Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [96]
Tobie said, “Before we talk about how I get out, I want to talk about how I got in. Who brought my uncle into it?”
The youth’s large gaze was pacific. He said, “I expect it was the Greek with the wooden leg. When I didn’t take the post with the Venetian commander. He would write to his cousins the Acciajuoli and tell them all about you.”
“Why?” said Tobie. He sneezed, with passion.
“Because you were questioning Quilico. You remember. The galley doctor who’d worked in the Levant. He thought Quilico would make me interested in the colonies. He didn’t realise that he’d brought together a dyer and a doctor and an alum company man, and that we might make deductions. I expect he was quite worried,” said Claes. “I expect I should have had a little accident if he hadn’t found out who you were. Your uncle is a great man, isn’t he?”
“Never mind my uncle,” said Tobie. Without thinking, he sat on the bed. He said, “The Greek with the wooden leg. Did you know his brother had the Phocoea alum concession?”
“Not then,” said Claes. “I think Anselm Adorne did.”
“Adorne?” said Tobie. He retrieved Adorne from his memory. The fine-looking burgher in Bruges with the Jerusalem church and the kinsmen who were Doges of Genoa.
“Well, yes,” said Claes. “The Genoese have been running their Levantine trading posts for two hundred years. The Zaccharia, the Doria, the da Castro, the Camulio. Adorno has been one of the great names on Chios for nearly as long. If you’d been interested, you should have got to meet Prosper de Camulio, here in Milan. He knows as much about alum as anybody.”
Tobie said, “Da Castro. Now there’s a point. Why was Giovanni da Castro there tonight? There’s a world shortage of alum. The deposit at Phocoea is best, and Venice and the Greek’s brother Bartolomeo have the Turkish franchise of it. It can’t be in their interests to have a rival mine opened. So why entertain the Pope’s godson, who’s hoping to raise money to find one? Why entertain you and me, knowing that you knew from Quilico of another mine and thinking that I did?”
The large eyes shone. Claes waited expectantly, as if for the end of a nursery story.
Tobie opened his mouth and produced a sneeze. He pulled out a kerchief. He said through it, as bitingly as he could, “My guess is that the Acciajuoli are backing both you and Giovanni da Castro. In exchange for the profits of the new mine, they’re going to pay you to help da Castro exploit it.”
He blew his nose. Claes said, “May God bless you,” and went on looking at him intelligently. Tobie said, “Isn’t that right?”
Claes said, “Oh, no. I’m sorry. No. Giovanni da Castro hasn’t begun to look for alum yet. He isn’t in any special hurry. I think he was there because the Acciajuoli would be glad if I killed him. Of course, the Phocoea alum interests don’t want another alum mine found.”
Tobie said, “They’re buying your silence?” He felt a spasm of awe, and wiped it off with his kerchief.
Claes said, “And yours, of course. They think you know what I know.”
Tobie gazed at the former apprentice. “I should be hard put to it,” he said, “to sustain that impression.”
“About the information they’re buying as well,” said Claes cheerfully. “It’s a new contract. I’ve sold them a courier service. That’s why M. Gaston was there, and Marco Parenti and the Strozzi sister. That’s nothing to do with alum. That’s ordinary business. The Charetty company provide the couriers and I provide the special information. They hoped, they said, that you would stay in Milan maybe and supervise it. You don’t provide anything. You just collect money and look as if you did. And keep quiet about alum.”
He paused, and his brow wrinkled earnestly. Claes said, “The trouble is, if you don’t collect the money, they’ll think you aren’t going to be silent.”
Tobie said, “Thank you very much. You’ve embroiled me in a plot to safeguard an alum monopoly. Now you’ve linked me with spying.”
“Spying?” said Claes. “I wouldn