Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [266]
Tobie’s round blue eyes had revived. Tobie said, ‘Majolica, mercury, sheepskins, and bales of Perpignan and Languedoc cloth. We can sell them anywhere. Where do you want to go? There’s no one in Lagos. Gregorio should be in Venice by now. Julius was leaving Venice for Scotland, unless he’s waited to see you.’
‘I don’t think I should disappoint Julius,’ Nicholas said. ‘Melchiorre? Could you take me to Venice?’
‘Anywhere,’ Melchiorre said. He was smiling and weeping again. He said, ‘I can’t believe you’re here. We thought the message might be a hoax.’
‘Don’t be too sure it isn’t,’ said Nicholas nonsensically, in some language or other. In silent Arabic, he was collecting his thoughts. He hadn’t summoned them. If the Ciaretti had been here for a month, then someone else must have sent off the instruction before he himself left Timbuktu. Before he had decided to leave. Umar. Umar.
The street was packed. People bumped into them as they talked, and the noise was deafening. There would be two hundred men on the Ciaretti. Tobie said, ‘The boat is just over there.’ It was his professional voice.
Nicholas set aside all he was thinking, and his Arabic. He viewed Tobie. He said calmly, ‘I don’t suppose for a minute that you know how the écu is doing?’
‘Of course I do,’ Tobie said, instantly relieved. ‘Julius has these silver-gilt carrier-pigeons he sends us from Venice every day. You’re going to like being rich. We all like it. You don’t even need to go back and do it all over again. Are you tired of eating old camel? We have a layer-pasty on board.’
‘Lead me to it,’ Nicholas said.
Chapter 38
IT WAS Julius and not Gregorio who greeted the magnifico, the owner of the Banco di Niccolò, when the Ciaretti appeared through the mists of winter in the San Marco basin; Julius and a host which included the highest officers of the Republic of Venice. And the Ciaretti, aware that she was expected, rowed in, pennants streaming to the sound of drum and trumpet and flute, with every man dressed in silk, and Nicholas standing obediently on the deck of the forecastle.
This time, the Rialto had emptied, and the staff of the Ca’ Niccolò had not lingered around their own doors but had come to the square in a brilliant and uniform body. And instead of the modest two-oar barchetta, a stupendous gilded bissona rowed by twelve men carried Julius and his senior colleagues to where the galley dropped anchor.
Nicholas was watching it approach. ‘Non est vivere extra Venetiis. You did warn me,’
‘He does love it. Don’t spoil it,’ said Tobie. ‘He really did work miracles with nothing before the gold came.’ He saw Margot in the boat, which was a good thing. He wondered again where Gregorio was. He wished he knew what Nicholas was going to do from one minute to the next.
Julius rushed on board, and then remembered to help Margot up the steps. He was wearing more ribbons than she was. He said ‘Hey!’ and stood, his good-looking face red, before his former minion. He said, ‘You were always exploring something, you bastard. Usually in a chemise.’
‘There’s gold everywhere,’ Nicholas said and pummelled the other man scientifically on the back. ‘Julius, you’re flabby.’
‘Solemn, and rich, and soon to be fat,’ said Margot obscurely. There was a glint in her eye. She gave Nicholas a sudden fierce hug, and smiled blinking at Tobie. ‘We thought perhaps you had all decided to stay.’
‘I’m not flabby. You’re as thin as a pike. Mind you, you got off a lot better than Godscalc,’ Julius said. ‘Or so they say. You know he can’t hold a pen? Or walk very well. You were mad to try and get to Prester John. My God, you didn’t need jewels on top of all the gold you sent home.’
‘I was looking for the Fountain of Youth,’ Nicholas said. ‘Where is Gregorio?’
‘Bruges. He had to stay in Bruges because of the Wedding,’ Julius said. ‘That’s why I’m here instead of getting to Scotland. Diniz is in Bruges as well. You’ll never guess what he’s doing.’
‘Tobie told me. Whose wedding?’ said Nicholas.
Margot looked