To Lie with Lions (86 page)

‘Neglected,’ said Nicholas. ‘You’ve been avoiding me. I can’t sit on anything green.’

‘Well, there’s a red cushion,’ said Sersanders, who always lost some of his solemnity when Nicholas was about. ‘She’s been husband-hunting. We’ve just had another list, full of Dorias.’

‘Well, I shouldn’t pick a Genoese,’ Nicholas said. ‘Not with what’s about to happen in Caffa and Chios. Is Mar bothering you?’

The King’s brother was fourteen. ‘He isn’t bothering me to marry him,’ Kathi said. ‘He’s fallen out with the King and wants to make a statement, in which I was to be a comma. I told him to wait until he could punctuate.’

‘Kathi!’ said her brother.

‘Well, tell me if he gets into colons. I’ve got something to show you both.’ It was an embroidered bag, which Nicholas laid on the table. ‘Open it.’

The cloth of the satchel was wadmol, and she recognised the embroidery. Kathi opened it, and drew out one by one what she found wrapped inside. They were chessmen, so old that the whalebone had yellowed and there were cracks in the knights’ shields and the queens’ tunics and pigtails. There were runes cut very small in the base.

‘From Constantinople,’ Nicholas said. ‘Handed down through the centuries to Glímu-Sveinn, who has sent them to me. He has recovered. Crackbene has just come back from Iceland, with news of them all.’

‘You sent him?’ said Kathi.

‘There were things that they needed. And, of course, there was always the chance of picking up a little sulphur or some more fish. It isn’t as bad as it might have been,’ Nicholas said. ‘The lava left them most of the pasture, and they got some of the herds out. There are salmon, and the fowling has been good. We took them meal. Shining armour and solid gold crown. I’m telling you this so that you won’t mind the other news Crackbene has brought me. We’ve sunk the
Unicorn.’

Her heart bumped, and then bumped again. All the bonhomie left Sersanders’s face. ‘Where?’

Off La Rochelle, I believe, in the very shadow of Oléron. On its way back from Bordeaux with twenty-seven tuns of Gascon wine and a book on the Laws, but Crackbene’s friends never could read. I’m sorry.’

Sersanders said, ‘Burgundian sinking Burgundian? Duke Charles wouldn’t like that.’

Nicholas said, ‘Anselm, three-quarters of that ship is Vatachino. I have to protect myself. And although we are friends, or I hope we are, we are each fighting for our share of the trading in Scotland, and your uncle is my rival in that. He proved it in Danzig. Benecke is still very cross with you all. I am perhaps trying to show your uncle and you that association with the Vatachino can bring trouble.’

He was good with Sersanders. Kathi watched them both. A man of Martin’s had been leaving as he arrived; she supposed Nicholas had seen him. She didn’t like Martin, nor did her brother. For Sersanders, nevertheless, business was business. He said, ‘We shall sue.’

‘You can try,’ Nicholas said. ‘You won’t find any connection between the pirate and Crackbene, or me. And of course, this conversation never happened. I just wanted to say that in one way I regretted the necessity. I shall never forget Iceland.’

Kathi said, ‘You risked something, telling us.’

The dimples appeared. He said, ‘Not a lot. I am a very good liar. Anselm, you know that Martin is concentrating on the towns? On deals for the burgesses?’

‘I suppose,’ Sersanders said, ‘that he felt that you had the Court already in your purse. What do they owe you now?’

‘Not as much as everyone owes your uncle’s dear Tommaso in Bruges,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ve decided to model myself on the Portinari. How many children does he have now? And getting his portrait
painted again?’

Sersanders said, ‘I heard you were encouraging the King to have his done. And John’s rich father Bonkle would pay for it.’

‘Hugo will make a very nice job of them both,’ Kathi said. ‘Altar-pieces pay very well, and Maria’s already managed two children by the age of sixteen: they’ll need an extra panel if the paint takes long to dry. You’ve heard the joke about Henne’s
Last Judgement?’
In fact, everyone had a joke about Henne’s latest. It showed the Saved and the Damned, most of them identifiable drinking companions or debtors of Henne.

‘I sent him a few tips about Hell,’ Nicholas said. ‘What’s happened? Tani can’t pay for it?’

