The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [212]
He hadn’t spoken of dyes. Perhaps he thought they were dull. But all her life she had heard her mother, and Henninc and the people who worked in the yard, talking wistfully of the beautiful kermes, the real insect dye of the Orient, which turned fine woollens blood-red or peach. What you could do with it! Add brasil, and there was old rose, or a brilliant scarlet. Add fustic, and the cloth came out in yolk-yellow folds, soft as daffodils.
There would be indigo from Baghdad and the Gulf. The Duchess had ordered blue cloth from her mother last year. They had dyed it for her, of course, but hardly went into profit, even by charging three lire the piece. There was powdered lapis lazuli, now; the painter’s flower; sold in Bruges for a florin an ounce. She remembered Colard Mansion complaining about that, and the price of gall nuts for ink. They could buy all that cheap and sell it for a fine margin. If Pagano was purchasing for the Charetty company, he would have to buy dyes, and perhaps she could help him. Her family instincts, never fostered, stirred at the sight of the well-dressed men all about her, their clerks at their heels, discoursing in murmurs. Like Bruges, it was all done by bargaining and the handshake. It was when the chosen bales arrived on your doorstep that the yardstick came out, and the account books and the cash boxes. She said, “I don’t see my mother’s men after all.”
“They stayed at home,” Pagano said. “The City thought it best, in the interests of order. I was sorry, because I could have done with their advice. But I’m sure we shall do quite well in spite of it. There’s the Venetian Bailie, with a fortune to spend on his spices. What would become of the bowels of the world without his rhubarb and ginger?” She thought it coarse of Pagano, but forgave his excessive high spirits. After all they had gone through, they had come to market at last. The treasure fleet, the Fleece, was arriving.
She heard the drums beating first, and then the hoofbeats and shouting, and then the sound of flutes and strings being plucked, and then a shaking jingle like tambourines, and then a muffled tread, like cloth being trodden, mixed with deep and peculiar snores. Then the first beast came into view, looking down its nose like a bishop through eyelashes curled like a whore’s, and she clung to Pagano’s arm and jumped with delight, as she used to do at the carnival. She dropped his arm. The Bailie said, “Is that all?”
Pagano didn’t reply. It never worried her, being short, but she could see that, for a man, it was frustrating. George Amiroutzes, in his big basket hat, was looking along the road also. He said, “No doubt the rest will come later.” The procession had halted, and several horsemen were coming forward and dismounting to receive the Imperial welcome. Some were bearded and some had flat yellow faces and some looked just like themselves. They all bowed. One of them was captain Astorre. Beside her, Pagano drew a short breath.
The Treasurer, straightening from his own bow, recognised the captain as well. He stepped forward and spoke to him. “You have come with the caravan?”
“Met it on the road,” said her mother’s captain. “Thought they would be none the worse of protection. Brigands about, as you know. Offering my services to interpret.”
Behind him, when you looked, were other familiar faces in helmets. It was natural, when you gave it a thought. He had been searching the same road for the place of Pagano’s battle. She wanted to ask him what