Scales of Gold (77 page)

Sijilmasa
was
a metropolis: a teeming green crossroads at the edge of the desert from which the caravans set out south, for the gold. Under the palm trees of Sijilmasa were fruit and flowers, eggs and cheeses, milk and dates and sweet water, and also every vice that money could buy, because it was wealthy – the Tuareg capital of a vast river-watered oasis. Under the palm trees of Sijilmasa, Nicholas lost Jilali ibn Said, and the desert.

He was sorrier than he had expected to part with Jilali. He had grown used to the clamour of his voice and the pressing intimacy of his manner. It concealed a shrewd brain, a lively eye, and great courage. Whatever the hardship, Jilali ibn Said had surmounted it with immense noise and equal efficiency; the sight of his solid body and florid features was enough to make the most recalcitrant muleteer quail.

He waved aside expressions of thanks, shaking Nicholas by the hand over and over, and kissing him frequently on the cheeks. ‘Were it another season, I could have taken you to my home at Tlemcen! But here is Mustapha, my young brother, who will accompany you. Unless you will not reconsider, and remain for a while? The houses of pleasure are all remarkable. There is nothing you cannot have. And in three weeks, the date harvest will begin. Ah! Sijilmasa when the fat, fresh, luscious dates come to the table!’

Nicholas refused, but with gratitude. After the desert, the onslaught of noise and colour, not to mention the sudden accession of food, made him feel giddy. He also felt a trifle lost, because the caravan family he had lived with so long had dispersed, albeit with protestations of undying affection.

The new convoy was shorter, and led by Jilali’s plump bearded brother. With some prodding, it managed to leave Sijilmasa in under three days. Mustapha, as it proved, had all Jilali’s enthusiasm, if not quite his efficiency. He also had many friends. They stopped a great deal, pacing up the lush river valley with its ardent hills. In due course, Mustapha hurried them across wastes of stone and swathes of soft, coloured sand; he had more friends in the villages tucked behind rocks, or in unexpected clumps of palm trees: he was energetic and talkative even when ascending the massif, the plateau that would take them to Tlemcen. There, as they camped, Nicholas said, ‘It is nearly the end of September.’

‘You will be in Oran by October,’ Mustapha said. ‘But you will stay with me in Tlemcen first? Oh, the wonders of Tlemcen! You have never seen such a palace, such a mosque. As great as Granada,
as Córdoba, with their pillars and pools, their filigree and their cedarwood, their arches like icicles, carved into hollows like honeycombs. I tell you –’

‘I can imagine,’ said Nicholas. ‘But alas, I should hasten to Oran. I may have to wait long for a ship.’

Mustapha ibn Said plucked his beard. He said, ‘They call if they have a cargo, but not often. It depends where my lord wishes to go. Is my lord going to Fleming-land?’

‘Flanders? Anywhere,’ Nicholas said. ‘Flanders, Florence, Venice, Ragusa. I shall take the first ship that comes.’

He didn’t know when he had reached that decision: to make no decision. To leave his destination to fate.

It was October when they came to Oran, and plodded through the great landward gates and into the caravanserai near them. Mustapha paid the caravan dues and found a place for their beasts and their goods and said, ‘I have friends who run a good tavern. If they have room, it will be better than this. And not expensive, even if you have to stay through the winter. Come and see them. Or perhaps you are tired?’

‘A little,’ said Nicholas. ‘Please go and see your friends, Mustapha. We can talk when you return.’

He was tired, but not more than they all were. It was the sight of the city itself that had oppressed him. The forest of minarets within the stout walls; the descending clutter of innumerable houses; the clamour of people. He had braced himself for it at Tlemcen, and he wished to prepare for it now, before plunging into it.

Besides, it was the end of a journey. The end of a very great journey, such as he had never undertaken before, in any land. He had left Venice on a summer’s day three years ago, beset by angry enemies. He had sailed as an army would sail, to seize its objectives. He had proposed to confront his doubting family, and force them to swallow their accusations. He had meant to hunt down Crackbene, who had opposed him; discover his ship; find the boy Diniz; compel the Vatachino to fear him as a rival. And find gold to pay for his Bank.

And he had not thought, at all, of what that would do to the people around him. Many were dead. All were altered. Most of all, late and laggard, himself.

He did not think he would change again. He carried with him now, below all the turbulence, the quietness Umar had found for him; Umar and the desert. When he was alone, as now, sitting in silence, he had only to reach for it.

