The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [115]
On both ships men prayed, or were silent, or uttered reassuring jokes and obscenities. On each, the leader, smiling, ordered wine to be broached for the company; and the eagerness on the face of Doria and on the face of Nicholas vander Poele was the same.
The legend caught Catherine de Charetty in its grasp, and kept her there till she landed, and after. The barge which came to fetch Treasurer Amiroutzes was covered with gold and flew the Comnenos eagle of the Imperial dynasty. A handsome Genoese boat took herself and Pagano to shore because, for some reason, their own seamen were not fit to row them. At the little harbour called Daphnous, the steps of the wharf were of white marble, and its walls had reliefs on them, and the names and titles of Byzantine emperors; and carved and painted creatures stood on either side of its gates. By then, the Genoese community had come there to greet them, in gowns and coats and caps of their own familiar Italian fashion. But the boys who scampered to take the mooring ropes and the men who came to shoulder their baggage were quite different. They were bare-legged and bareheaded, and wore cotton shirts and coarse overtunics and their skins were of every colour: blond and olive and walnut and ebony. Free men, perhaps, Pagano said; but more likely slaves. Trebizond and Caffa, over the water, sold Tartar and Circassian slaves to the world.
Landed, she had gazed at the high ground backing the harbour, and the big houses there, set among vines and pastel bouquets of fruit trees. She glimpsed tall doors, and window grilles; and a loggia. She said, “It looks Italian.”
Beside her, Pagano glanced round at the others and smiled. He said, “Indeed, sweeting. These are the suburbs, where the merchants live, and the richer burghers and some kinds of artisans. The City is high over there, behind the long walls. The Palace, the court, the Citadel, the churches, the people who serve the Basileus. We shall be invited there soon.”
“The Basileus?” she had said.
“Another name for the Emperor. His ancestors have been living there since the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople. Behind those walls, it is not Italian,” said Pagano. He held her arm, because no one brought horses and the ground for some reason was rocking.
No one had brought horses because the home of the Genoese colony was here, on the headland between this harbour and the next. Until invited, they were not to climb to the City with its golden domes and its palaces; and for a moment she felt disappointment. But there were old men all about her studying her, and asking dull, polite questions. So she walked in as stately a manner as her sealegs would allow and showed absolutely no surprise to find that she and Pagano were to share a great fortified building within a walled and moated enclosure high on a ridge, and provided with yards and warehouses, wells and bakehouse, stables and mews, smiths’ and carpenters’ shops and other buildings whose use she couldn’t imagine. The fondaco was called Leoncastello, or Lions’ Castle, and had two lions, eaten by salt, on its gateposts. Overhead flew the flag of St George, and within the gates had gathered a large number of uneasy, vaguely welcoming people, few of whom were women.
They had not been expected, and so the consul’s rooms were not prepared. It didn’t seem greatly to matter. After shipboard, here were solid walls and a roof, and the ground was ceasing to move. After such confinement, it was enough to perambulate, thought suspended, while servants came and the place was hastily brushed down and sluiced. It didn’t occur to her to question what was being done or to take charge of it. Her women,