Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [202]
And after Maria had gone to tidy up and the children were in bed, he stood outside with Giuseppe staring across the harbor. They walked together down to the wall to watch the sea lapping against the stones.
“How is it, really?” Giuliano asked. “People complain, but they always do. Is it worse?”
Giuseppe shrugged. “People are angry, and they are afraid. The king is planning another crusade, and as always we are going to pay for his ships and his horses and his armor.” They were going to pay Venice, of course, but he did not say that. It lay an unspoken wound between them.
“The king has friends,” Giuliano said grimly. “The pope is his man. And of course his nephew is king of France. Hasn’t he any enemies?”
Giuseppe stared at him in the fading light. “Peter of Aragon, so they say.”
“Real enemy, or just a petty difference?”
“Real enough, the way I hear it. And John of Procida, for whatever that’s worth.”
Giuliano could not remember hearing the names before. Peter of Aragon explained itself. But John of Procida he did not know. He repeated the name as a question.
“Portugal,” Giuseppe replied, with real anxiety sharpening his voice in the darkness. “What are you going to do? Be careful, my friend. The king has ears everywhere.”
Giuliano smiled and said nothing. It was safer for Giuseppe that he did not know.
A man named Scalini made inquiries and obtained Giuliano passage to the coast of Aragon. It was hard labor being an ordinary seaman; however, that was the only vacancy open to him. Perhaps it was wiser than being conspicuous by seeking command. He also chose to use his mother’s name of Agallon. He was surprised how much pleasure it gave him, even though at times he forgot and was slow to answer.
In Aragon, Giuliano heard more and more anxiety about the growing influence of France through an overtly French pope and a projected crusade led by a prince of France. He began to join in the conversations.
“Bad for trade,” he said, shaking his head judiciously.
“You think so?” the man asked.
“Look at Sicily!” he exclaimed. “Taxed until they can barely afford to eat. Everywhere Frenchmen in the major offices, all the castles, the best lands. Frenchmen in the churches, and marrying the girls. You think they’ll give us a chance to trade on equal terms when they hold the Mediterranean from Egypt to Venice, Sicily, and all the French coast? You’re dreaming!”
“Venice won’t allow that!” another man interrupted. “Never.”
“I don’t see them doing anything to stop it.” Giuliano felt another stab of disloyalty, but what he said was true. “They’re selling them the ships. They’ll profit, as always. They have a treaty with the French pope. No doubt they’re getting something from that.”
The fear was growing, and Giuliano worked to foster it. It would reach the ears of the soldiers and the princes and add to their anger, which was already set against the king of the Two Sicilies.
By October, he had planted all the seeds of trouble he could in Aragon and was in Portugal when he heard that Pope Martin IV had excommunicated Michael of Byzantium from the fellowship of the Christian Church. Charles of Anjou was now the most powerful sovereign in Europe. Perhaps most important of all, the pope was under his influence and in his debt.
Who would dare to ride against a Catholic king who so clearly had the unconditional favor of the pope? Would they then find themselves excommunicated also? Did this now threaten anyone who raised his hand, or his voice, against the crusade and Charles of Anjou?
Giuliano felt that the darkness was closing in on all liberty and honor, and on the people he cared about profoundly.
Eighty-five
ON MARTIN’S ORDERS, PALOMBARA WAS IN CONSTANTINOPLE again late in 1281. But in spite of the euphoria of the citizenry after the relief of Berat, a sense of anxiety crowded within him that matched the darkness of the fading year.
Martin IV had excommunicated the emperor Michael. The words echoed in Palombara’s head like the closing of an iron door. It was a stepping-stone