Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [139]
After that, he established himself in the secretary’s office and familiarised himself with the chain of supply, its strengths and its weaknesses. And last of all, he discussed what he had learned in the context of war, and the shifting alliances of the Peninsula. The common enemy, you would say, was the Turk. But allegiances altered, and trade, which he knew about, was one of the determining factors. The defence of the Genoese colonies could depend on decisions taken many months before in Genoa and Milan, in reaction to other decisions arrived at in Venice or Naples or Rome, or in the money markets of Flanders. Confidence in evident allies, such as Uzum Hasan, could be shaken by Uzum’s friendship with Venice, which supplied him with arms. Trade, throttled by Constantinople, required to pass from the Peninsula to the West via Poland, but Poland felt herself in danger from Muscovy and the two Tartar Hordes almost as much as she felt menaced by Turkey. All these things must be weighed. And if, having done so, one felt inclined to predict the future, there was still the matter of Venice, who, for the sake of her trade, might end her war with the Turk as easily as she was presently inciting the Golden Horde and the Persians to attack him.
By the time the talk had turned in this direction, Nicholas would be alone with the two mentors who were with him wherever he went, Abdan Khan and Karaï Mirza. With the latter, he now had a rapport built on mutual respect and a private repertoire of unrepeatable ballads. In Abdan Khan, he had been confronted by a professional soldier, jealous of his command and buttressed with prejudices. The change had begun with the wrestling bout, but was largely due to the evening that followed. Later, when they had played chess and got drunk together and discovered that they were well matched in both, Nicholas had watched Abdan fall into peaceful slumber and supposed that this was the first time in his own life that his blighted past had in some way come to serve him. That night, he had answered Abdan Khan’s questions, and had described what had happened in Trebizond, even though he preferred not to remember it. It had hurt, and Abdan had noticed as much. Since then, in a guarded way, he had acted towards Nicholas as the vizier of a large country might act to the vizier of a smaller, and occasionally made soldier’s jokes. He was not a witty young man, but he did not need to be, to be good at his job.
The Khan did not appear at these meetings: that was for later, when Nicholas had learned and imparted all that he could, and conclusions might be drawn. More and more, he recognised that he was in fact the Patriarch’s emissary: that what he was doing was assessing, and enabling Mengli-Girey to assess, the variables in the future, and the best way to meet them. The Patriarch might preach religion, but it was the privilege of a trader to point out the material advantages of one course over another: something that the Bank of St George would understand, and Uzum Hasan, and Ivan in Moscow and Callimachus Experiens at the King’s Court in Cracow. That was why the former owner of the Banco di Niccolò had been brought here. He understood it, but he also understood that it was probably useless. There was religion, and there was self-interest, and there was the unknown brigand who, bursting with energy, looked at the weather one morning, and decided that it was a really good day for a massacre.
Towards the end, he wrote his report. Sometimes, Karaï Mirza would stand beside him, requesting to know what he was saying; commenting, disagreeing politely, asking questions — which he answered, because that was why he was here. On the last day, when the interrogation at last slackened and halted, the stocky secretary spoke on a different subject. ‘You suggest we support the proposed