The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [199]
“Then you wish to stay,” Doria said slowly. He looked up. “Well, I don’t see why not. You have done brilliantly in his absence, I am sure. And no one knows better than the Emperor or the others of the trading community how hard it has been for you to hold the company together without a real leader. You haven’t been anxious, I know, to make known your disagreements, but it has been plain to us all that you had found Nicholas wanting. His failure shouldn’t be laid at your door. I shall give you letters to the Emperor, saying so.”
“You’ll what?” said Tobie.
The girl turned her head at his voice.
Doria’s handsome face was compassionate. He said gently, “As you yourself said, the right to establish this station was given by the demoiselle and by the Medici to Nicholas personally. Perhaps you forgot, in your distress over his performance. But the Emperor is well aware of it. You yourselves, able though you all are, are merely paid officials.”
The pain in Tobie’s arm proved to derive from Godscalc’s four fingers digging into it. Godscalc said, “When a captain falls in battle, his deputies fill his place, until a replacement can be appointed. Fortunately, we have the understanding and trust, I think, of all the company’s clients. There is no need, therefore, for your endorsement, although we thank you for it.”
The wounded man, his face clouding, looked at his wife. He said, “Catherine, forgive me. You know these men, and they have been kind to you. But however high my regard, I have to be plain, and from the start.” He turned back, wincing a little, and then holding himself nobly. He said, “I must ask you to forgive me too, at this distressing time. But without letters from me, Father Godscalc, Messer Tobias, it will not be possible for you to continue your business. With Nicholas gone to his rest, Catherine is her mother’s representative in Trebizond, and Catherine’s rights and privileges are now mine. Of course, if you wish, you may meantime remain as our employees. You will work well, I am sure, alongside mine: you know many of them already. If it becomes necessary to turn anyone off, be sure it will not be done without generosity. I shall make all this clear to the Emperor myself, when I am well enough to return. Meanwhile, let us put our minds to what matters most. Finding these poor fellows and giving them Christian burial. And, of course, finding their murderers.”
The grip on Tobie’s arm tightened but hardly checked the blood thundering through his body. Godscalc said, in a firm voice, “You are saying, Messer Doria, that you believe you have the right to represent the Charetty company in Trebizond?”
Pagano Doria’s face remained open and mild. He said, “I think so. But of course it is my wife who has the authority. Ask Catherine, if you will.” Again, he turned his head.
She had got, now, the drift of what he was saying, and was patchily flushed, as if a cool wind had roughened her skin. Beneath the tight control, emotions fought to escape: anger and anxiety, fear and resentment. Tobie watched. When her husband, smiling, turned fully towards her, she looked at him for a moment as if she could not think who he was. Then she said, “He is my husband.”
Pagano Doria sent her, with his eyes, a smiling look straight from the bedchamber. Then he said, “And you are content, sweetheart, that I act for you?”
She said, “Yes.”
Godscalc said, “My lord, forgive me. I am not perfectly clear. How can you act for the Charetty company if you are also acting for my lord Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren?”
God bless Godscalc. God bless all devious priests. Nicholas, you bastard, at least you gave us the key to all this before you got yourself killed. Tobie let his arm hang relaxed. Catherine de Charetty said scornfully, “Simon! What has he to do with us?”
“Ask your husband,” Godscalc said.
Doria’s smile hardly altered, but