-open the subject but allowed himself to be sidetracked. They were learning. Or he was getting better at holding them off. It was a help, of course, to have a war on your hands.

  On the fourth day after that, the fleet of the Turkish admiral Kasim Pasha appeared, a fretted line on the western horizon. It was the first day of July, and the time when the sun alternately burned and masked itself behind veils of thick cloud, which now and then unloaded their lukewarm torrents over the orchards, the gardens, the forests festooned with wild vines. The flat roofs of the houses poured water; the steep streets rushed with it; the brawling streams in the two gorges rose higher and roared. Then the sun came out, and Trebizond, thick with flowers and fruit, lay in its steam. Soon, as the fleet entered the distant arm of the bay, you could see the sprinkle of gold from the mastheads and the sail bellies blaze out like coloured silk lanterns as they moved steadily east and the sun fell behind.

  By then, everyone was in the Citadel. From dawn, the bells of the City had been clanging their warning: the great bronze voice of the Chrysokephalos from inside the Citadel; of little Anne west of the
Meidan and St Basil down by the shore and St Andrew and St Sophia to the west. And in the merchants’ quarters, the bells of the Latin chapels and of St Philip over by Mithras and, loudest of all, the warning from the fortress church of St Eugenios on its ridge to the south. The message was simple. Abandon your homes and come, now.

  They did not come readily, for the practice was new. To protect its harbours and trading, every headland and ridge of the Black Sea had long since acquired its Genoese castle, its fortified churches and monasteries. These, together with the notorious storms of the Euxine (once properly entitled the Axeinos), generally saw to it that sea-raiders didn’t stay long.

  A determined enemy was a different matter. Only the Citadel between its two ravines was truly impregnable. The flat shores with their wharves and warehouses and fishing communities, the steep network of streets on either side with their rich villas and gardens, baths and markets, had only the island fortresses of the churches and the merchant colony’s keeps to protect them. Stout buildings of brick and stone were strong enough to withstand most raids, but not all. St Eugenios had more than once been taken and occupied. Only three years ago, an enemy camp had stood on Mount Mithras and all the suburbs up to the eastern ravine had been pillaged and stripped of their people. So, in times of real war, men had chosen to trust neither the fortresses nor the Citadel. The rich in the past had taken ship and fled east to Georgia. The poor took their children and what goods they could carry and disappeared south, into the mountains.

  They couldn’t do that this time, with Ottoman armies fighting the White Horde behind them. And this time it was necessary that the able men of the City should not melt away but should be there, within its walls, to help the garrison keep its watch. And men fought better, as Astorre, as John le Grant knew, when their wives and children were present; just as shepherds, under the eyes of their flock, had to remember their honour. So the ships had been disabled, and the people warned. So stores had been gathered, and preparations made for the great influx of population into a place from which the people had always fled in time of danger. And so the monks came into the City, carrying their crosses, with their vestments and treasure on the backs of their mules; and the merchants emptied their warehouses, burying what they couldn’t transport, and led their households over the ravines to take rooms where they could.