Angelo Tani, formerly of the Medici in Bruges, had commissioned the painting for the Medici managers’ chapel in Florence. His likeness
appeared on the back. Tommaso loathed him: Tommaso had been left out of the picture. Kathi said, ‘How did you guess? But it’s going to be all right after all. Tommaso is underwriting the painting and sending it to Florence for free; it’s going on the Burgundian galleys next spring. In return for which –’

‘– Memling has painted him into the picture. Naked? All the Risen were nude as a needle when I saw the piece last,’ Nicholas said, his expression distant. ‘This huge triptych. I haven’t seen Tommaso naked since –’

‘Neither has anyone except maybe Maria. No. That is, Henne painted Tommaso’s head on a piece of lead foil, and stuck the foil on someone else’s nude body. There could be an industry in that,’ Kathi said.

‘There is already. Statues, even. Ask Tobie, if he’ll condescend to mention Volterra. This triptych will be wasted on the Medici managers. You should get Jan to view it in situ, and report on Tommaso from the neck down. How is Jan? Still in Rome?’

‘And that’s another thing,’ said Sersanders. He was still flushed from the blow over the
Unicorn
. Kathi saw that Nicholas had come perversely determined to have all his sins forgiven at once.

Her brother said, ‘You bastard, what about poor Patrick Graham?’

‘I thought you’d like his being made an archbishop,’ Nicholas said. ‘Patron of Jan, friend of the family. Papal Nuncio soon, I shouldn’t wonder, licensed to collect Peter’s pennies and shillings and pounds.’

‘And that will make him popular, won’t it?’ Sersanders said. ‘There are those who think that Scotland deserved an archbishop, there are those who resent it. Fair enough. But to help rush it through, to outrage the King and bring about a clash with the Pope was not – tactful.’

‘You speak as if it happened overnight,’ Nicholas said. ‘With a Blackadder and an Arnot in Rome, not to mention an Adorne, the thing was hardly an impenetrable secret. It will settle. If your uncle wants some places and prebends, he’ll get them.’

Sersanders said, ‘I wasn’t thinking only of Jan. I’m thinking of Coldingham; the Tyrolean alum; all the other disputes James has got himself into. It won’t help your trade or mine if the Apostolic Camera gets annoyed and starts to call in its debts.’

Kathi said, ‘We think Jan will be all right. Chancellor Hugonet’s brother will take him. What will happen to poor Patrick Graham?’

‘It depends how good he is at keeping his temper,’ Nicholas said. ‘If he’s humble enough, James won’t think him a threat.’

Sersanders snorted. Kathi said, ‘Well, that disposes of his chances in a sentence.’

‘Quicker than a statement,’ Nicholas said. ‘Anselm, I brought a peace offering below. Will you drink it with me if I get it?’

Sersanders, predictably, rose to perform the errand himself. Nicholas said, ‘Willie Roger gave me a performance of your latest visiting-list. I thought I missed a few names.’

‘Or perhaps I did,’ said Kathi. ‘Damn Willie’s big whistle, that was private. Why don’t we meet very much? Because of Gelis?’

‘Various reasons,’ he said.

‘Gelis has your relationship and mine perfectly fathomed,’ Kathi said. ‘So has Dr Tobie. So have you. So have I. But if you avoid me, then people will talk. Call now and then. Or put all the visits together and take me out in an Eke Week.’

‘Dr Tobie,’ he repeated slowly.

Damn again. She said, ‘Oh well, it was worth trying. Courage, my friend. Courage is different from hope and intermediate between despair and presumption. It’s a finicky business being your comrade, Síra Nikolás.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. She could sense some of the things he wasn’t saying.

‘Don’t be sorry. I’m not the
Unicorn
, I’m the maiden. Take courage and call. I’ll be lenient,’ she said. ‘I shan’t slip anything into your wine.’

He said, ‘You wouldn’t be the first person, if you did.’ Then Sersanders came in.

She couldn’t drink, watching him talk to her brother. Again, he looked quite composed. Doctored wine. A breach of trust but, somehow, not a recent one. Not even some sly potion of Dr Tobie’s. Something much more important in his eyes, in his voice.

She wondered then if it had been in Africa; if it had been the beginning of all this; if it had been Gelis.

Courage. Courage, my friend.

You should have filled me with drink, and it would be over with
. He drove the words from his mind, as he extinguished the whole of the interview he had just had, and walked downhill greeting his comrades, his friends, on the way to his Casa and the final phase of his programme.

