The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [215]
“And mistress,” Catherine said.
Chapter 31
GENERALLY, WHEN SOMETHING exciting was happening, Pagano made sure to include her. He liked to bestow pleasure; to gratify and to be admired for it. She had seen him do it to others.
Of course, with a prize in his grasp, he would like her to share in his victory. Against that, he was in extreme haste to rush from the khan. He wanted to seize the Charetty train of raw silk before Astorre or anyone else thought to stop him. So when Catherine hopped after him with a broken slipper, he was inclined to run on, calling to her to wait with her servants. In the end, she managed to stay with him, and scrambled to mount one of the horses he found, tearing her gown and finally losing the slipper. She didn’t mind that, or putting her horse to the gallop with her gown tucked round her legs and her earrings tugging the lobes of her ears. A man had already rushed off to the Leoncastello to muster all the help they would need for the mules. They clattered along the shore road and picked up their men as they passed, before climbing the street to the Meidan and turning off east, to where the Florentine fondaco was.
They came in sight of the compound, but there were no mules milling outside it. There were soldiers there, but they gave no impression of policing the property: rather, they stood drawn up as if at drill, facing outwards. Catherine saw that the double doors of the courtyard were open, with the porter standing uncertainly a little inside. Within the broad yard itself she could see the red head of the shipmaster, John le Grant, in talk with a man in Imperial livery. Dismounting, Pagano walked into the yard, and she followed. The ship-master saw them and turned.
Pagano said, “I have come for my mules.”
The freckled face with its sea-blue eyes remained perfectly blank. “Mules?” said the ship-master.
She felt Pagano pause, as he looked at the untrampled, unbesmirched paving. He said, “You don’t know, I see, that your captain Astorre has returned. There is a train of pack-mules on its way to the Charetty company. They are to go to the Leoncastello. I shall leave men to see that is done. Why are the gates open?”
The soldier, turning also, was studying Pagano and herself calmly. The engineer said, “Someone cancelled the order to close them. They’ve just come to tell us. If there are any goods consigned to the Charetty company, this is where they should come.”
“Did the Emperor say so? Or his captain?” said Pagano. He turned to address the soldier in Greek. “There has been a mistake. I regret, but you are to lock the gates instantly.”
They were in the middle, now, of a small crowd. The soldier, appealing over his shoulder, had been joined by two of his officers. A number of servants came out of the house, followed at once by the big negro, and then by the doctor and the priest whom Pagano had duped on the journey to Pisa. Or perhaps, Catherine had since wondered, Father Godscalc was less simple than Pagano had thought? The priest went straight up to the Imperial captain and said something politely in Greek. Then he said in Italian to Pagano, “I am afraid, Messer Doria, that you must leave. The captain has no orders to allow you to take any possessions of ours to the Leoncastello.”
Pagano’s eyes sparkled. The Leoncastello men had all come: she could hear their voices in the street, disputing with the soldiers who were keeping them out of the yard. There were many dozens of them, and the numbers were growing. Pagano said, “You mean the captain has no orders to interfere with the internal affairs of the Charetty company. This is between your men and mine and, as you see, I have double your numbers. As a priest, as a man who cares for your company, do you really want to turn a private disagreement into a public passage of arms,