Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [259]
She said, “They seem to have concluded the alum deal. Even if some authority finds the Pope’s mine tomorrow, we have this.”
Gregorio hadn’t come near her since the word came about Felix’s destination. He was a considerate man. He said now, “It’s a good thing for the jonkheere, getting involved in the business. I’m not surprised either that he went off to Naples, or that Nicholas let him. Every boy should set foot on a battlefield once, and the risks are very small. They can’t afford to fight. And the season will soon be over.”
It was what she told herself. She could understand, too, why Nicholas felt it necessary to go after the doctor Tobias. Without Tobie, his letter had said, they would have had no alum money. He hoped to bring Tobie back, and perhaps Julius.
Tobie. They must be on good terms. Now the yard, and her household, had got used to referring to Claes as Nicholas. They gave him no prefix, because he had no claim to the “Master” of the academic, or the “ser” of the better-born. She didn’t mind. It would be hard enough for him to conduct himself at all these levels without the artifice of a title.
She noticed that those close to Gregorio had taken to calling him Goro. Three months of working with people had taught him a lot. There had been no more disturbances in the yard. The nicknames people produced for Bellobras she pretended not to hear. She became, as the presence of money lightened her load, able to meet people and laugh again and sometimes take Tilde and Catherine on trips to other towns, visiting friends and finding small adventures which would give them pleasure.
The girls were beginning to be invited in their own right, and someone took Tilde to join a family sailing party out of the harbour. Every now and then, the thought of her son and of Nicholas weighed down her thoughts. In August, news came. There had been a battle south of Naples with heavy losses. For a day she thought about nothing else. Then, indirectly, she heard the details. The Charetty company, with Astorre, was quite safe. They had gone north, to join the Count of Urbino. She hoped they would be safer there. She hoped that Felix, now blooded, would be persuaded to come home, and Nicholas with him. She tried not to hope anything, but just to go on with her business.
Keep busy. The ultimate anodyne. Nicholas had been right. If she had given up, if she had sold off and gone to sit in some cottage, making lace and gazing out from the shutters, she would be dead.
By mid-August, the new property was rebuilt and furnished to their design, and she was stocked again with cloth, but of finer weave than before; and with dyes, but only those of high quality. She had increased the quality, too, of her staff, but not by releasing anyone. People who had bought from her out of sympathy continued to buy because they appreciated what she sold. Then they found that she was also accommodating in financial ways.
That, Nicholas had said, was the line the company ought to take, and Gregorio was best fitted to deal with it. Usury was forbidden. But loans on security was what pawnbroking was about, and it was very simple to adapt the same principle to the exchange of finished goods and raw materials. And from there, to other things. The ledgers never showed loans: only late payments. She found Tilde interested and let her sit beside her once or twice and listen.
The rest of August went by. She remembered it afterwards as a strange time; three-quarters happy. The hammering on the door, the hammering that ushered in all the change, fell in the last days.
She was in the new warehouse built behind the great house in Spangnaerts Street when it came. The porter who answered the summons went for Gregorio and Gregorio came through the house and into the yard himself, and saw where she was standing, tablet in hand, watching two of her storekeepers check over stocks. When the Flanders galleys were due, work was always