Caprice and Rondo (70 page)

He had: a well-constructed one to do with the purchase of gall nuts, insect dye, lapis and silks. He described, when requested, his present status as that of experienced dealer, working especially for the business of Julius of Bologna and his offices in Germany, Poland and Caffa. He agreed that he had access to mercenaries, bombardiers and artillery, of the sort Messer Josaphat had been prevented from bringing to Persia. He
indicated, in a manner so oblique that only an Arab mind could have followed it, that it would be undesirable to undertake such an expensive commission without knowing how soon the goods would be wanted, and for what; and what certainty there might be of full payment. Or, in other words, whom are you going to fight? And will you have lost before my army could reach you?

‘And do you not think you already know the answer, Messer Niccolò?’ the prince asked. ‘You do not lack confidence, surely, in what we can do?’ The clerk, on a sign, had risen and gone.

‘I fear only,’ said Nicholas, ‘that your victories will be so great and so immediate that you will have no use for men or guns by the time they arrive. Further, by crushing the Turk, you will re-open the trading-routes, which would increase my purchases here a hundredfold. I speak, for example, of alum. All that depends on, and will be shaped by the events of coming months.’

‘You are very cautious, for a merchant,’ said Uzum Hasan. ‘Perhaps we may allay some of your fears. About payment, for instance.’

Boxes had appeared: precious boxes of silver and ivory which the clerk, returned, laid before Nicholas and then started to open. They all contained jewels. Dully glowing, piled without order, these were not the personal jewels of a shah, but the tributes of state: the ambassadorial gifts which poured into the Persian treasury from all those princes Arab and Oriental whose merchandise travelled these lands. Nicholas knew enough about gems to judge their weight and their quality: he had valued rubies in Trebizond, although none quite like these, round and solid as chestnuts. There were strings of balas stones here, of thirty carats, of eighty or even a hundred. There were emeralds, and pink and black pearls. There were also other objects, far more ancient: pendants and brooches, fillets and necklaces the like of which he had seen before only in papal collections, or in the villas of the Medici.

Uzum Hasan said, ‘Take one box. I trust you. And should you find Persia a desert on your return, then at least you can pay the costs of your army.’

No one spoke. The gems glowed in the sun. ‘My lord,’ Nicholas said. ‘I cannot take them. It would require an army to secure their safe passage. And even then, having arrived, I could not promise to find or send the men that you need, who may be committed elsewhere.’

The faintly Mongoloid eyes rested on him. Uzum Hasan said slowly, ‘I think perhaps you are wise. I do not see, then, any way in which we may serve one another?’

‘It is not impossible,’ Nicholas said. ‘My lord makes his needs known. The princes of the West contribute the payment, and my company is commissioned to fulfil your wants. Send your envoys to the Pope
and the Emperor. Send them to Ivan of Muscovy. Depend on the good offices of the Patriarch of Antioch, who can pass between every faction. We have worked together before. We are friendly with Cairo, and have helped protect Cyprus against the Ottomans.’

‘We have heard,’ the Shah said. ‘We shall consider. We shall speak again.’ And he was dismissed.

The Patriarch, duly apprised, had seemed resigned, and not entirely displeased. ‘At least you weren’t fool enough to snatch at the treasure: that would have done for you and your Julius for good. As for the rest, what did you expect? He doesn’t know yet what front to fight on. His instinct is to wipe out the threat from his son, but he may have to leave that to face an outright attack by the Sultan. Meanwhile, envoys are a nuisance. He’ll get rid of us.’

‘All of us?’ Nicholas said.

‘He’s tried to dismiss Contarini three times. Rosso wants to go anyway. He’ll keep Barbaro: he’s a good, able man who knows the language and has lived for years in the region. He’s taken Zeno’s place as a drinking companion to the prince.’

‘I can see Contarini wouldn’t do. And you and I?’ Nicholas asked.

‘He’s got most of what he wants from both of us, as we have from him. There’s nothing much we can do, unless you want to stay another full year and make a living out of it. I’d prefer to go back to Caffa and home.’

‘I’ll speak to Julius,’ Nicholas said.

