The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [138]
Tobie grinned. “What he asked for. Something to stop him up at both ends and keep him on his feet until evening. It’ll do it, too. Afterwards, of course, he’ll wish he’d never been born.”
“He means to go to the Meidan?” Godscalc said. “Why? Something to do with Catherine, the girl?”
“I don’t see it,” said Tobie. “She’s still mad for her husband. I can’t imagine why Nicholas shouldn’t stay quietly here having the flux while the rest of us represent Florence. Perhaps he thinks Julius and Astorre are not to be trusted near Doria. Perhaps—I don’t know. He’s remarkably vague—so is Loppe—about what kept them so long at the Palace. Apart, that is, from the formalities and a few words with the Genoese consul. It seems—as we suspected—that Doria stole a march on us by selling fast under Genoese privileges. Julius was most disappointed when I told him that was all Doria had done. He expected open warfare between him and Nicholas.”
“They didn’t quarrel?” said Godscalc.
“Surprised?” Tobie said. “It was you, after all, who lectured Nicholas on Christian charity. No. I gather there was a deal of provocation, but Nicholas didn’t respond. He’s good at that, as I remember. He’ll go on accepting whatever anyone cares to load on to him, and then…my God, look out.”
“For what?” Godscalc said, a little too quickly.
Tobie said, “For what you might find in your soup. But that was before he had you to advise him.”
Godscalc didn’t reply. Tobie, who disliked being stared at, was moved to elaborate. “I do respect the cloth, of course, but sometimes I think a good clean killing has a lot to commend it. Or, at worst, a proper legal complaint. Something, surely, could be proved against Pagano Doria. The ship fire. The runaway marriage. Something deficient, for example, in his papers, his ledgers, his ownership of the Doria?”
He thought the priest wasn’t going to answer that either. Then Godscalc said, “Well, here are two reasons against taking such action. Whoever harms or discredits Doria is going to earn that girl’s hatred to the end of his life and may not even do her a service. I suspect that Nicholas has misread that marriage. And secondly, the power to destroy such a man should, I think, be put at present out of his reach. He is too young.”
“Too young?” said Tobie.
Godscalc said, “I realise you know something I don’t. But the boy’s mistakes are what fashion the man of good sense and humility. Provided he doesn’t repeat them.”
So Nicholas had not confided in Godscalc, and the priest had thought fit, at last, to admit it. He was a shrewd man. Some of the things he had said, Tobie had already, on his own, half-perceived. None of them had to do with legal justice. Godscalc’s concern, he understood, was with human character: with Catherine, with Nicholas and with the course their lives were to take.
Tobie was sufficiently struck to make a decision. After the Meidan, Julius consenting, he proposed to admit Father Godscalc to the limited circle of those who knew exactly what the misadventures of the boy Nicholas had been. They needed another watchdog. Invigilated by a physician, a priest and a notary, Nicholas would surely be fettered at last.
The Meidan used for the Easter festival was an oblong tract of ground, level from east to west, but sloping a little from south to north in the direction of the sea, which could be seen from its porticoes. It was outside the city walls. Across the ravine to its west stood the City and Palace. Further west, beyond the other ravine, was a level area bigger still which served as a Tzucanisterion, where the court engaged in curious ball games involving massed riders and mallets. The only other venue for spectacles was a small area to the south of the Palace, used for camel-wrestling, pig-beating and events of a circumscribed nature, such as heading, strangling and the cutting of limbs. The generations of the Comneni, esconced in their misty sea empire, had given much thought to the uses of leisure.
The eastern Meidan was traditional to this yearly celebration for several reasons.