Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [206]
‘All of us?’ Nicholas said.
‘He’s tried to dismiss Contarini three times. Rosso wants to go anyway. He’ll keep Barbaro: he’s a good, able man who knows the language and has lived for years in the region. He’s taken Zeno’s place as a drinking companion to the prince.’
‘I can see Contarini wouldn’t do. And you and I?’ Nicholas asked.
‘He’s got most of what he wants from both of us, as we have from him. There’s nothing much we can do, unless you want to stay another full year and make a living out of it. I’d prefer to go back to Caffa and home.’
‘I’ll speak to Julius,’ Nicholas said.
HE SPOKE TO JULIUS that Wednesday, just after it had been announced that the illustrious lord Uzum Hasan was leaving Tabriz, and would give an audience the following day to his guests the ambassadors. In the ensuing atmosphere of abandon, permission had been given for Nicholas to admit his colleague to the wonders of the prince’s menagerie, and they spoke, standing under trees in a stinking hot courtyard, watching an elephant nervously rehearsing how to go down on one knee and bow its head. Its mahout, from India but not Indian, was addressing it irritably. There was a Circassian Mameluke army under the rule of the Sultan of Herat. Julius was complaining.
‘Contarini says they’re going to send all of us home. I can’t believe it. All this distance, and nothing even discussed!’
‘Well …’ Nicholas said; and confessed.
Julius took his duplicity rather well; listening all through the reports, as accurate as Nicholas could make them, of his two business meetings at the Palace, and interrupting only to put pertinent questions. At the end, he made the expected scathing strictures, but his chief reaction, clearly, was one of relief. ‘I had to swear to keep quiet,’ Nicholas said. ‘There are spies. Talk about arms at the moment is unwise. He’s promised one final meeting outside Tabriz if we want it.’
‘When?’ Julius asked. They were standing in front of a cage with a lion, and another with a silk-bodied beast with black stripes who reminded Nicholas, for no reason at all, of the vicomte Jordan de Ribérac. The beast opened its lips, revealing fangs shaped like just-swallowed doges. More. More. Something to take the taste away.
‘Keep walking,’ Nicholas said. ‘My guess is that he’s leaving tomorrow: the place is in a ferment. The rumour is that he’ll shed us up north, after letting us see the real strength of his army. After that, the Patriarch goes on to Caffa, and those who want to, go with him and home.’
‘And you?’ Julius said. They passed an ounce. It was lying flat, waiting for snow.
Nicholas said, ‘I’ve thought about it, but I don’t want to stay here. What do you feel? Could you do with me in the Crimea, or even somewhere like Trebizond, if you don’t mind punitive Turkish taxes? Look, there’s an ostrich.’
Julius had seen it already. ‘Christ, do you remember when you rode one in Bruges? You were a mad devil, Nicholas. And Trebizond isn’t a bad idea. We could both go there from here, unless you’d rather make straight for Caffa and see to the gold. Anna should have it by now. She said you’d given her the password.’
They were looking up at a giraffe. A Seraph, they had called it in Egypt. Nicholas thought of a kite, and Kathi, and John le Grant crying with laughter. He thought of what it felt like, believing Gelis was dead. He said, ‘I did, but I cheated. I gave Anna half the password, that’s all. I didn’t want to worry her, or upset her, but the Genoese had their suspicions of Ochoa. They’re never out of the house. If she had got the gold, they would have found it.’
Julius’s face slowly inflated and reddened, becoming a picture of luminous outrage. ‘You did what! You lied to Anna? You left her stranded in Caffa without money!’ The Seraph waded aside, revealing the sun.
‘She has plenty. The furs. The silver. Enough for all summer.