Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [52]
“He will know what Charles of Anjou plans, and he will know what Rome intends to do to assist him,” he went on. “He will take all measures he can to prevent their success.” His eyes were steady on Giuliano’s dark, handsome face, watching his reaction.
“Yes, Excellency,” Giuliano answered. “But Michael has a small navy, and his army is already fully occupied elsewhere.” He said it with little pity. He did not want to think of Constantinople. His father was Venetian to the bone, a junior son of the great Dandolo family, but his mother had been Byzantine, and he never willingly brought her back to his mind. What sane man looks for pain?
“So he will use guile,” Tiepolo concluded. “In his place, wouldn’t you? Michael has just regained his capital city, one of the great jewels of the world. He will fight to the death before he gives it up again.”
Giuliano could remember his mother only as a sort of warmth, a sweet smell and the touch of soft skin, and then afterward an emptiness that nothing since had ever filled. He had been about three when she had gone, as bereaved as if she had died. Only she hadn’t; she had simply left him and his father, choosing to stay in Byzantium rather than be with them.
If Constantinople were sacked again, burned and looted by Latin crusaders, robbed of its treasures, its palaces left charred and in ruins, it would be a kind of justice. But the thought gave him no pleasure; the savage satisfaction was more pain than joy. Charles of Anjou’s success would alter the fate of Europe and of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox. It might also quell the rising power of Islam and redeem the Holy Land.
Tiepolo leaned forward a little. “I don’t know what Michael Palaeologus will do, but I know what I would do in his place. Men can lead nations only so far. Charles of Anjou is a Frenchman, king of Naples by chance and ambition, not birth. The same is true of Sicily. If rumor is correct, they have no love for him.”
Giuliano had heard the same whispers. “Michael will use it?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t you?” Tiepolo said softly.
“Yes.”
“Go to Naples and see what manner of fleet Charles plans. How many ships, what size. When he plans to sail. Talk bargains and prices with him. We will need even more good hardwood than usual if we are to build his fleet. But also see what the people think.” Tiepolo lowered his voice. “What do they say when they are hungry, afraid, when they have drunk too much and tongues are unguarded? Look for troublemakers. See what strength they have, and what weaknesses. Then go to Sicily and do the same. Look for the poverty, the discontent, the love and hate beneath the surface.”
Giuliano should have realized what Tiepolo wanted of him. He was the ideal man for the job, a skilled sailor who could command his own ship, the son of a merchant father who knew the trade of the whole Mediterranean, and above all a man who had inherited the blood and the name of one of the greatest of all Venetian families, even if not their wealth. It was his great-grandfather Doge Enrico Dandolo who had led the crusade that had taken Constantinople in 1204, and when Venice was cheated of its just payment for the ships and supplies, he had brought the greatest of its treasures home in recompense.
Tiepolo was smiling openly now, the wineglass glinting in his hand. “And from Sicily go to Constantinople,” he went on. “See if they are repairing their defenses, but more than that, stay in the Venetian Quarter down by the Golden Horn. See how strong it is, how prosperous. If Charles attacks in Venetian ships, judge what they will do. Where are their loyalties, their interests? They are Venetian, and by now part Byzantine. How deep are their roots? I need to know, Giuliano. I give you no more than four months. I cannot afford longer.”
“Of course,” Giuliano agreed.
“Good.” Tiepolo nodded. “I will