Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [241]
Nicholas said, “Five is the usual number.”
The doctor looked up. His pale eyes, already round, didn’t alter. He said, “And about time. Unless you’ve got haemorrhoids.”
“My grooms have,” said Nicholas helpfully. “Are you specialising?”
“I’m buttock man to the Holy Roman Empire,” said Tobie. “They don’t want a doctor. They want a man to design a new sort of horse. You took my advice and married the woman.”
“I always take your advice,” Nicholas said. “Anyway, you took mine and persuaded the Count to bribe Lionetto. For a nice sum too – I checked at his Milan agent, Maffino’s. Astorre must be very annoyed. He probably thinks you’ve got half Lionetto’s glass rubies. May I come in, or will your leg run way?”
Tobie the doctor released his foot and placed it carefully beside the other in the bucket. He said, “You’re alone?”
“Apart from two grooms with haemorrhoids,” said Nicholas. He came in and dropped a saddlebag on the straw by the truckle bed. He said, “I’ve sent Felix on to Astorre in Naples.”
The tent was stifling. The staves of the bucket had misted. “More fool you,” said Tobie.
“He can’t stay a child,” Nicholas said. “A big Milanese contingent was leaving. They don’t expect fighting.”
A sequence of small, contemplative splashes emerged from the bucket. “You had a fire,” Tobie said. “Deliberate?”
“I know who did it,” Nicholas said. “I’m the target. While I’m here, they’ll be all right in Bruges. Now we have all this money, they can put the business together again.”
Tobie’s short mouth widened. His round, pale eyes stubbed themselves on his cheeks. He placed two hands on his stool, and lifting both dripping feet deposited them tenderly on a towel. He said, “Pray sit down. Take my bed. But don’t go to sleep before you’ve told me. How rich am I?”
Nicholas sat, with the care of a man who has ridden sixty difficult miles in extreme heat, and who is not feeling his best. He said, “Not as rich as I am, but you can hope to leave buttocks behind you. Why the sore feet? A new cure for piles? Are you vatting your patients and treading them?”
Tobie lifted one foot and started to dry it. “I’m glad you’re so happy,” he said. “And I only hope I’m worth as much as I deserve to be, after riding all over Lazio with those two drunken miners of Zorzi’s. Messer Caterino Zeno was impressed, then.”
“Everyone was impressed,” Nicholas said. “We share the concession with the Genoese.”
Tobie caught his little toe in the towel and screamed, “What?”
“Why d’you think I put you on to Camulio? We’ve got to work with the other merchants in Bruges. We need Adorne. We need the Adorno. Venice and Turkey may always fall out. And we could do with friends on Chios to keep an eye on what the Venetians are doing.”
The doctor’s bald head had flushed. The wispy hair by his ears swelled and released drops of sweat. He said, “I should have arranged it myself. You should have crawled all over those hills with two alum miners and an enlarging glass. The concession’s worth nothing once Tolfa’s discovered. That adventurer da Castro’s begun prospecting already with his astrologer friend. Did you know that?”
“No,” said Nicholas.
“And the name of the astrologer friend, my numerate colleague, is Zaccaria. Did you know that?”
“No,” said Nicholas.
“No,” repeated the doctor. “Then think about this. The French are already governing Genoa. The French would like to attack Burgundy. The French would like to get Sforza out and put their own man into the duchy of Milan. And the rumour is that they’re asking Venice to help them. So no Adorno, no Sforza, and no way of frightening Venice with the new alum mines. If Venice helps France to conquer half Italy, the next Pope will be French and Venice will work the new alum herself.”
Nicholas had opened his purse. He sat holding with both hands the paper he had drawn from it until Tobie paused, and then he leaned forward and offered it to him. It was covered with figures. Tobie took