Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [127]
‘Who was the leader? Dymitr? And who else was there, besides the agent?’ the Patriarch asked.
The consul had been present, the sallow-faced man with the expensive clothes and superior manner: Antoniotto della Gabella. And another man, soft-voiced and lighter in colouring, who had said very little, but appeared to be Genoese too.
‘Oberto Squarciafico,’ the Patriarch said in a satisfied way. ‘One of the representatives of the Bank of St George. Indeed, the treasurer. Well, well, my boy — and you walked free, with an apology? You were lucky. The penalty for fire-raising is death.’
Nicholas said, ‘I think the feeling was that they were happy to take it out of the Russians, so long as I could get the Countess to forget her furs and turn round and go home.’
‘Forget her furs?’
‘There aren’t any,’ said Nicholas. ‘So no one could impound them. And they haven’t any money to speak of in Caffa. It’ll have to be thrashed out by lawyers, and the compensation brought down from Moscow, which could take half the winter. Or, likelier, it won’t come at all. The difficulty is that she does need the money’
‘So you want to wait and negotiate? Or wait and open up some new trade for her?’
‘Both,’ Nicholas said. ‘It shouldn’t upset your own plans. Tabriz is humming with envoys, they tell me. Finish your business here and go on without me. I’ll come when I can.’
‘With or without the Gräfin?’ said the Patriarch, raising the hedge of his brows.
‘Julius is coming for her,’ Nicholas said irritably. ‘When he is well.’
‘It seems,’ the Patriarch said, ‘that you are about to have an interesting winter. May I make a suggestion? When this immediate business is over — when the consul is convinced that you are staying, and that an official complaint is being made, and compensation will be insisted on — you should take a little trip into the country. That is, since you have chosen to appear in the dress of a heretic, you might as well visit the chief of the heretics. I know him well. I shall give you a letter. You must ride to Baçi Saray, and climb to Qirq-yer, the mountain citadel of Mengli-Girey, the Khan of the Tartars.’
‘You know him well,’ Nicholas repeated.
‘Yes. Like his father, he is a dangerous man, but a shrewd one. He sides with the Genoese since it suits him. He may continue to side with them if western merchants such as yourself offer prospects of lucrative trade. Or one day, he may change his mind about all his alliances. You are not a Franciscan friar, for which we all thank God, but you have some native shrewdness. I should be interested to have your views on the Khan.’
‘You mean, spy on him?’ Nicholas said.
Ludovico da Bologna favoured him with a pitying glare. ‘Do I have to spell out what is happening? Do you think the fortunes of a pretty woman and her unfortunate husband count beside this? This is not about furs. This is about a balance of power between factions which shifts from week to week, and which, out of greed, out of fear, out of petulance, can determine at least the fate of the Latins in my Patriarchate, at worst the future sovereignty and beliefs of the West. I hope to go to Tabriz, but I cannot leave while these puppies are quarrelling. Resign yourself. Julius cannot come before summer. You are going to know the Peninsula well before you depart. You may as well make yourself useful. Unless, of course, you wish to take the lady back empty-handed, and spend the winter frozen in Thorn at the bedside of the stricken Julius.’
‘That would seem a waste,’ Nicholas said.
THUS HE CAME to spend the autumn in Caffa, and learned to know it as well as he knew Bruges or Nicosia or Venice, Cairo or Timbuktu. When he first came, in the summer, it had the look and smell of the rich emporia of Pera and Trebizond, with the stone stalls