H
E
SPOKE
TO
J
ULIUS
that Wednesday, just after it had been announced that the illustrious lord Uzum Hasan was leaving Tabriz, and would give an audience the following day to his guests the ambassadors. In the ensuing atmosphere of abandon, permission had been given for Nicholas to admit his colleague to the wonders of the prince’s menagerie, and they spoke, standing under trees in a stinking hot courtyard, watching an elephant nervously rehearsing how to go down on one knee and bow its head. Its mahout, from India but not Indian, was addressing it irritably. There was a Circassian Mameluke army under the rule of the Sultan of Herat. Julius was complaining.

‘Contarini says they’re going to send all of us home. I can’t believe it. All this distance, and nothing even discussed!’

‘Well …’ Nicholas said; and confessed.

Julius took his duplicity rather well; listening all through the reports, as accurate as Nicholas could make them, of his two business meetings at the Palace, and interrupting only to put pertinent questions. At the end, he made the expected scathing strictures, but his chief reaction, clearly,
was one of relief. ‘I had to swear to keep quiet,’ Nicholas said. ‘There are spies. Talk about arms at the moment is unwise. He’s promised one final meeting outside Tabriz if we want it.’

‘When?’ Julius asked. They were standing in front of a cage with a lion, and another with a silk-bodied beast with black stripes who reminded Nicholas, for no reason at all, of the vicomte Jordan de Ribérac. The beast opened its lips, revealing fangs shaped like just-swallowed doges.
More. More. Something to take the taste away
.

‘Keep walking,’ Nicholas said. ‘My guess is that he’s leaving tomorrow: the place is in a ferment. The rumour is that he’ll shed us up north, after letting us see the real strength of his army. After that, the Patriarch goes on to Caffa, and those who want to, go with him and home.’

‘And you?’ Julius said. They passed an ounce. It was lying flat, waiting for snow.

Nicholas said, ‘I’ve thought about it, but I don’t want to stay here. What do you feel? Could you do with me in the Crimea, or even somewhere like Trebizond, if you don’t mind punitive Turkish taxes? Look, there’s an ostrich.’

Julius had seen it already. ‘Christ, do you remember when you rode one in Bruges? You were a mad devil, Nicholas. And Trebizond isn’t a bad idea. We could both go there from here, unless you’d rather make straight for Caffa and see to the gold. Anna should have it by now. She said you’d given her the password.’

They were looking up at a giraffe. A Seraph, they had called it in Egypt. Nicholas thought of a kite, and Kathi, and John le Grant crying with laughter. He thought of what it felt like, believing Gelis was dead. He said, ‘I did, but I cheated. I gave Anna half the password, that’s all. I didn’t want to worry her, or upset her, but the Genoese had their suspicions of Ochoa. They’re never out of the house. If she had got the gold, they would have found it.’

Julius’s face slowly inflated and reddened, becoming a picture of luminous outrage. ‘You did
what
! You lied to Anna? You left her stranded in Caffa without money!’ The Seraph waded aside, revealing the sun.

‘She has plenty. The furs. The silver. Enough for all summer. I told you.’

‘And if you had been killed on this trip, what would have become of the gold? Ochoa
died
for it!’

‘I know he did. So would you rather the Genoese got it? I promise you, that was the alternative. The only way to be sure was to arrange a password to be delivered by me. I have to be there.’

‘Then you should have stayed!’ Julius said loudly. The elephant skidded, and the mahout looked daggers, or perhaps knouts, at them both.

‘Well, of course, but I didn’t know you were coming to Tabriz!’ Nicholas retorted in high irritation. ‘And much bloody thanks I get for trying to fix up your trade with Uzum Hasan! I was told you’d be in Caffa, panting to warm up your marriage-bed.’

‘Well, I’ll wager you didn’t get there anyway, you young bastard,’ said Julius. ‘I expect that’s what this is all about, eh? She wouldn’t lie down on her back, so you thought you’d just make her wait for the gold?’

He was so confident. He was so unforgivably confident. Nicholas said, ‘And what makes you think
I
don’t lie down on
my
back? Any port in a long, tedious winter. She was reasonably good. But come the spring, a man wants a change. She’ll be quite happy to —’ He caught Julius’s arm as it moved and held it, hard. ‘Prove me wrong.’

The arm resisted his violently, and then began to relax. Julius said, ‘I don’t need to. I know the way your silly mind works. If you hadn’t shot me, you might have tried it. But you didn’t.’

He didn’t want a vote of confidence. He suddenly wanted to upset Julius as badly as he had been upset. He said deliberately, ‘I didn’t say I did try it. I said that she did.’

