The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [117]
He was their nominal leader, but with Julius he was still being careful. For Julius, alone of them all, had once been considered fit to lead the first Charetty expedition on his own, although he’d never known it. Once, on a hot night in a war camp in the Abruzzi, Nicholas and Tobie had talked of opening an overseas agency under Julius with the young Charetty boy, Felix, to help him. But now Felix was dead, and Nicholas self-banished from Bruges. More than that, the promising franchise they had expected had turned into a project much more perilous.
Nicholas had never said so, but it seemed to Tobie that Julius would have found the management of this venture beyond him. And yet, of them all, Julius alone owned to some ambition to lead. The innermost part of Tobie’s life, although he would never admit it, seemed to belong, as Godscalc’s did, to the strange, deep exigencies of his profession. Pushed further, he would have conceded his interest in Nicholas. But for Nicholas, he would never have renewed his contract with Marian de Charetty, or followed her husband into this risky personal venture. Without Nicholas, he would probably seek a new company under, say, the Count of Urbino. Without Nicholas, this company would turn into a bad debt, and dissolve.
Listening now to Julius complaining, Tobie recalled something else: the frown with which Julius had watched, day by day, another man enter the cabin of Violante of Naxos. He believed Nicholas when he said the Archimandrite was always present during those sessions. The woman’s manner betrayed her disdain. In private, she would bring an importunate suitor to heel by humiliating him. A man of low class would be crucified. He had seen it done in his time. Nicholas, strolling out of that warm, scented cabin had never looked either abashed or resentful, never mind distraught with frustrated desire. But then, Nicholas was learning control of every natural reflex.
He was presumably drawing on his self-command now, eating and listening placidly to the fulminations of Julius. Apparently Pagano Doria was defying convention, and before being received at the Palace, had already begun to trade at the Leoncastello.
“Well, I can’t stop him,” said Nicholas. “And we can’t trade: we have to wait for the Emperor’s formal agreement. It’s a pity, though. It would be nice to know what he’s doing.”
“Perhaps I could get in,” Julius said.
Tobie caught Godscalc’s eye. Julius wrecking their venture by invading the Genoese consulate and seizing the consul’s wedded wife by the scruff of the neck had been their most constant nightmare. Nicholas said, “Could you? It would help a great deal. Or no, Doria would recognise you. What we need is someone living there, whom he trusts, and who could bring us constant reports of what he’s doing, and how Catherine is faring. A steward, for example. He’ll need a steward.”
So that was the game. The eyes of Godscalc and Tobie met again. Godscalc lowered his lids. Tobie said, “Wait a moment. The Bessarion household. Didn’t that Venetian tell you the mother had died and Amiroutzes was helping the staff find other positions? He mentioned a steward.”
“Paraskeuas,” Godscalc said. “A man with a family, all employed in the Bessarion household. But they live in the City. We couldn’t get near them.”
“I could,” Julius said. “Privately. I could get through the gates in the morning, with the country people. I know where the house is. I could condole with them over the mother. The cardinal used to talk about her in Bologna. John, the cardinal’s name is. He called himself Bessarion later.”
Nicholas looked round the table. “It sounds risky, but if Julius is ready to try, it might be useful. Doria needs a steward and the man is free and might even have some Italian. For the cardinal’s