Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [247]
At the moment, however, there seemed nothing ominous in his greeting. He made a mild joke about enclosed orders, and the Patriarch replied with affable coarseness. They had no guard and no audience: a member of the Grand Duchess’s circle could dispense with such things. Then Fioravanti was introduced, and the talk suddenly moved from the general to the particular, simply because Nicholas was intensely interested in the plans to rebuild the Kremlin cathedral, and to know what had caused the walls to fall down in the first place. He was in the middle of an argument about hoists when someone laid a hand on his shoulder, and he realised that the Patriarch and their Florentine visitor had been excluded from the conversation for the last hour, and were now making their presence felt again. They did not appear unduly disturbed, having spent the interval, so it seemed, in tolerably uncontentious conversation of their own. It had never occurred to Nicholas that they would have anything in common.
Soon after, the visitors left, without having done more than affirm a desire, in due course, for other meetings. In his strange, suspended mode of existence, Nicholas was conscious of elation. The world was opening again. He had found someone whom he could work with, and who wanted, he thought, to work with him. And there was plenty of time. Even if everything ceased over Christmas, which was celebrated here on the seventh day of January, weeks of winter still lay ahead in which to collect the information he needed.
The Grand Duchess, having found a barbaric country, was intent first on imposing upon it an appearance at least of the magnificence of the courts of her forefathers. The second Byzantium, the third Rome must have splendid buildings, opulent dress and gold plate, formal ceremony. Only after that could come the roads and bridges, the fortifications, the arms. For anyone who wished to be an importer, a factor, or a ducal adviser, it required careful planning.
It was not a handicap, on the whole, to be in the Troitsa. Fioravanti visited several times more before Christmas, by grand-ducal permission, and proved a mine of information about outlying lands, for his grand design for the Uspensky had taken him to study churches in Novgorod, in Suzdal, in Vladimir. He also acted as courier between the prisoners and Julius, who did not qualify for frequent access, and had to suffer the Brothers Ostafi and Gubka when he did. It did not disturb him too much: his eyes glowing, he was already anticipating deep and profitable negotiations in Novgorod. He brushed aside Anna’s misgivings: every ruler allowed dispensations at Christmas, and the Patriarch and his companion had surely expiated their crimes, if it was a crime to represent the Latin faith instead of another, and to bring the sins of Venice to mind.
When the Christmas festival ended, without the reappearance of either Father Ludovico or Nicholas, Julius made enquiries and returned, full of amused exasperation, to Anna. ‘They’re holding them for debt.’
Sometimes, she didn’t see the humour of things. ‘So tell me,’ she said in a cool voice, and sat on the chair, not the settle.
Julius was enjoying himself too much to care. He threw himself on the settle. ‘After the Patriarch left us at Fasso, he travelled round the Black Sea and lost all his possessions to robbers on the coast of Abkhazia. That’s one story. His servants say that they were managing to beat off the thieves, when the Patriarch went insane, stopped the fight and