Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [68]
Becoming tired of the subject of Cyprus, Nicholas got to his feet, lifted his newly filled humpen and offered a toast, waving his hat in the Polish fashion: ‘To the Kingdom of Cyprus, where three things are good and cheap: il sale, il zucchero e le puttane!’
Zeno drank it, wearing a smile. Then he proposed another: ‘Kochajmy się!’ — Let us love one another. Then someone thought of another toast, and another. It was harmlessly restful. And there was plenty of wine: six pots within reach for the eight of them.
That was the frivolous part. Much later, alone by his side in the privy, Caterino Zeno said, ‘You hold your drink well.’
‘I am sorry,’ Nicholas said.
‘Don’t apologise. We are expected to talk, you and I.’
‘Oh? Expected by whom?’ Nicholas said.
‘By Ludovico da Bologna, for one.’ Zeno retied his cords, and watched Nicholas prepare to do the same, with no particular haste. Zeno added, ‘You enjoyed life on the rafts?’
‘Do I like the company of rough men? Yes, of course. I prefer women, but they don’t come on rafts.’
‘I heard differently,’ Zeno said. He paused. ‘You know that our precious Buonaccorsi’s mistress has married this year? Everyone is sorry. You see his influence on the young princes. Luxury in the home, in the bed, at the table.’
‘And a certain amount of learning as well,’ Nicholas said. Since Zeno didn’t move, he leaned on the wall. No one came in. The rain had stopped.
Zeno said, ‘That is why the Queen indulges him; indulges old Dlugosz, Ostrórog, all the boys’ tutors. The boys are to grow up wise and lettered, as Casimir was not. The magnates of his day saw to that.’
‘The King is said to be wise,’ Nicholas remarked.
‘He has his mother’s temper, but yes. Thirty-four years have taught him to rule. He was soldier enough to throw out our white-cloaked knightly friends, and has wit enough to know which allies to cultivate.’
‘Certainly, he has had good advice,’ Nicholas said. ‘Barbaro, Liompardo, Contarini, Ognibene. Four different sets of Venetian ambassadors passing this way in a matter of months, quite apart from yourself.’ He shifted. The smell was terrible. He supposed Zeno thought this important.
‘Naturally. Venice is at war with the Turk. She is Poland’s buckler, as the Church is her sword. There have been papal envoys as well. Barbo for one, and the sadly maligned Maestro Laetus, on his way to and from Moscow. It was necessary for both gentlemen, of course, to be kept apart from the prized Callimaco.’
Julius Pomponius Laetus had been sadly maligned for the same things as Filippo Buonaccorsi and, for that matter, King Zaceo of Cyprus. Nicholas, eyeing his immediate surroundings, said, ‘It is true. People do talk. You haven’t mentioned Adorne and the Duke of Burgundy. Are these not also allies worth keeping?’
Zeno smiled and began to walk to the door. ‘The Duke has other uses at present for his troops and his money. When he makes promises, no one believes them, and when he makes threats, Poland knows that his own merchants will quietly modify them. As for Adorne, he and his family are still Genoese by investment and instinct. They send sons to the Knights of St John, another military order. Uzum Hasan does not trust them.’
‘But you had a successful stay at the Persian Court. They received you in bed together, they say: Uzum Hasan and your aunt Theodora.’
Opening the door, Zeno smiled once again. ‘It was an assertion. Despite the superior fruitfulness of his Kurdish and other wives, Uzum Hasan (he would point out) does not deny his bed to Theodora the Christian. The death of Zacco has shaken him, naturally. Since his great success, he has suffered some reverses, and can be irritable — he sent home the envoys of Poland and Hungary. I was luckier.’ The cellar was virtually empty. The contests must have begun. Zeno stopped at a table and turned.
‘I have done what I could with Uzum. Now I have to go home and report to my princes. And you? Will you stay here, beguiled by the good Master Julius, or seek