Figures in Silk (45 page)

“I wasn’t always old, either,” Alice said energetically. “And there’s nothing I don’t know about girls getting their hearts broken.”

She spread her big hands out, put one on each large thigh, and leaned comfortably if inelegantly forward. There was a nostalgic look in her eyes. “You won’t have heard this from Caxton or Anne or William, but back when we were apprenticed to Master Large, right here in this house . . . ,” she began, with gusto.

The voices inside Isabel’s head were still singing. “Dickon sent for me; he sent for me.”

But she turned her face toward Alice Claver, and set herself to listen.

“. . . I didn’t know what had hit me,” Alice Claver was saying, and her big red face was gentler than Isabel had ever seen it. “The master himself, kissing me . . . It was madness, of course. Where could it go, with the mistress in the house too, watching him like a hawk, and the other apprentices with me at every moment of the day and night? There wasn’t even any
where
for us to go to be together. We had the odd scuffle in a store cupboard. Sometimes we’d manage to meet on a street corner. And I think we once took a walk round Moorfields. Stupid, really. But there was a whole year when it was heaven and hell rolled into one. I couldn’t think of anything else. I was like a thing possessed.”

She looked ruefully at Isabel. Then she snorted with laughter.

“But do you know what?” she added. “Once I’d got over it, I couldn’t think what had got into me for so long. He was just a fat old man with a bald patch. A dear old thing.”

It was extraordinary enough to grab Isabel’s full attention.

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. She’d never once heard Alice Claver talk like this, or about this; or the others, come to that. They couldn’t ever have known.

Drawing closer, wondering what Alice Claver must have looked like before she got so broad and red- faced; trying, and almost managing, to imagine her a slip of a thing, kissing someone in a store cupboard, Isabel asked softly: “But how did you get over it?”

“Work,” Alice Claver replied, with a snap of lips. “Of course.

It’s the only way. He sent me to Antwerp for the fair. Richard went too. We spent a month there. Worked like dogs. I was much too busy to be pining for love. We did our first big deal there. The most exciting moment of my life. Made . . . the other thing . . . seem plain foolishness; which it had been. We went out celebrating. Betrothed before I knew where I was.”

She shifted one of her beefy hands onto Isabel’s leg and gave it a firm pat.

“It’s time we got you back to work too,” Alice said heartily.

“There’s going to be a lot to do between now and Lady Day if we’re to get the registration through in good order.”

Isabel nodded eagerly. She was full of energy again; she’d be going to Westminster, maybe as soon as tomorrow. She was so touched by Alice’s opening of her heart that she felt dishonest to be thinking the way she was, but in her heart of hearts she knew that the first thing she’d do when she got there would be to find a way to see Dickon.

“But,” Alice went on, patting Isabel’s leg even harder—almost a slap—“I don’t think you’re well enough to go traipsing off to Westminster for half the week just yet.” She looked hard at Isabel; and Isabel realized the older silkwoman was one step ahead of her again. Alice had guessed exactly what was on her mind.

“Goffredo can handle things at the silk house until the registration,” Alice said briskly. “And I’m going to send word to your Lady Darcey, too, that you’re still convalescing—you were really ill, you know; we were worried. You’re not up to palace jaunts yet.”

Isabel opened her mouth, then closed it. She could see Alice wouldn’t brook dissent.

She didn’t mind. She’d do this for Alice. She’d bide her time when it came to Dickon. There’d be a moment soon enough. She had the strength and endurance for anything, as long as she could have hope.

The silkwoman heaved herself up and clapped Isabel on the shoulder. “We need you in London right now. We’ll think again about letting you go back to Westminster—later. Once we’ve got through Lady Day.” Despite her gruff words, there was a very soft look in her eye as she swept off toward the corridor.

The thirty silk cloths were brought to Alice’s house a week before Lady Day, ironed flat and stored carefully inside a chest.

The cloths, each marked with the Claver seal and the gold thread through the selvage, were stowed safely in an anteroom in the warmth of the silk storeroom at Catte Street when the summons to the Guildhall came.

