Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [21]
‘You wish to harrow,’ Nicholas remarked. He set himself to be patient.
The Italian considered. An elegant hand lifted and removed the nose-hold of the spectacles. ‘I know, I think, what I should find. A layer of Plato, a drill of Aristotle, some pockets of Horace and Homer. A generous mould of mathematics, astrology. Some evidence of divining, and Greek of the Trebizond kind. But also the mushrooms, perhaps, of illusion. An interest in home and family, rilled in tribes, but easily abandoned. A taste for luxury, without the application to sustain it. A mountebank’s fondness for disguise, pretending to hide under a nickname when none can fail to know his identity.’
‘All you say is true, Maestro Callimaco,’ Nicholas said. ‘Who would befriend such a person?’
The man nicknamed Callimaco was smiling. ‘You, I trust,’ said Filippo Buonaccorsi. ‘How agreeable to find one’s conceits not only understood, but indulged. And in Teutonic Danzig, that bastion of the literal-minded.’
‘I have no objection to Danzigers,’ Nicholas said. His patience had slipped a little, and he felt no urge to retrieve it. ‘Nor has your King, I should think. Some of them have advanced him large loans.’
‘My lord Casimir knows what he owes them. But others, he fears, are less concerned with the future of Poland than with their own fortunes from commerce, or piracy. I am not sure where your sympathies lie?’ Buonaccorsi had switched to Latin halfway through the sentence, adding, ‘Unless you object?’
‘I do not object. Must I have any preferences?’ Nicholas said. He used Louvain Latin, being buggered if he was going to bother with the Tuscan variety. He was increasingly aware that a winter with Benecke had unfitted him for this sort of thing. Servants had come in, and were placing platters before them. There was a smell of fresh bread, and almonds, and fish. Trout, from Oliva’s own lake. With lovely sauces. With personally chosen lovely sauces.
Buonaccorsi said, ‘You have closed your business in Scotland. You have withdrawn from Venice and Flanders, although your Bank continues, I am told, in the hands of its managers. You were the Duke of Burgundy’s agent, then the Emperor’s. You may still be working for either or both. Or you may have determined to stay idle, or to select another base for your talents. If you wish to stay in Poland, we cannot help you unless we know your intentions.’ He didn’t specify who we were.
‘Before the Mission arrives,’ Nicholas said. A hand over his shoulder poured wine, and he sat without touching it. He felt himself becoming annoyed.
‘Naturally, Ser Niccolò. Or, if I might …?’
‘Please.’
‘Naturally, my dear Niccolò, we are all aware that the members of this embassy are well known to you. Perhaps you have corresponded with them over the winter. Perhaps you feel that you must take their part. I believe you even grew up in Bruges with the Medici manager who is suing poor Benecke.’
Tommaso, we should have booted more sense into you when you were young. ‘You are a friend of the Medici,’ Nicholas said, smiling a little.
‘And you of Paúel Benecke,’ said Buonaccorsi. ‘But few of us are free to act as we would wish. The King, valuing Burgundy, would not refuse reasonable reparation for this cargo, but the merchants of Danzig feel differently.’ He paused. ‘My wish is that you had come directly to Thorn or to Cracow, and had won the King’s trust. An informed mediator is honoured by both sides. It could have been your role for the future. Among others.’
‘Living in Cracow?’ Nicholas said. He tasted his wine, and reluctantly set it aside.
‘Living wherever the Court is, or at any other centre of excellence. I do not need to recite names to you. You know who is here; we have exchanged letters about them. I believed at one time that you wished to meet them.’
‘And now they would like to meet me?’ Nicholas