He was so far lost in his thoughts that he didn’t at once hear the
voice of Mustapha, calling up from the yard to his balcony. ‘Lord! They have rooms! You may stay as long as it pleases you! And there is one ship in the harbour.’

Nicholas rose to his feet. ‘Going where?’

‘No one knows. It lies there, gathering weed. My friends have sent to the wharf to seek news of the patron’s intentions. It is a galley. My friends have written its name.’

He held up a paper. Nicholas ran down the steps. In the humid air, his skin felt slippery, as if it had been oiled. He took the paper.

Mustapha’s friends were not scribes, but they had managed to letter the name of the ship. They had seen it often enough. She had been at anchor in Oran since September.

Nicholas managed to read it as well. He read it twice, while Mustapha watched him. Then he read it a third time, or appeared to.

The galley that lay in the harbour was his own. The name of the lone, steadfast ship was the
Ciaretti
.

The tavern used by the crew of the
Ciaretti
was on the quayside, and a good deal more lax about liquor than the one belonging to Mustapha’s friends. When word went round that someone was enquiring about the
Ciaretti
, the crew did what they usually did, and deputed the two least drunk to row out to the ship and inform the officers.

So it came about that, when Nicholas pushed his way down to the port, two men in Venetian dress had already landed and were hastening uphill towards him. They saw each other at the same time. He stopped, and the men from the
Ciaretti
faltered.

They saw a tall man in a striped cloak stained with travelling, his head and shoulders bound in a white corded headcloth. Beneath the cloak was a gown of thick cotton, from the girdle of which hung a heavy, curved sword, and, on the opposite side, a leather purse ornamented in sticky, frayed silk. His sandals, too, were much mended, although once elaborate. Within the Egyptian cloth was a lean face, broad at the cheekbones and brow but hollow elsewhere, and in two tints of brown, as if a beard had been recently shaved.

The face slowly broke into a smile, producing two dents black as caverns. ‘Melchiorre?’ Nicholas said.

Melchiorre Cataneo of Florence jogged unevenly upwards towards him and, reaching him, found himself in an embrace he might or might not have initiated. Nicholas said, ‘You are well?’ and Melchiorre hesitated, and then gave a choking laugh, looking behind him.

‘You are speaking in Arabic,’ said Tobias of Beventini, physician, climbing rather more carefully. ‘God’s Dines, have ye turned? The Pope’ll murder you.’ His nose was pink.

‘
Tobie?
’ said Nicholas. He added, more clearly, ‘But you were always seasick.’ It came out in Flemish.

‘I nearly didn’t come,’ Tobie said. He put his hands on the striped shoulders and held them, but not over-tightly. His thumbs moved about. He said, ‘Come down to the ship. We can’t all stand and weep in the street. You didn’t expect us.’

‘It was a really pleasant surprise,’ Nicholas said. It came out in Arabic again. He couldn’t make jokes and deal with the shock also. His mind filled with the fragments of a hundred queries, but there was only one now that mattered. Or perhaps two. He said, ‘Godscalc, Tobie?’

‘In Bruges with young Vasquez. He’s all right,’ Tobie said. ‘Everyone’s all right. The Bank’s all right. What about Loppe? Nicholas?’

‘Umar,’ said Nicholas. ‘He’s staying. He’s well. I left him two months ago. So what cargo do you have?’

He had asked the question of Melchiorre who glanced in a dazed way at Tobie.

Tobie’s round blue eyes had revived. Tobie said, ‘Majolica, mercury, sheepskins, and bales of Perpignan and Languedoc cloth. We can sell them anywhere. Where do you want to go? There’s no one in Lagos. Gregorio should be in Venice by now. Julius was leaving Venice for Scotland, unless he’s waited to see you.’

‘I don’t think I should disappoint Julius,’ Nicholas said. ‘Melchiorre? Could you take me to Venice?’

‘Anywhere,’ Melchiorre said. He was smiling and weeping again. He said, ‘I can’t believe you’re here. We thought the message might be a hoax.’

‘Don’t be too sure it isn’t,’ said Nicholas nonsensically, in some language or other. In silent Arabic, he was collecting his thoughts. He hadn’t summoned them. If the
Ciaretti
had been here for a month, then someone else must have sent off the instruction before he himself left Timbuktu. Before he had decided to leave. Umar. Umar.

The street was packed. People bumped into them as they talked, and the noise was deafening. There would be two hundred men on the
Ciaretti
. Tobie said, ‘The boat is just over there.’ It was his professional voice.

