Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [71]
He paused. He said in a calmer voice, ‘We are a buffer state, and our friends are as dangerous to us as are our enemies. So Casimir does not fight, Niccolò. He prevaricates. He conciliates.’
‘He disappears,’ Nicholas said.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the other man. He rose, crossing the room. The folds of silk, falling loose, smelled of something sweet. When he returned, it was to hold out some papers. ‘You read ciphers. You once encoded reports, I am told, for the Medici.’
Nicholas received them, and the pen and ink he was given. He was beyond, now, feeling merely intrigued or annoyed. It was true that he had a natural facility for everything appertaining to numbers: for ciphers and navigational calculations, for mathematics and gunnery, for astronomy and, of course, music, which he had denied himself for seven months. An aberration he would soon overcome:
The codes were not simple and he sat, head bent, working on them while the other man watched. These were not trading reports. He saw almost at once that they were copies of secret dispatches, mostly between Venetian agents, but some involving Florence and Rome. They were all very brief. He translated them silently, for himself, and then, laying them down, picked up and drank off his wine. He said, ‘So much for Adorne.’
‘As you see. Zeno and his colleagues have written to all the princes of the West, warning them that Adorne’s embassy would be disastrous. The Duke cannot afford to let him go to Tabriz, any more than the King can afford to admit Benecke’s piracy. And meanwhile, Venice is promising the world to Uzum, and to you, while secretly half her ambassadors are suing the Sultan for peace. If you go to Tabriz, you become another part of that false Venetian promise, that is all. That is why you were paid.’
‘To do that, or to go back to Venice. A place on the Great Council, and full control of the Bank, with my wife.’
‘You may want that, of course. Or you might prefer to stay here, and send for your family. Niccolò, may I speak?’ Nicholas waited. The other man hesitated, and then went on. ‘It seems to me that something has happened, and that this change of career and of country is not by your choice. Am I right?’
‘I have not complained,’ Nicholas said.
‘No. You took some time to recover. When you came to Thorn, I saw it as a sign that you had done so: an indication that you had resolved to rebuild your empire.’
Again, he stopped. Again, when Nicholas did not speak, he went on. ‘I thought I knew you from your letters, even though all you claimed to seek was information for your Bank. Some men work for a cause; many achieve as much or more through ambition alone. With you, I thought it was first one, then the other. Now I think it is neither. I cannot see your purpose in life.’
‘Because there is none,’ Nicholas said. ‘You have just defined freedom.’
‘For an adult? I have just defined mediocrity,’ Buonaccorsi said.
Their eyes met. Then Nicholas laughed. He said, ‘The happy mean. Why despise it? You still thought me worth buying.’ The wine had been left on the table. He rose to lift it and found it set aside from his grasp, and the other man standing beside him.
Callimaco said, ‘Of course I will buy you. You will always be bought, because you will always be worth something to others, even as you become worth less and less to yourself. Dare to aim for what you want. Dare to fail.’
‘Dare to succeed?’ Nicholas said. He moved away and sat down, without the wine. The weariness had returned, and some of the anger.
‘Ah,’ said Callimaco. He also turned and after a moment