Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [118]
It was not, however, because of what he learned that he changed his plans at Bielogrod, where the power of their safe conducts ended. Here, on the estuary of the Dniester, was the furthermost frontier of Greater Poland, which ran from gale-beaten Danzig to this, the balmy west shore of the Black Sea. And here they would receive the protection at last of the Papal and Imperial Legate, whose privileged company they would join, to wait for a ship to the land of the Crim Tartars.
Except that they arrived in Bielogrod to discover that the Papal and Imperial Legate was not there, and had not been there for a week. Directed by God to the harbour, Ludovico da Bologna had found an empty grain ship bound for Caffa, and left.
Setting aside the consequence to themselves, it was a bold move, as Anna remarked. The south coast of the Black Sea was wholly Turkish these days, and so of course was the Sultan’s city of Constantinople at its south-western corner, a position it shared with the entire Turkish fleet. If the notorious Pontic storms didn’t sink it, the Patriarch’s ship would have to run the gamut of Turks and of pirates before it found a safe harbour in the Crimean Peninsula. The rashness of the voyage, indeed, was of a piece with the lunacy of the whole expedition, which, to Ludovico da Bologna, was no more than routine. He had been in Caffa before. Nicholas had not.
‘So?’ had said Anna, inviting suggestions.
‘So,’ had said Nicholas, ‘we shan’t get a ship, so we may as well set off round the coast. You can learn to charm Tartars. We’ll hire a guard, or attach ourselves to a party of Genoese.’
‘We won’t,’ she said. ‘Or not until you have acquired a new history and a new name. Do you think I haven’t heard what you’ve heard? I wish I had never let you come.’
‘You couldn’t have stopped me,’ said Nicholas. He spoke gently enough, for he wanted to reassure her. It had always been obvious that, while he could expect to proceed unmolested to Tabriz, he could not pass through a Genoese colony as Nicholas de Fleury, former banker of Venice. Venice, it was now clear to everyone, was showering weapons, money and envoys at the feet of Uzum Hasan, the Turk’s wiliest enemy. To favour a Venetian in these parts was tantamount to inviting the wrath of Sultan Mehmet of Turkey himself, and neither the Tartars nor the Genoese wanted that. Then, of course, there was the other complication which she might not know about, and which he had not hurried to tell her.
Hence Nicholas de Fleury was completing the journey to Caffa in the person of Nicomack ibn Abdallah of Cairo, downtrodden steward and secretary to the lady Anna, here to trade for her husband. He had made the transformation before. It was simple to dye his hair black, including the nascent beard he had left unshaven since Thorn. With his red cap and high-buttoned galabiyya over linen trousers and shirt he was the envy of Anna for coolness, as well as an object of curiosity and astonishment. But for him it was a familiar disguise: he had used it in Egypt and Africa, where the Arab tongue had become as familiar to him as his own. Black-haired Circassian slaves reared as Mamelukes had his height and build; he had met them. Some of them, trained as scholars, had Greek and Latin as he did, and were conversant with Italian tongues. In Caffa, Anna would need an interpreter.
For the Turkish-Mongol languages they had hired a guide, Petru, to attend them. Of the servants who had come with them from Thorn they had retained none but Anna’s maid Brygidy, who would have gone to considerable lengths, including her own, rather than betray any friend of her Lady. Nicholas, having left the inquisitive Jelita in Thorn, had only a hireling to shed: as a servant himself he could not replace him.