The letter was for Goffredo—a demand to present himself at the City government center tomorrow. It was delivered to Catte Street, even though everyone knew Goffredo always put up at the Prattes’. Alice opened it—it was her house, after all—and once she’d read it, sent it round to Goffredo. It wasn’t for her to worry, yet; if a problem arose she had faith that the Guildhall would always come to the right decision. But she had no idea why the City government would want to see Goffredo now. They were all curious.

Goffredo was at Catte Street within an hour, looking baffled.

“Have they brought the registration hearing forward?” he said. “Is that it?”

“It can’t be that,” Alice Claver replied. “Or we’d all be called.

This is just for you. You aren’t in any trouble over any other business, are you? Short weights, behind on your documents? Problems with cargoes?”

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Of course.”

The Prattes came later. But they didn’t know anything either.

William Pratte had given up most of his Guildhall committees, except the venturers’ one on trade overseas. He hadn’t heard of any reason why the mayor would want to interview Goffredo.

Anne hadn’t heard anything in the selds.

It was worrying, all the same. Especially now, with the registration hearing so close.

Isabel said: “The letter came here. Perhaps we should all go tomorrow?”

Goffredo looked grateful. But William Pratte cautiously shook his head.

Isabel went anyway, without telling the others. It seemed right. She waited in the street for Goffredo the next morning. He turned up outside the Guildhall in his best dark velvets, washed and shaved, with only a tic in his jaw giving away his nervous-ness.

His eyes widened when he saw her. “
Cara Isabella
,” he said gently.

“Well, I was free this morning,” she muttered, embarrassed by her own gesture. She linked her blue silk arm through his black velvet one, as if they were a real couple, and stepped quickly forward.

She gasped when she entered the chamber. It was hot.

Packed. Full of shifting bodies and eyes. It looked as though every liveryman in London was there—except William Pratte and Will Caxton. She could even see her father, with his noble profile and his eager smile, standing right behind the new mayor, William Stokker—a draper. John Lambert must have come to London specially. How had the Prattes not known?

Goffredo glanced at her. Neither of them understood.

They sat at the table on the dais, on one side of the mayor and his men, watched by many dozens of eyes.

Then another delegation walked through the door opposite.

The men who sat down at the other end of the table were all in black velvet. They had dark skins and dark hair and strong features and expensive jewels. And they were familiar. She’d seen them pray at the Lucchese chapel at St. Thomas of Acre. She knew some of their names. Dr. Gigli. Jacopo Salviati himself, towering over the rest. Two young men from the Conterini great place in Botolph Lane. And two others whose names she didn’t know, but who she recognized from the markets: more merchant strangers from Italy.

“Keep calm,” she whispered to Goffredo, whose eyes were flickering from one Lombard face to another.

“This is a trap,” Goffredo whispered back. “We’ve walked right into it.”

It wasn’t an Italian who presented the case against Goffredo.

It was a minor merchant from Southampton called John Burdean, a badly put-together sack of a man, full of spit and resentment. Isabel could see from the way his and Goffredo’s eyes narrowed when they saw each other that they must have once done business together, and fallen out.

The blood was pounding so loudly in her head that she could hardly hear what John Burdean was saying. Concentrate, she told herself, and locked her eyes on Master Burdean’s angry paunch and bony legs and thin, hard voice. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

He seemed to be saying Goffredo owed him money. Large sums. Debts stretching back years, money even Isabel could tell Goffredo couldn’t really owe in full, because some of the purported debts had allegedly been contracted in Southampton at times when Isabel knew Goffredo to have been in Venice.

But the Italians were nodding as if they had checked these charges among themselves and found them true. Now one Lombard after another was standing up to add a charge. Goffredo had stolen a silk damask cloth from the Conterini ware house and fraudulently sold it to John Burdean, telling him it was a cloth he’d imported himself. Goffredo had trespassed in the Salviati shop with intent to steal again.

They’re making the whole thing up, Isabel realized. They’ve dug up some nasty little man with a grudge, and they’re using him to smear Goffredo’s name. If there are doubts about Goffredo, he won’t be able to operate in London anymore. And we’ll have trouble registering the weaving business next week. They don’t know how far we’ve come, how near we are to registering.

But they’re trying to close us down before we begin.

The thought made her angry, but only for a moment. Then she felt her breathing getting tighter and more controlled, her mind beginning to work out responses. The Lombards weren’t going to win so easily.

