Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [85]
On behalf of the Widow, Astorre expected to get his money back, in some form or another, as was customary. Loppe, who had already picked up some Italian, had expressed no views on his destination in Astorre’s hearing. Naturally. Nonetheless the captain was edgy as they set out for the palace, and snapped at Thomas when he tried to delay him with the news that some great signor wanted to see him.
Thomas, left over from the English war in France, possessed peasant English, peasant French, hideous Flemish and almost no Italian. The “great signor” proved to be Pigello Portinari of the Medici Bank, arrived to collect his letters, his horses and his tenor. Julius, already mounted, said, “Tell him the captain and I have gone to the palace. We’ll call on him tomorrow. If he wants the letters, he can take them now if he signs for them. Claes knows where they are.”
“I’ll get Master Tobie,” said Thomas.
“No, you won’t,” said Astorre. Master Tobie was presently in a back room with a knife, a needle and a box of ointments, trying to put together Cosimo de’ Medici’s damaged tenor.
“Claes gets the letters, Claes shows him the paper to sign, and Claes carries them to the bank for Messer Pigello, if he wants.”
Claes, captain Astorre refrained from saying, was a Flemish dyeshop apprentice and therefore prevented by status and language from the sort of indiscretion which Thomas without doubt would have perpetrated.
Astorre got on his horse and joined Julius and the neat escort he had arranged for the short journey to the palace. There was mud on his armour, splashed up from the street-dirt. It got worse as they crossed the square with the half-done cathedral in it. Astorre thought they should have left the old church alone. All that was left of it was the front. The cathedral wallowed behind it like a hog with a truffle. They were going to start knocking down bits of the Arengo soon, so that the cathedral could grow. Then the Duke would have to move to the Castello. It was a piece of nonsense, spending money like water instead of where it was needed. States went bankrupt, building cathedrals.
There was the archway to the palace. He remembered it, and the size of the courtyard. Galleries, and a loggia, and a lot of people asking brusque questions. Astorre began to run over numbers again in his head. The worst that could happen was that the Duke wouldn’t take him, or would offer a sum that would make them no profit.
No, the worst that could happen was that the Duke would take Lionetto, and not Astorre. And if that happened, it could be remedied. By God it could. He would see to it.
In the tavern behind him, nothing fell out as he had planned. Pigello Portinari, to whom Thomas took instant exception, did not wish to be served by a youth, or an Englishman who spoke like a yokel. Medici dispatches were not letters from country cousins. What his manager had written from Geneva, what his brother Tommaso had to tell him from Bruges, were matters on which much might depend. Were there no Italian-speaking gentlemen in the Charetty company? Claes, mutely pink, was dispatched for Tobie, who rose loweringly from Brother Gilles’ bedside and stalked into the chamber set aside for Astorre and his henchmen, Claes following willingly.
Tobie, who had no deep acquaintance with the staff of the Medici, saw before him a man with very little resemblance to Tommaso Portinari of Bruges, and markedly older. Not being an under-manager and possessing, moreover, the favour (they said) of the ducal family, this Portinari was lavishly gowned, and the trimmings on his swathed turban hat caught even the doctor’s attention. Tobie, whose aureoled bald head was hatless, wiped his bloody hands on his stained apron and said, “Well?”
The visitor remained calm. “I,” he said, “am Pigello Portinari, manager in Milan for Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici. You have some papers for me. If you will come to my offices, they may be properly examined and paid for.”
“Good,” said