The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [114]
Now he said, “Highness, we are concerned, as you know, about the Genoese consul who will expect similar treatment. He has on board the Emperor’s highest official.”
He had not asked before about George Amiroutzes. He was clever enough, she thought, to have extracted all she could teach him before he risked dangerous ground. She said, “I don’t think you may expect the Emperor’s Great Chancellor to malign you at court, any more than his great-niece need praise you. One makes use of a vessel. One does not take on the stink of its timbers.”
She saw him discard something other than a sober reply. He said, “The Treasury and the Wardrobe are often the same. If his excellency buys for the Palace, it would be useful to know if he shares the Emperor’s tastes.”
The Emperor’s tastes were something that would shock even this agile deceiver. Amiroutzes liked experienced women. The lady Violante said, “His excellency prefers books and wise discourse to luxury. He is a learned man, born in Trebizond but fluent in Latin. He represented the Emperor twenty years since at the great Church Council in Florence: impressed the Pope; dined with Cosimo de’ Medici.”
Nicholas said, “So he knows monseigneur the Cardinal Bessarion.”
She said, “Extremely well. The lord Amiroutzes approved of union between the Greek and Latin Churches, as Bessarion did—and, indeed, the present Patriarch, before his reconversion. My lord Amiroutzes has also acted as envoy to Genoa. A discreet and subtle negotiator. It is, of course, in the blood. His lady mother and the mother of the Sultan’s Grand Vizier Mahmud were both ladies from Trebizond. Indeed, cousins.”
She broke off, to observe. Her listener’s eyes were alight with what could have been genuine pleasure: the dimples arrived and were packed off, as if into some basket of stage gear. She found Diadochos watching her. She had long found the Greek monk a nuisance.
The young man said, “But how sad for such lords! Related, and yet on opposite sides!”
“It often happens,” she said. “A princess of Trebizond marries abroad, and one of her ladies becomes wife to a prince of that country. The Sultan conquers the country, and a son or two of the lady changes faith and joins the side of the conqueror. Sultan Mehmet makes good use of such men. So with the Emperor. He does not penalise my lord Amiroutzes for a relationship he cannot help. So should all kinsmen learn to practise forbearance. You agree, my Flemish apprentice?”
His artless smile widened without changing in quality. It told her nothing. He asked, mildly, one further question about Amiroutzes, and then left the subject for another of no great importance. At length, in his own time, he took his departure. She had done nothing either to detain or to dismiss him. Nor, although he might have hoped for it, had she told him anything else. Only, when he had gone, she sat thinking of Venice; and reviewing, one by one, all the intricate plans she and others had skilfully laid there. Some would have to be changed.
Caterino my husband, it is not as we thought. It is not as I thought. Something has to be done about this person Niccolò.
Chapter 18
SO THERE CAME TO the poisonous honey of Trebizond the two vessels from barbarian Europe, the four months of their travelling over, and winter turned into spring. One after the other, they crossed the wide, irregular bay towards the green amphitheatre