Scales of Gold (11 page)

‘Then perhaps we ought to find out,’ said Nicholas.

Within sight of the boat, Tilde jumped out and ran towards them. She looked frightened. Nicholas said, ‘Tell her about the spectacles. That’ll cheer her up. Gregorio knows.’

‘I’m surprised,’ Julius said. ‘I thought you did everything on your own nowadays.’ He smiled at Tilde, who had abruptly arrived, and, flicking her cheek, turned her to walk with them back to the boat. She held his arm. She had heard the story of the glassworks assassin. She was close to alarmed tears.

Gregorio, watching all three approach, didn’t rise, Nicholas noticed, and appeared dry-eyed to a degree. Here and there in the lawyer’s schooled face were traces of a number of unhelpful entrenchments that needed to be thought about. Loppe, seated beside him, said nothing, which sometimes made Nicholas angry.

Nicholas said, ‘And what a day of good cheer it has been. Have you had a merry time, friends? So did we. Blood, carnage and sack, and now, although less exciting, the Magistracy of Murano in its pomp. But be not disturbed. He that is greatest in office is but a statue of glass.’

‘When are you coming?’ said Gregorio. He spoke in Italian.

Nicholas switched to Tuscan and made it quite loud. ‘Who can tell? Go to bed. We have a fricassé to bury.’

‘You’re frightening Tilde,’ said Julius impatiently, getting into the boat.

‘No, I’m not. Her Italian isn’t good enough. I’ll call on you. In a week.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Julius said. ‘I’ll be round tomorrow with Godscalc. I forgot to tell you. Father Godscalc is here.’

‘
Is
he?’ said Gregorio.

‘Is he?’ said Nicholas. ‘We must try to keep him in business.’

He waved them off and walked back to the glasshouse rather slowly. Undeniably, Julius had had the last word.

Chapter 6

D
URING
THE DAYS
that followed, the act of watching Nicholas vander Poele became a popular Venetian pastime. Among the watchers, no doubt, were those who wished him no particular good. The remainder were divided among those who were captivated by his energy, his person, or his habit of making himself the centre of a welter of bloodshed.

He gave them plenty to look at, even though he was equally skilled (as his colleagues discovered) at evaporating when he wanted no witnesses. They saw him (he had his own two-oar
barchetta
by now) being swept along this canal or that, usually with his manager or some other colleague beside him. They saw him cross St Mark’s Square at noon with a column of retainers and emerge from the Palace having, so rumour said, paid for his Venetian privileges, including his house, with a loan which would give the captain-general a few peaceful nights.

They saw him on foot, always accompanied, running up and down bridges and along footpaths in many different quarters: by the quays, or among the network of workshops where the weavers were, and the craftsmen in carpentry. He was seen coming out of a rope-walk, and going into a sugar refinery. He was interested, it seemed, in rare books.

And people, of course, visited the Ca’ Niccolò. It was said that he had brought strange things from Cyprus – weaves of silk and patterns of carpets of a kind rarely seen – and was investing money in having them copied. It was said that, in between selling his cargo, he was buying many things, of which the cheapest was hemp seed. It was said (but the Collegio didn’t confirm) that he had acquired an island north of Murano, and imported all that was necessary to erect on it the world’s finest glasshouse. It was said that he was spending ducats in the style of a prince, and much of it on entertaining. This last, Gregorio could endorse.

He had been half-prepared for this phenomenon: the correspondence from Cyprus had foreshadowed it. Translated into physical terms, the shock of one man’s vitality had brought the building to life. Now, as well as the crammed hours of talk and travel, he found himself executing the role of a banquet-manager.

He and Margot, of course, had entertained, although not on this scale. It was his job, as well as his pleasure. His weakness was poetry, but he was fond also of music, and had found himself a master who would teach him the finer points of the fiddle and psaltery. They were acquainted with painters and writers and had a circle of friends with whom they played cards and took wine, as well as the grander circle of clients who would come, now and then, to sit in their courtyard and listen to some new composition, and whom they would attend on some formal, slight occasion in return.