Each Lombard accusation was followed by more buzzing and whispering. The merchants of London didn’t know whether to be surprised or angry. D’Amico didn’t look an out- and- out villain, after all; most people in the room had done business with him and didn’t recall being cheated. Then again, you could never tell with Lombards. They were sly. D’Amico had stooped low to steal from his own kind, in a foreign land. Who could say what other crimes had gone undetected? Their faces darkened.

The mayor was standing up. “Having heard the charges brought against you,” he was saying, and Goffredo, strangely white for someone so sallow, was swaying in his chair. “In the circumstances,” the mayor was saying, “I have no alternative but to place you,” he paused before the foreign name, then went roundly on,“you, George D’Amico,” and Goffredo flinched, “under arrest, pending a full investigation and trial.”

The Italians allowed themselves small smiles. John Burdean was sweating. He grinned and wiped his hands on his legs. He stood up as if it were all over, then sat down again. The London merchants muttered and waited. The mayor was talking again, saying, “Your right to trade in this city is suspended until further notice; your goods are impounded and must be handed in. You may continue to reside at the home of William Pratte but must report daily to the Guildhall . . .”

Isabel wanted to whisper to Goffredo, but she couldn’t get him to meet her eye. He was frozen. She touched his arm to get his attention. Still staring down at his hands, he muttered:“They’ve got us. They moved first. They’ve got us.” Then a gabble of Italian and a flash of eyes. She didn’t want to know what it meant. It wouldn’t be helpful.

“Goffredo,” she whispered, wishing Robert Lynom were there too, “can I answer?”

He looked puzzled. “Them?” he hissed. “Fight them?”

She nodded briskly; she’d take that as permission, she decided.

“Your Honors,” she called loudly as the mayor wound up, and the room went quiet. The eyes were all on her now. Among them she was aware of her father’s look of horror. Taking a deep breath, hearing her voice tremble, she went on: “Speaking on behalf of Master D’Amico, who is the most trusted foreign trading partner of the House of Claver, which I represent, I want to draw the attention of the worshipful company to certain facts about Master D’Amico’s business that have not been mentioned by any of the speakers so far—and may shed light on the allegations made in this room today . . .”

The real reason Goffredo D’Amico was in the dock today, she told them, was not because he’d cheated John Burdean or the London Lombards. She paused, waiting for the eddy of interest to subside. It wasn’t so hard once she’d started. She was scared, but exhilarated too.

“Your Honors. Master D’Amico has cooperated with the House of Claver in bringing to the City of London a group of Venetian silk weavers,” she announced, with her heart racing.

“These weavers have been teaching English craftswomen how to weave cloths of damask, velvets, cloth of gold and silver and other cloths of silk”—she paused, and looked Dr. Gigli straight in the eye—“for the past two years.”

There were gasps at this. There were murmurs of “Two years!” and “Silk weaving!” and “In London!” and “Where?” She felt excitement all around. She couldn’t stop to see where the gasps had come from, but she hoped some might have been from dismayed Lombard mouths.

“The training is nearly complete. Very soon,” she went on,“our English weavers—London women—will be producing and selling whole silk cloths as lovely, as accomplished—and as valuable—as anything made in Venice or Florence.”

Was that something like a cheer? She ignored it. She said: “So important is this work for England, and for the City of London in par tic u lar, that the king himself supports it. The weavers and their pupils are housed and provided for by the high command of His Majesty; from the royal purse. His Majesty understands, as well as you will all understand, how crucial acquiring this new skill is for England—how it will enhance English trade and boost English prestige . . .”

She looked round, and fixed the impassive Lombards with a steely eye. “In fact, Your Honors,” she went on, “the only losers from the transfer of knowledge Master D’Amico has made possible will be the other merchant strangers of London. We Londoners may soon start thinking their Venetian and Florentine and Sienese and Lucchese cloths are too expensive—or coarse—or ugly—compared with London’s own homemade silk cloths. The merchant strangers you see before you—our honored Lombard guests—are going to have to work much harder than before to make the same profits from selling us their silk cloths.” There was definitely a cheer in the air now; her audience was getting her drift all right. “No wonder they’re smarting, Your Honors,” she finished. “No wonder they’re angry with Master D’Amico.”