Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [1]
There are, of course, echoes of the present time. Trade and war don’t change much down through the centuries: today’s new multimillionaires had their counterparts in the entrepreneurs of few antecedents who evolved the first banking systems for the Medici; who developed the ruthless network of trade that ran from Scotland, Flanders, and Italy to the furthest reaches of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and ventured from Iceland to Persia, from Muscovy to the deserts of Africa.
Scotland is important to this chronicle, as it was to Francis Crawford. Here, the young Queen of Scots is a thirteen-year-old Scandinavian, and her husband’s family are virtually children. This, framed in glorious times, is the story of the difficult, hesitant progress of a small nation, as well as that of a singular man.
Dorothy Dunnett
Edinburgh, 1998
Characters
November 1473 – January 1477
(Those marked are recorded in history)
Rulers
England: King Edward IV, House of York
Scotland: King James III, House of Stewart
France: King Louis XI
Burgundy: Charles, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders
Pope: Sixtus IV (della Rovere)
Venice: Doges Nicolò Marcello, Pietro Mocenigo, Andrea Vendramin
German Emperor and King of the Romans: Frederick III
Portugal: King Alphonse V, nephew of Henry the Navigator
Muscovy: Grand Duke Ivan III Vasilievich, Autocrat of All Russia
Scandinavia: Christian I
Poland and Lithuania: King Casimir IV Jagiello
Bohemia: King Wladyslaw, son of Casimir
Hungary: King Mathias Corvinus
Moldavia: Stephen III The Great
Ottoman Empire (Istanbul): Sultan Mehmet II
Mameluke Empire (Cairo): Sultan Qayt Bey
House of Niccolò
Nicholas de Fleury, former governor of the Banco di Niccolò Szalec Jelita, his servant
VENICE BANCO DI NICCOLÒ:
Gregorio of Asti, lawyer and director
Margot, his wife
Jaçon, their son
Egidia (Gelis) van Borselen, wife of Nicholas de Fleury
Jordan (Jodi), their son
Clémence de Coulanges, his nurse
Pasque, his former nursemaid
Captain Cuthbert, his Scottish master-at-arms
Raffo, his ‘groom’
Manoli, ‘servant’ to Clémence
Tobias Beventini of Grado, physician
LOW COUNTRIES: HOF CHARETTY—NICCOLÒ, BRUGES:
Diniz Vasquez, director, nephew of Simon de St Pol
Mathilde (Tilde) de Charetty, his wife, step-daughter of Nicholas
Marian, their daughter
Catherine de Charetty, Tilde’s unmarried younger sister
Father Moriz of Augsburg, chaplain and co-manager
Govaerts of Brussels, management, Bruges and Cologne
Jooris, agent in Antwerp
GERMAN COMPANY:
Julius of Bologna, notary and director
Gräfin Anna von Hanseyck, his wife
Bonne, her daughter
Brygidy, her maid
Petru, her guide
Friczo Straube, company agent in Thorn
Sinbaldo di Manfredo, company agent, Black Sea
MERCENARY COMPANY:
Astorre (Syrus de Astariis), mercenary commander
Thomas, deputy to Astorre
John le Grant, engineer, gunner, sailing-master
PERIPATETIC:
Michael Crackbene, shipmaster
Ochoa de Marchena, former sailing-master on African voyage
Duchy of Burgundy
DUCAL HOUSEHOLD AND ARMY:
Charles, Duke of Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, etc.
Margaret of York, his wife and sister of King Edward IV
Marie, daughter of Duke Charles by previous wife
Bastard Anthony of Bourbon, natural brother of Duke Charles
Baudouin, bastard and half-brother of Anthony
William Hugonet, lord of Saillant, Chancellor of the Duchy
Jean de Rubempré, sire de Bièvres, governor of Lorraine
Niccolò de Montfort/Gambatesta, Count of Campobasso, Italian mercenary leader
Jacopo Galeotto, Italian mercenary leader
Philip de Croy, comte de Chimay, company commander
Josse and Jean de Lalaing, Burgundian captains
Matteo Lope de la Garde, Portuguese physician to the Duke
BRUGES AND GHENT:
Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, Conservator of Scots Privileges in Bruges
Jan Adorne, his oldest son, a lawyer in Rome
Katelijne (Kathi) Sersanders,