The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [23]
The old man was studying Julius, who gazed back with respectful sincerity. The old man turned to Tobie. “And you, Master Physician? You have no qualms about this heavy outlay?”
Tobie said, “The company’s sound. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t consider the expansion were possible. Nicholas wouldn’t be here without his wife’s confidence. What do you mean, a company’s reputation?”
It wasn’t a question anyone but Tobie would have asked. Messer Cosimo de’ Medici smiled at him and said, “I place upon it the same meaning you do. You answered my question precisely.” He turned again, and studied Nicholas. “So. Supported by an import tax of four in the hundred and an export tax of two, you will sell and buy goods of your own, and those of other companies for a commission. The Genoese do this already in Trebizond. So do the Venetians. You will not be popular.”
“With a hundred soldiers?” said Nicholas. “We shall be popular every time the Sultan gets up from his prayer mat. We shall be popular all the time with the Emperor. He’s tired of being exploited by Venice and Genoa. So Messer Alighieri maintains.”
“I sometimes wonder,” said the lord Cosimo, “if it is because Genoa is so sadly dominated by others at home that she behaves as she does in her outstations. It is a frequent quirk of the colonial. But let us proceed. Tell me. How will you transport all this to and from Trebizond?”
Nicholas produced his confidential voice. It was modelled on no one Messer Cosimo knew. “I considered a round ship,” he said. “But it seems a great galley is best. Fast, coastal, safer. Smaller, of course, but she’d carry a ton and a half of fine goods at higher rates than bulk cargoes could offer. Then, a round trip once a year to begin with; two later. In between, we’d ship wherever space offered. On the state Florentine galleys, at your rates. If you had a year-round flow of Caspian raw silk and dyes, you could level out and increase your production, and so could the spinners and growers.”
He paused, to let the secretary catch up. Scribbling, the secretary said, “And your freight rates?”
“For cloth, one florin for each piece of cloth carried, or two per cent of its value. It’s reasonable. It makes roughly five thousand florins per unloaded cargo excluding the company’s own merchandise. We could manage on that.”
“You have thought of everything,” said Cosimo de’ Medici. “And where would you acquire such a galley? You would buy one?”
“I hope you will sell me one, monsignore,” Nicholas said. “If the Medici bank would lend me the money.”
The secretary stopped writing and looked up. Giovanni de’ Medici smiled. “Dear me,” said the lord Cosimo. His face reflected a shadow of pity; a merest shade of impatience. He said, “You cannot pay for a ship? You cannot even contemplate hiring one?”
“I contemplated it,” Nicholas said, “but it’s cheaper to buy, and with borrowed money. I daresay I could raise a loan elsewhere, if it isn’t convenient.”
“Dear me,” said the lord Cosimo again. He looked at his middle-aged son, who shook his head, visibly saddened. “Such a pity,” said Messer Cosimo. “A gallant scheme, a young company. But the least of our galleys can cost five hundred florins.”
Godscalc spoke. Nicholas turned his head. Godscalc said, “We are not asking for a state galley in prime condition, monsignore. We should be prepared to take the old galley now lying at Pisa, which suffered the accident on its journey upriver. Messer Martelli put its worth at three hundred florins.”
Nicholas gazed at his chaplain, his face straight. In the chair, the old man sat still, in the way of one caught by surprise. Nicholas, obeying speechless direction, added, “And at, of course, a realistic rate of interest, in view of the short earning life of the vessel. Then we can replace it with a better one from profit, and with the slate between us wiped clean.”
“Well?” said Cosimo sharply. He had turned to his son Giovanni, who shifted his bulk.
“It is possible,” he said to his father.
Nicholas continued to look pleasant and businesslike. He said,