Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [298]
Tobie trained on him, unsmiling, the basilisk scrutiny of Pavia. He said, “Prosper de Camulio has arrived. You may meet him.”
“Yes. I know,” said Nicholas. “Look. About the company. You’ve said you want to remain with it. But it’s perhaps going to be more than you bargained for. Simon is going to cause trouble. And de Ribérac … his father is free. I saw him this morning.”
He could see Julius thinking. Julius said, “Silver Straete!”
“Yes. That was Jordan. He just wanted to reaffirm that my … that the family is out for my blood. Ruining the Charetty company if necessary.”
Gregorio said, “It would take quite a lot to ruin the Charetty company. Although I say it myself.”
You wouldn’t think, looking at the black cap and the comedian’s nose, that Gregorio had the steel in him that he had. Nicholas gazed at him with the first, faint stirring of optimism. He said, “I think I feel the same. That is, I don’t mind fighting. The question is, where will it do the most good?”
“I can imagine,” said Tobie.
“I’m not asking for any more promises,” Nicholas said. He met Tobie’s pale eyes and tried to read them.
Tobie said, “I’m not making any. I suppose you know what you’re up against? Whatever happens, you’ll have to keep Adorne on your side. You’d have the Bishop and some of the Scots preferring Simon. And the Duke of Milan and his allies are friends with the Dauphin just now, but that mightn’t last.”
Julius was looking in an annoyed fashion at Tobie. He said, “If you’re afraid, go back to Lionetto.”
Tobie pondered. “I don’t think he’d welcome me,” he said. “He’s probably found out about Nicholas by now. I may have to stick to Astorre.”
“We may all have to stick to Astorre,” Nicholas said. Three pairs of eyes turned on him. It was the moment he thought it better to get up and leave the room.
Loppe was waiting to board the barge with Marian. Her daughters had wanted to be rowed to the galley as well, but Marian had explained that the visit was a matter of business.
Nicholas had changed in Catherine’s eyes yet again. From her mother’s lover, he had become the amazing person who had rampaged through Bruges on a featherless ostrich. Even Tilde, reserved and watchful, looked at him a little differently. He wondered, rather wildly, what change of attitude the same event might have wrought among the great men of Venice and their confederates. All offers cancelled and all communications cut. And perhaps as well, at that.
It was dark, by then. Julius saw them off in the barge and stood looking after them, the lamplight on his brown, well-turned face. He looked puzzled.
Sluys, when they got there, was like Carnival time all over again, with the canal banks hung with lanterns, and torches flaring all round the moated town walls and towers, while the fortress, the belfry, the castle blushed and flickered with light in the distance. But the crowds who had come by foot, by boat or on horseback, stood with their backs to the town looking out over the harbour where a hundred ships, small and large, lay rocking at anchor, beaded with lamps. The banners and pavilions and pennants glowed under the great lanterns at masthead and rigging like flowers in a hedgerow: azure and indigo, vermilion and alizarine, cinnabar and earth-green and vermilion. And alone in the centre, with its burden of lights and flowers and music, of unreeling silks and swaying fringes, lay the flagship of the Venetian fleet, like a garland made by a goldsmith.
Receiving his guests with his noblemen, Piero Zorzi welcomed on board the small, wealthy woman Marian de Charetty, about whom he had received his instructions.
Under the rose colour of the awning her face looked less strained than it had done in the Hôtel Gruuthuse, when she had had to witness the insulting of her artisan husband. Reporting the incident to his fellows, Zorzi had mentioned again his own misgivings. In the maintenance of its empire, the Signory of the Republic of Venice used, of course, what tools came to hand. Their quality varied. But they were such, as a rule, that men of breeding