Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [21]
Simon, of course, was as always worth looking at, with his brief, cinch-belted tunic, his broad padded shoulders and the tall, roll-brimmed hat on the neat, razored bulk of his hair. His chin was smooth as blond wood, and looked unyielding. Once committed to something (look at the way he had spotted these stupid young men at Damme) he could be obstinate.
But there were muscles, too, under the padding. In Scotland, he had jousted frequently, and successfully. It was how he made his superior conquests among the high-born widows and neglected wives watching. If he had bastards, she had never heard of them.
She talked to everyone: Jacques Doria, Richard Wylie, Sandy Napier. Mick Losschaert had just got out himself from Constantinople, and knew the Greek Acciajuoli family. Bitter and yellow-skinned still with privation, he was not slow to disparage them. Jumped-up Florentines who had reached Greece through Naples, and founded a line of Athenian princes. There were still Acciajuoli in Florence. Medici men.
He begged leave to doubt, said Mick Losschaert, whether Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli really expected the combined fleets of Christendom to sweep through the Middle Sea and destroy the Sultan Mehmet of Turkey. He rather thought, said Losschaert, that all Messer Nicholai Giorgio had in mind was to pay the ransom of his brother Bartolomeo, so that Bartolomeo could continue trading in silks with the Sultan. He wondered aloud where the money was, that had been collected for Acciajuoli in Scotland; and who was to have the pleasure of transferring it.
A certain constraint fell on the company, and the Bishop’s breath whistled. Five feet eight inches in his sandals, he had the lean, folded face and balding head of a man much over his true age of fifty. On shipboard, Katelina had learned not to underestimate him. When he spoke, you saw the thrusting eyebrows and jaw of a lively, muscular man who was at least agile still in mind and debate.
Now he shot a glance up at Losschaert from where he sat on his bench and said, “I miss my guess if my cousin James, King of Scotland asked his people for gold so that a silk merchant in Constantinople could resume his trade. Or those worthy men – you must have heard the names, they are famous – who came to Mantua from the East to beseech the Pope weeping for help?”
“My lord Bishop, you misunderstand,” Losschaert said quickly. “I meant merely that there are many interests at stake in time of war as well as time of peace between the eastern world and the west. With single supplicants it is wise to be careful. Where the whole Christian church of the East asks for the friendship and succour of Rome, it is a different matter.”
Tommaso Portinari, Katelina saw, had accepted a goblet of wine and joined the fringe of the discussion. The Bishop’s eyes moved to him. The Bishop said, “Well, if you have doubts about the money collected for Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli, I fancy you had better express them. The sum was entrusted to me to bring to Bruges, and I have placed it in the good hands of Messer Tommaso here. From Bruges, I understand, it will be transmitted to the Medici branch at Milan, who in turn will transfer it to Venice. From Venice, after due negotiation with the Turk, it will be taken in appropriate form to Constantinople, and there exchanged for Messer Nicholai’s brother. Am I right, mynheere Tommaso?”
“It is so, my lord,” said Portinari. He wore melon sleeves and a low-crowned beaver hat and had rings on most of his fingers, which were white and fine. The rings were not very expensive: he was only under-manager. Tommaso Portinari had come to the bank as a twelve-year-old. Katelina had known him all her life, as had everyone else. Hence his need to impress.
He said, “The bank is much