Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [187]
He and Tobie and Astorre and Gregorio and Godscalc had once all belonged to the Charetty company, before his wife died, and his step-daughter inherited it. If Tilde died unmarried, he would own the Charetty company. Tobie said, as Nicholas expected, ‘You’re not competing with them?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Nicholas said. ‘Gregorio keeps to his orders. But he has had a clash or two in the marketplace with St Pol & Vasquez, Simon’s firm. He says they’re heavily committed, without much free money to spend. It explains the absence of ransom for Katelina.’
It didn’t, but that was his worry, not Tobie’s. While he was still fairly weak he had broken his rule and had Diniz brought to his room, where he talked to him mildly, remembering that the guilty always felt most vindictive. Diniz had been silent, resentful and frightened, and he had got nowhere with him at all. Katelina, on the other hand, had never been seen since her visit, and the Clares were silent as only Clares afraid of Marietta could be. He was sure of this, that Cropnose had something to do with it.
The day after that, Loppe’s party arrived, and at the same time, John le Grant rode down from St Hilarion. He broke his rule again, and had them into his room. They all exclaimed at his appearance, made a number of jokes, and got fairly drunk, which sent Nicholas’s temperature up and restarted the bleeding. Then Tobie returned him to prison conditions, and no one came near him for days. He spent the time making lists, and sending them out to be studied. They had to do with men and buildings and plant, raw materials, packing and transport. He also had Loppe’s reports, even though he wouldn’t admit Loppe as yet. For Loppe was the key, and needed meticulous handling. In fact, all of them did. Nicholas was no longer a boy being indulged, or a young man still proving himself. They had accepted him as someone to follow, and he had to show he was right most of the time, if not quite all of it. Or the game wouldn’t come out as he wanted.
He thought he had a team. Twice, he thought he had lost Tobie; once at St Hilarion and again over the business with Katelina. But for no very pleasant reason, Tobie had been unable to cast stones over St Hilarion, and whatever had emerged from that raw, disjointed wrangle with Katelina seemed to have earned him a reprieve. Or perhaps he had to thank his own condition and Tobie’s overriding professional instincts. Or, far more likely, the matter of bryony berries. At any rate Tobie did not, he said, intend to return to St Hilarion. If anyone fell sick, that bastard Abul Ismail could deal with it.
And John le Grant? Up till recently he had been like Crackbene, a man who would peddle his ingenuity anywhere for the sheer personal pleasure of exercising it. John was a red-headed German-speaking Aberdonian who had joined him in Florence and shown a backbone of iron through the Trebizond war, as he had through the fall of Constantinople. Mick Crackbene, with the Scandinavian name and the Scandinavian bulk and fair hair, had come to Nicholas from Pagano Doria his enemy, and in the course of a career that contained, Nicholas suspected, its fair share of piracy. But he was a brilliant seaman and had shown himself, so far, a reticent but perfectly satisfactory employee. It had not been his fault that he had been forced to sail for Cyprus, and he had performed his duties well and sensibly since. There existed, of course, a way to gain his friendship and understanding, but so far Nicholas had not been able to find it. He knew, from Loppe, that Crackbene’s accountant was in the same mould.
And so he was reminded of Loppe, and the quality of his intellect, and the barrier of his colour. It seemed a long time since they had first met: he an apprentice of eighteen, Loppe a slave on a Venetian ship, and far from his home in West Africa. The Olympian frame with its play of black muscles came no doubt from the forebears he had lost, but owed its development to the various masters