Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [334]
Then the frivolities ended, and Nicholas was alone at a table in what had been Marian de Charetty’s room, being interviewed like an apprentice by Father Moriz and Diniz and Tobie. He was not resentful. He understood what was happening. The original cause had been his own fault.
Gelis, who had a right to be there, had absented herself until later. She was one of the great strengths of the Bank. She had also stated, in public, that her investment would remain with the Bank, no matter what happened. In other words, she did not propose to buy her husband out of his banishment. She had made no bargain about her own work.
Father Moriz said, ‘Diniz has asked me to speak. We planned some such meeting as soon as we heard you were travelling from Russia. Then, you were coming simply to protect your family from the lady who has now sadly died, and from the man David de Salmeton. We were willing to support you in that, and have, I think, done so. Now the situation has changed. De Salmeton will be absent until spring. You may wish to wait for him. You may wish to take your family and leave, and that decision must be between you and Gelis. We have had to consider what should be done if you stay, and we are prepared to make you an offer.’ His short neck was flushed, but his thick German voice remained equable. They had once spent a hilarious, difficult season together in the Tyrol, Nicholas and Moriz and John le Grant. Moriz had never liked his divining. Moriz was right.
You will always be bought, because you will always be worth something to others. It might be true, but Nicholas was not being insulted. He had certain knowledge, certain experience. Adorne had recognised it as well. Nicholas sat and let Moriz detail the limited ways in which, for a negotiable fee, he could make himself useful if he stayed on in Flanders. This, they would make clear, concerned only the immediate period. Anything beyond that must be approved by all the original partners. And, of course, by Anselm Adorne.
‘He has already decided to release me,’ Nicholas said.
He fell silent, looking at Moriz, who must know, even better than the others, what that meticulously compiled offer had betrayed. Tell me what you are buying and I will tell you what your deficiencies are. Burgundy, to whose fortunes he had committed the Bank, lay now in ruins, and every institution dependent on wealth and stability was endangered, never mind one whose military arm had been shattered at Nancy. Once, they had been able to share the risk with their other houses; but Venice was separate now, and rocked by the Turkish triumphs in the Black Sea and even nearer. Friuli had been overrun last November, and the smoke from burning palaces, so they said, could be seen from the top of the campanile of St Mark. Gregorio and the Ca’ Niccolò might survive, but it could not help others.
Nor could aid come from Julius’s business, as it stood, vitiated by Anna and only partly restored by what Moriz and Govaerts had done. In Poland, Muscovy, Persia were the openings Nicholas himself had contrived, in order to appeal to Julius’s ambitions, and to divert Adelina from her purpose. Trading in Trebizond and within a restored Caffa was possible, even under the Turk. Nevertheless, Nicholas did not think Julius would now go there; and even if he did, and felt generous, the business was too young to help others. There was the gold he himself had promised Anna, of course. But, increasingly, it seemed certain that David de Salmeton had that.