The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [272]
But one must think of the immediate task. The arguments were long over.
The Emperor received them in a robe of state. Serious, pink-fleshed, golden, imperial, he looked as he always looked. It was only now, in the late summer daylight, in the full light of what he was doing, that you saw how he was painted and waxed, artificial as the frescoes about him. When neither Nicholas nor Godscalc performed the Prostration, he checked, but gave no other sign of displeasure. He spoke the few necessary words in measured Greek to his Florentine consul. To save the lives of his people, he had decided to sacrifice his well-being and open his gates. An enlightened man, the Sultan Mehmet had promised wise rule and free worship, as he had given already to the Greeks now in Constantinople. But there was, of course, no further need for the consul’s armed troops to protect him. He thanked the company for its services, and released them formally, and with honour, from completing their contract. A letter had been drawn up indemnifying them.
The letter, hastily written, was passed across. The Emperor’s attention was already wandering. His indifference was undoubtedly genuine. Foreign merchants meant nothing whatever to him or his future. It was Nicholas, level-voiced and persistent, who raised the question of the Latin families still in the City, and received the Emperor’s agreement that such households might leave, although, as everyone knew, the Sultan exacted no penalties from merchants where no resistance was offered. The Emperor had heard of the death of the Genoese consul. The shipmaster Crackbene had permission to remove such Genoese as might wish to leave Trebizond for the moment. The Basileus trusted that Messer Niccolò was content. He allowed Messer Niccolò and Father Godscalc to bow, instead of kissing his foot, and had brought forward for each a small personal gift, which each politely refused. As they backed out, they saw him biting his fingernails.
“You should have taken it,” Tobie said when they told him. “You could have pushed it down a Turk’s throat.” It was the only comment anyone made, and all there was time for. They got the gear of the round ship, and took it down to the Genoese house, to which Nicholas had already pushed his way, through the disordered city, and found Doria’s sailing-master Crackbene ready and willing to join forces and help put to sea. He knew, too, that his employer was dead, but showed no inclination to mourn him. His attitude was clearly that of Astorre. He was a practical man.
He saw a difficulty, therefore, in their plan. The cog was anchored at sea, and her living cargo and gear were all inside the City. How did the Florentine consul propose to unite the one with the other across a shore occupied by the Turks?
“By becoming Turks,” Nicholas said. “It’s easy. You need a big, black moustache and an enlightened and liberal nature.”
Crackbene started to smile, and then stopped as the other man turned.
Nicholas said, “It wasn’t a joke. We’re going to dress up as Turks and act as if we’ve just been dispatched by the Sultan. We have orders to rig the Genoese cog, and sail it through to the fleet at Gallipoli.”
“You’ll never do it,” said Crackbene.
“We might,” Nicholas said. “You haven’t looked over the walls. They’re all drunk outside, and beating drums and letting off crackers. They’ve just heard the news of the surrender.”
“You’ll still never do it,” said Crackbene. “What about Turkish clothes?”
“Oh,” Nicholas said. “That’s the easy part.”
•
At Kerasous, a hundred miles to the west, the rest of the Charetty company waited, and watched the days go by as anxiously as Godscalc had done; for their orders were