The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [103]
“There is one for you,” said Gregorio.
It lay on the table beside her. He saw her look at it, with the first hesitation she had shown. Then she picked it up and, taking a knife, opened it with precision. He guessed that the reading of her husband’s letters had been, until now, a private ceremony with its own place and hour, silently cherished. Tonight, the moment thrown away, she was reading. And he saw, in the remorseless light of the good white wax candles, that she looked haggard.
At the end she said, “Yes. And now, show me yours.”
She had never asked to see one of his letters from Nicholas before. He said, “It will be the same. This business of Julius and Cardinal Bessarion. Did he steal the money? Did you make him repay it?”
“I have never heard of the transaction before. Does it matter? If Julius took something, he will have restored it. He has not the boldness to cheat in great matters. I am merely being informed so that, if required, I can support the claim Nicholas appears to have made. Cardinal Bessarion will, I am sure, bear witness for Julius. The lord Cosimo will accept his endorsement. His commitment to us will be uninterrupted. Give me your letter, please.”
He said, “It is the same. It’s only got some market prices in cipher, which I can’t make out until I work out the code. What matters is that Nicholas has seen nothing, clearly, of Catherine, but is sailing on the same route. He’s bound to find her. And what’s more, according to this, he has met Doria, and knows at least that he’s a troublemaker. He helped denounce Julius. He’s going to Trebizond as the Genoese consul.”
It had appalled him, that news. She looked as if nothing more could appal her. He paused, trying quickly to choose the best argument. He said, “Demoiselle, if Catherine is unhappy, Nicholas will have found her by now. Perhaps he is already on the way home. None of us will grudge it if the venture fails because of that.”
She said, “If you do not give me your letter, I will send for men who will take it from you.”
He gave it to her, because her eyes were shining with tears, and he knew that it was lost, the secret he and Nicholas had tried so hard to keep. After a while she said, “I am sure you know the cipher by heart. Tell me what these passages say.”
Then he said, “You know, I think. Demoiselle, we tried to spare you, that was all.” After a moment he said, “Give me the letter, and I will read it for you.” Even then, he did not look down at it; but found himself saying, “How did you find out?”
“Did you think,” she said, “that I would leave anything undone to find the nature, the business, the past, the prospects of the man who abducted my daughter? You discovered so little, didn’t you? The men I sent found out more.”
He said, “What have they told you?”
Her eyes had dried. She said, “That Pagano Doria did not own the round ship he sailed on. He was merely hired to crew and equip it, and sail it first to Genoa, where he was meant to establish a trading base. After that, he was to take it to Trebizond and set up an agency in the name of his master.” She looked at him bleakly. “It was not hard to find these things out. The ship had been impounded in Antwerp since the arraignment of its owner for treason. Now it’s called the Doria. Then it bore the name of its first owner. The Ribérac.”
He was silent.
She said, “You recognise the name, of course. Jordan de Ribérac was accused by the French king last year of treason. He would have suffered death, but he escaped to the family lands he still held in Scotland. The French took his French money, his French lands and his ships, but missed the trading cog he had just sent to Antwerp. Full, as it happened, of arms and armour.”
Gregorio said flatly, “From Gruuthuse.”
“Yes. Like everyone, he traded with Louis de Gruuthuse. So. I have no need to tell you, I see, who the vicomte de Ribérac is. Or that he has an estranged son who is my husband