Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [35]
He was relieved, consequently, when the situation between Tilde and Nicholas seemed, with time, to be easing. Whereas Julius always seemed to find Nicholas absent, Tilde’s occasional visits to Margot often led to a passing encounter, and once to a trip to his office, where Nicholas showed no objection to Tilde seating herself by his table and asking a number of pointed questions about mercantile matters.
He answered her, Gregorio noticed, with remarkable candour, taking for granted – which was true – that she had long known the basics of business, having helped to run her own since her mother died. As the conversation developed they sounded like cronies, each taking turns to ask and to comment. Then Nicholas, having apparently judged her capacity, launched into a proper description of the joint agency he was planting in Alexandria, quoting harbour dues, custom taxes, bribery scales, fondaco charges, storage costs, range of goods per season, and percentage profit after freight and insurance, all mixed with examples and anecdotes, and suffused with a kind of dream-like enthusiasm that was, Gregorio thought, only half manufactured.
It worked with hardened merchants and clerks; it didn’t fail to bewitch an aggressive, plain girl of seventeen with a good grasp of business. When at the end Margot came to take her away, her colour was heightened and her flattened nose shining. She hadn’t asked any more questions about whom he’d killed lately, or who would run the Bank when he was dead. Gregorio thought she would probably cool down outside, and then wish she had. He made to leave, but Nicholas called him back to his seat. Nicholas said, ‘They’re not doing well.’
To an experienced ear, it had been obvious. Gregorio said, ‘I don’t think it’s the Charetty’s fault. The Duke’s sick; trading’s slipped; all the money’s going on the French quarrel; the Scots are threatening to take their business from Bruges, and Florence isn’t being helpful with loans. A temporary rise in the groat isn’t going to do very much. And any good business that’s left is being threatened by the Vatachino.’ He paused and said crossly, ‘You really ought to stay and see Julius.’
‘That isn’t what he wants to see me about,’ Nicholas said. ‘No. It is partly their fault. I left them with the core of a good escort and courier business, and Julius should have stopped Tilde from wrecking it. He can run a straightforward business better than most when he wants to. In any case, you have to hope, don’t you, that the downturn is mostly his fault? Otherwise you’ve opened a branch in a pretty stupid place.’
‘On your orders,’ Gregorio said.
‘Well, of course my orders,’ said Nicholas. ‘I sent them from Cyprus and you went to Bruges to implement them. If you found them imprudent or fatuous, don’t you suppose it was your job to tell me?’
It was difficult, sometimes, to keep your temper with Nicholas.
Of all the visitors to the Ca’ Niccolò at this time, the most welcome was Father Godscalc, the Charetty company chaplain. Not that Gregorio knew him well, even though they had joined the Widow Charetty almost together. As priest, makeshift physician and scribe, Godscalc had spent most of his early service abroad with the Charetty army and Nicholas. Even so, Gregorio’s memory of the man was quite clear; the bulk, the dark, uneven complexion, and the profusion of curling black hair over brown eyes translucent as resin. On Gregorio’s one subsequent trip to Bruges (now discounted) the priest had been away, reportedly conducting some business in Germany. Gregorio wondered what Godscalc would make now of the Widow’s widower.
Nicholas had been missing on the occasion of Godscalc’s first visit to the Ca’ Niccolò, but since the priest came with Julius, it was not perhaps unexpected. The next time, arriving alone and finding himself no more successful,