He knew, of course, that many of those same noblemen had land and interests in Cyprus, and that their higher involvement was or had been with Nicholas. This was borne out by the frequency with which Nicholas disappeared into their homes. Most of them lived near the Rialto, having the money and the mercantile interests to justify it. The social life of the Bank lost Nicholas periodically to the Loredani and the Corner and the Bembi, to the Contarini and the Zeno. Sometimes Gregorio and Margot were commanded to accompany Nicholas, even though it was not entirely sure that they had been invited.

The homes so treated generally belonged to merchants with young, lively wives, and especially those living in matrimony with the three princesses of Naxos, one of whom had been at Trebizond and two on Cyprus at the same time as Nicholas. Gregorio never discussed this interesting aspect of life at the Ca’ Niccolò with Julius, although Julius frequently asked.

The personal life of Nicholas engaged Julius a great deal. When calling to chat to Gregorio, which he did remarkably often, he always brought the conversation round to where Nicholas spent his nights. It was, of course, a recognised courtesy that well-run houses should be made known to a newcomer, pending his choice of more exclusive companionship. Nicholas would receive no lack of advice and no lack of offers for the latter, Gregorio thought, as each host showed himself eager to help. He was surprised, himself, at the quality and good looks of the candidates, until he remembered the existence of Primaflora. On Cyprus, Nicholas had not only chosen a courtesan, he had married her.

To Julius, Gregorio always said, ‘I don’t know what he does, it’s up to him. But after the last two, I don’t see him rushing to
marry.’ There were times when he regretted summoning Julius. He was filled with foreboding by the presence of Tilde and her accusations and acrimony.

He was relieved, consequently, when the situation between Tilde and Nicholas seemed, with time, to be easing. Whereas Julius always seemed to find Nicholas absent, Tilde’s occasional visits to Margot often led to a passing encounter, and once to a trip to his office, where Nicholas showed no objection to Tilde seating herself by his table and asking a number of pointed questions about mercantile matters.

He answered her, Gregorio noticed, with remarkable candour, taking for granted – which was true – that she had long known the basics of business, having helped to run her own since her mother died. As the conversation developed they sounded like cronies, each taking turns to ask and to comment. Then Nicholas, having apparently judged her capacity, launched into a proper description of the joint agency he was planting in Alexandria, quoting harbour dues, custom taxes, bribery scales, fondaco charges, storage costs, range of goods per season, and percentage profit after freight and insurance, all mixed with examples and anecdotes, and suffused with a kind of dream-like enthusiasm that was, Gregorio thought, only half manufactured.

It worked with hardened merchants and clerks; it didn’t fail to bewitch an aggressive, plain girl of seventeen with a good grasp of business. When at the end Margot came to take her away, her colour was heightened and her flattened nose shining. She hadn’t asked any more questions about whom he’d killed lately, or who would run the Bank when he was dead. Gregorio thought she would probably cool down outside, and then wish she had. He made to leave, but Nicholas called him back to his seat. Nicholas said, ‘They’re not doing well.’

To an experienced ear, it had been obvious. Gregorio said, ‘I don’t think it’s the Charetty’s fault. The Duke’s sick; trading’s slipped; all the money’s going on the French quarrel; the Scots are threatening to take their business from Bruges, and Florence isn’t being helpful with loans. A temporary rise in the groat isn’t going to do very much. And any good business that’s left is being threatened by the Vatachino.’ He paused and said crossly, ‘You really ought to stay and see Julius.’

‘That isn’t what he wants to see me about,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. It
is
partly their fault. I left them with the core of a good escort and courier business, and Julius should have stopped Tilde from wrecking it. He can run a straightforward business better than most when he wants to. In any case, you have to hope, don’t you, that
the downturn is mostly his fault? Otherwise you’ve opened a branch in a pretty stupid place.’

‘On your orders,’ Gregorio said.

‘Well, of course my orders,’ said Nicholas. ‘I sent them from Cyprus and you went to Bruges to implement them. If you found them imprudent or fatuous, don’t you suppose it was your job to tell me?’

It was difficult, sometimes, to keep your temper with Nicholas.

Of all the visitors to the Ca’ Niccolò at this time, the most welcome was Father Godscalc, the Charetty company chaplain. Not that Gregorio knew him well, even though they had joined the Widow Charetty almost together. As priest, makeshift physician and scribe, Godscalc had spent most of his early service abroad with the Charetty army and Nicholas. Even so, Gregorio’s memory of the man was quite clear; the bulk, the dark, uneven complexion, and the profusion of curling black hair over brown eyes translucent as resin. On Gregorio’s one subsequent trip to Bruges (now discounted) the priest had been away, reportedly conducting some business in Germany. Gregorio wondered what Godscalc would make now of the Widow’s widower.