Julius pulled himself away. He said, ‘I won’t hear this. I won’t have Anna made the victim of one of your games. I tell you I know, as if God had told me, that Anna would never be unfaithful with you.’

Genuine, unmistakable certainty rang in his voice. So did fury. So did distress. Julius stood, breathing fast, and fixing Nicholas with his gaze. There was a long pause. Then Nicholas stirred and said, ‘Well, who would have believed it? Julius jumping through hoops over a joke. I’ll dream up a better one next time. Calm down, and think about all that fine gold instead.’

‘You God-damned —’ Julius was still shaking with anger.

‘I know,’ said Nicholas penitently. ‘I didn’t know you’d turned serious in your old age. What do you want to see next?’ People were still looking at them.

‘Nothing,’ said Julius. He pulled himself together. ‘All right. If you’ve stopped playing the fool, you might as well tell me the other half of the password. If you mean us to have it. If you aren’t planning to keep all the gold for yourself.’

‘Of course I am. That’s why I didn’t stay with it in Caffa,’ said Nicholas, exasperation and relief in his voice. ‘You can have the entire password with pleasure. The point is, you silly sod, that I have to be there to say it. I told you. So we’ll go to Caffa together. We’ll collect the gold. You can have it for your business. Everything will be ineffably glorious provided you keep your head, lower your voice, and walk out of this yard before the keepers let loose all the animals.
Now!
’

They got out; and outwardly, at least, the wilful little dispute seemed
to have ended. Nicholas supposed that he had been sure that it would. He tried, for the hundredth time, to stop thinking of Anna in Caffa; and experienced a bruised ache of pity for Julius’s absolute faith in her chastity. Then he returned to his apartment, and the cheerful indifference of the Patriarch.

Chapter 29

F
OR
THEIR
CEREMONIAL
(and final) appearance before the lord Uzum Hasan in Tabriz, his guests had been endowed with garments of Persian provenance to replace their travelworn dress. Stepping out the following morning, escorted by beautiful youths and observed by deferential persons of birth — the turbaned nobles in satins and silks, the diminutive women with their skin swelling white within the open Persian bodices — Nicholas had looked forward to witnessing the Patriarch of Antioch emerge before him; to see him tramp up the marble steps of the Palace of the Eight Heavens with his overgrown tonsure enfolded in fine gauzy muslin, his stained cassock overlaid with lascivious silks, and his horny feet in embroidered gold sandals.

It was not to be. Attended humbly by Brother Orazio, Father Ludovico took his place in the small cortège wearing a marginally fancier version of his usual caped hood and cassock, with his crucifix clanking in front and an ancient Gospel held in both hands. The two Venetian envoys and Rosso were however in Persian attire, and so were Julius and Nicholas, behind them. It pleased Nicholas to note, in his present state of rebellious nausea, that Julius found the long tunic and trousers encumbering, and had not discovered the knack of knotting his head-linen under one ear. It was fine, seven-ducat stuff, and generally looked best (although Nicholas didn’t suggest it) when worn with one earring. He himself had chosen a simple one of plain gold.

This time, Julius couldn’t complain of discrimination. Musicians escorted them into the heart of the domain, where Nicholas himself had never yet penetrated, so that they glimpsed, bowered in green, the outlying buildings — the summer kiosks, the stables, the workshops, the library. The cupolas of the pavilions and the baths; the immense one-storey complex of the harem. The high decorated walls of a garden and, between marble arcades, the pink and white volutes of birds, swans and flamingos, mirrored in water. Then they began to pass through the different courtyards, so that they were plunged from heat to coolness,
darkness to light. The morning sun stippled soaring towers of basket-weave brick, and glowed on surfaces where brick and faience were mingled together, paste-red and lustrous turquoise and ultramarine, forming geometric patterns, or flowers, or sacred words sprawling upwards in ecstasy, their shape cut by angels in spectacles. Some walls were set wholly with tiles and shone as if a gondola, passing, had rinsed them.

The vaults they walked under were tiled, or worked in faceted stucco such as they had in Granada, although Nicholas had seen only replicas, far from Spain, and ill-kept and dusty at that. Fashioned like honeycombs, they cascaded over his head in stone and plaster and wood. Carved stucco and tiles lined the anterooms and chambers and passages which led, ultimately, to the great central hall, its dadoes enamelled and gilded; its round silk carpet perfectly fitted to its circular floor and, high above, a painted ceiling so fresh that it glistened.