Nicholas set aside all he was thinking, and his Arabic. He viewed Tobie. He said calmly, ‘I don’t suppose for a minute that you know how the écu is doing?’

‘Of course I do,’ Tobie said, instantly relieved. ‘Julius has these silver-gilt carrier-pigeons he sends us from Venice every day. You’re going to like being rich. We all like it. You don’t even need to go back and do it all over again. Are you tired of eating old camel? We have a layer-pasty on board.’

‘Lead me to it,’ Nicholas said.

Chapter 38

I
T WAS
Julius and not Gregorio who greeted the magnifico, the owner of the Banco di Niccolò, when the
Ciaretti
appeared through the mists of winter in the San Marco basin; Julius and a host which included the highest officers of the Republic of Venice. And the
Ciaretti
, aware that she was expected, rowed in, pennants streaming to the sound of drum and trumpet and flute, with every man dressed in silk, and Nicholas standing obediently on the deck of the forecastle.

This time, the Rialto had emptied, and the staff of the Ca’ Niccolò had not lingered around their own doors but had come to the square in a brilliant and uniform body. And instead of the modest two-oar
barchetta
, a stupendous gilded
bissona
rowed by twelve men carried Julius and his senior colleagues to where the galley dropped anchor.

Nicholas was watching it approach. ‘
Non est vivere extra Venetiis
. You did warn me,’

‘He does love it. Don’t spoil it,’ said Tobie. ‘He really did work miracles with nothing before the gold came.’ He saw Margot in the boat, which was a good thing. He wondered again where Gregorio was. He wished he knew what Nicholas was going to do from one minute to the next.

Julius rushed on board, and then remembered to help Margot up the steps. He was wearing more ribbons than she was. He said ‘Hey!’ and stood, his good-looking face red, before his former minion. He said, ‘You were always exploring something, you bastard. Usually in a chemise.’

‘There’s gold everywhere,’ Nicholas said and pummelled the other man scientifically on the back. ‘Julius, you’re flabby.’

‘Solemn, and rich, and soon to be fat,’ said Margot obscurely. There was a glint in her eye. She gave Nicholas a sudden fierce hug, and smiled blinking at Tobie. ‘We thought perhaps you had all decided to stay.’

‘I’m not flabby. You’re as thin as a pike. Mind you, you got off a lot better than Godscalc,’ Julius said. ‘Or so they say. You know he can’t hold a pen? Or walk very well. You were mad to try and get to Prester John. My God, you didn’t need jewels on top of all the gold you sent home.’

‘I was looking for the Fountain of Youth,’ Nicholas said. ‘Where is Gregorio?’

‘Bruges. He had to stay in Bruges because of the Wedding,’ Julius said. ‘That’s why I’m here instead of getting to Scotland. Diniz is in Bruges as well. You’ll never guess what he’s doing.’

‘Tobie told me. Whose wedding?’ said Nicholas.

Margot looked at him. She said, ‘Duke Charles with the English King’s sister. Did you know Duke Philip died? His son Charles needs an heir for Flanders and Burgundy. Hence a wedding next spring, and a lot of lavish expenditure. Your lady Gelis van Borselen is going to miss it.’

Nicholas smiled. ‘I don’t think she would appreciate hearing you call her my lady. But she turned out to be a remarkable traveller. Tobie tells me she’s in Scotland.’

‘She was. She came back to Bruges for the winter. She’s due to go back to her Scottish princess in May. But you’ll see her. You’ll be going to Bruges soon.’

‘Not,’ said Julius, ‘if I have anything to do with it. Nicholas, look at that landing-stage. Look at the money on it. They’re all in your pocket. You’ve been where no one else has been. You’ve sent back more gold than anyone has ever seen in one load. You’re in the good books of the Pope, and your Bank is becoming one of the pillars of Venice. There they all are, standing waiting to welcome you and put you among the privileged in their Golden Book, I shouldn’t wonder. And you talk of going to Bruges!’

‘I didn’t. I’m not going to Bruges,’ said Nicholas mildly.

He turned out to be speaking the truth: Nicholas didn’t leave Venice. Indeed, he hardly left the Bank premises.

The Ca’ Niccolò with Nicholas in it was very different from the same establishment under Julius, quite apart from the somewhat moody departure of Julius from the middle floor to the top. Margot wondered if Julius had really expected Nicholas to leave the master chamber to him, and decided that he probably had. To Julius, it was just a freakish talent for opportunism that had taken Nicholas so far beyond his station; in other ways he was still the Charetty apprentice.