Nicholas had been missing on the occasion of Godscalc’s first visit to the Ca’ Niccolò, but since the priest came with Julius, it was not perhaps unexpected. The next time, arriving alone and finding himself no more successful, Godscalc sighed. ‘Ah, the coward.’ Like many Germans, he had studied at Fulda, and still had a touch of Irish about him.

They sat in Gregorio’s sanctum on the mezzanine floor, its low windows open on the Grand Canal. Noise floated inwards, and a little air. Gregorio said, ‘You should see him when threatened with Julius.’

‘Is that so?’ said the priest. ‘In that case, I should be sorry for Julius. I hear another man tried to make his mark on our friend in Murano. May I?’ He picked a book from Gregorio’s shelves and opened it up. He said, ‘It’s quite a good copy.’

‘I know,’ Gregorio said. ‘The man at Murano wasn’t an assassin, he was a spy.’

The priest replaced the book and took down another. He said, ‘Was that all? In that case, I am truly sorry for Julius. Does he pose a terrible threat? I’m surprised. I even thought – I may be wrong – that you summoned him.’

Gregorio said, ‘Nicholas had been away a long time. Catherine and Tilde are his step-daughters.’

The priest said, ‘You didn’t send for Catherine or Tilde.’

‘He knows Nicholas,’ Gregorio said.

‘Now that makes sense,’ the priest said. ‘You were disturbed about Nicholas. Why?’

Despite everything, Gregorio felt an obligation to his senior partner. ‘He sent me a letter from Cyprus. He told me he was coming back, because Simon’s wife and his sister’s husband had died, and he would be blamed for it. Also he had kept a boy of the same family as his prisoner.’

‘Diniz,’ said the priest thoughtfully. ‘His grandfather rescued him.’

‘Nicholas had already freed him,’ Gregorio said. ‘His grandfather stole the roundship
Doria
and got Crackbene its master to sail him home with the boy.’

‘Did the boy want to go?’ Godscalc said.

It was the kind of question Julius asked. It was followed, as a rule, by allusions to Zacco, King of Cyprus, who was young and unmarried. Gregorio said, ‘Nicholas hasn’t said.’

‘No, he wouldn’t,’ said Godscalc. ‘Now that is an edition worth having. You and I will have a talk about that. Meantime what does Loppe think about it?’

‘About the book?’ Gregorio said curtly. It was recognised that Lopez knew a great deal about Nicholas, but he still disliked the question in this particular context. It also reminded him of a recent excursion from Murano from which he had been excluded.

Godscalc closed the book and laid his broad hands on it. He said, ‘You were concerned enough to invite Julius, who has many qualities, but is not the most discreet of men. There are some ambiguities therefore that you have already weighed and dismissed. For those that remain, I am a willing listener, and a silent one, and one who has more experience, maybe, than either of you. So what is Loppe’s view of the boy Diniz?’

Gregorio said, ‘I thought we were talking of printing. Lopez says that Jordan de Ribérac took the boy from Nicholas against the boy’s will. He says the boy fears his grandfather.’

‘Do you tell me?’ said the priest. ‘As for printing, it is my own fault for opening a book. You would hear that Nicholas took himself to Germany a year or two back, and I was in Cologne myself recently. I was sorry to miss you in Bruges. I wanted to talk to you then about Nicholas.’

He scratched his chin and spoke slowly, giving Gregorio this time all his attention. ‘So he would be shocked, you would suppose, when the young lad he’d freed was snatched away from the island by de Ribérac. Are you not surprised that he didn’t take ship and try to stop them? And wouldn’t you expect an innocent man to rush to disabuse the minds of all those poor wretches who think
they’ve been wronged? Apart, indeed, from saving himself from their arrows? But I hear the insurance claim was happily met. That done, it might be felt that there was no call to waste time on a voyage.’

‘Nicholas couldn’t leave Cyprus,’ Gregorio said. ‘He had no ship. And by the time he had settled his affairs, Diniz had been with the old man for weeks; they were both home, and the tales had been spread.’