You couldn’t be brought up in Bruges and trained by a capable woman of business without knowing that the well-being of any town, duchy or kingdom depended on its fiscal dexterity. In Timbuktu, in Ultima Thule, profit and survival depended on barter: gold for salt; fish for slippers and cereals. In Florence, in Venice, in Bruges, it depended on gold, and paper promises. Paper promises flying over the Alps, expertly sanitising the profits of usury.

Gold and silver were scarce. No country liked to export its coins or its bullion, even to Rome. Nicholas had been inestimably fortunate in possessing raw gold of his own, brought from Africa. When that was done, which would be at any time now, he would have to think about claiming the rest of what belonged to him, currently in the possession of the Knights of St John.

From the beginning, his neighbours had wondered about the purpose of the stone room in his house. The advent of Wilhelm of Hall had explained it: soon the royal hats and shoulders were covered with examples of Wilhelm’s art, and ambassadors accepted his chalices with unflattering astonishment. Wilhelm, you might almost say, had built Beltrees. After that, he made medals. And after that, an easy transition, Nicholas had offered his services to the Governor of the Mint.

The members of the Comptroller’s and Treasurer’s staffs were well-disposed men, unfamiliar with Italian book-keeping, whose task was to apply an inflexible system to an uncertain and corruptible income, often plundered at will by the Crown. The clerks did their best, and delivered their accounts once a year to the Exchequer audit. Once a year only; in summer; in June.

Meanwhile, the flaws in the structure were painfully obvious. Any man who could offer help in their predicament was bound to be listened to. And the solution was simple. Instead of changing the system, you altered the money.

Below, where Wilhelm of Hall ruled, the crucibles poured out their billon and copper, casting the bars which his printers and strikers would beat and cut into groats and pennies, farthings and placks stamped with crowns and mullets and thistles and the King’s head, all of them debased and black money.

Later, when the coining irons were removed and the lockfast boxes taken away for the night, the furnace was ventilated again. This time, Wilhelm himself set to work with one striker he trusted; pouring out molten gold and stamping it with a pair of puncheons which no one would come to remove, because no one knew they existed: the coining irons for a louis of France.

Far from yielding a profit, this part of the business was ruinous. But of course, it was worth it.

He talked with Wilhelm for a while, and then went to bed in his office, since it was too late to return to the High Street. Before he retired, he unpacked the chessmen and laid them out one by one at his pillow.

Yule and Twelfth Night came and went, their social obligations fitted into the spinning bands of his projects. Most of his agents reached
him through Gregorio or Diniz or Julius, who had gone back to Cologne. Some correspondents preferred to send word direct from as far off as Danzig. Jordan de Fleury reached the mature age of four.

Duke Charles used the winter to appropriate the Duchy of Guelders. The Pope and Sigismond of the Tyrol used it to prepare a plan to encourage Duke Charles to fight the Swiss.

In Scotland, her grace the Queen, eight months pregnant, found out at last about Simon of Kilmirren and had to have something slipped into her ptisan to quieten her. Her demands for the filthy whoremaster’s head were side-stepped by the King, with the help of his doctors and ministers. After years of neglect, Kilmirren was at last being properly managed, with thriving flocks and good crops and a healthy trade through the haven of Ayr. The estate was paying its dues to the Crown. Provided St Pol stayed where he was, the King was pleased to regard this as a form of restitution.

The Queen, increasing sullenly, let the argument founder. It would lose nothing by waiting. And she was mollified by her latest acquisition: a packet of jewels, two of which had a name.

Andro Wodman departed. Messages to Nicholas from Burgundian Artois, heavily coded, suggested that unless England promised help soon, the Duke would cancel his attack on the French in the spring. Meanwhile, every nation was complaining of piracy, even France, whose own notorious freebooters were seldom chastised by their monarch. Whether in this connection or not, the vicomte de Ribérac had been sent for by Louis.

And lastly, an event took place behind closed doors in Cologne which Julius did not report, although it concerned the Bank, as it happened, as much as his own personal well-being. The Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck, whose unofficial man of affairs he had become, invited Julius to spend time at her side in the grand hunting-lodge of one of her kinsmen, in which she was currently resident.

The place was virtually a castle, and contained in its household many capable men, the Count’s lawyer among them. After several days wholly given to the pleasures of eating, hunting and dancing, Julius voiced his discomfort. ‘You said you had work for me, lady? Your friends are wondering why I am here.’

Bonne, her daughter, had come to join them: a solemn, flat-chested girl with brown hair, sucking a comfit from the heaped supper buffet. Anna had smiled, and made room for her to sit down. They were all warm from dancing.