The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [283]
“Go on,” said the Greek.
Nicholas said, “But Venice knew that the Turk was going to win. She knew the Empire was decadent. She knew Uzum Hasan was weak. She suspected Georgia would fail to rise and was fairly sure that no help would come from the West. She rather wanted her people out of the City, but didn’t want to lose ships over it; and in any case the Bailie, provided he behaved himself, would probably be perfectly safe. She very much wanted her Genoese rival destroyed, but had already been warned off by the Emperor and the Genoese traders at Caffa. The answer was to fling me in, and see what I made of it. At the best, I might get their goods out. At the worst, they’d make no more enemies. So that when the Sultan has settled the City, and all the churches are mosques, and the new owners have rebuilt their houses, her merchants can come back: with no bias and no opprobrium and excellent tax cuts, as happened in Pera. If it fell out as it should, I should have my merchandise and my alum and cause for nothing but reverent gratitude. If it didn’t, I should be dead, and no one any worse off.”
“You talk,” said the Greek, “as if Venice were in daily communion with God.”
“No. Only with the White Sheep,” Nicholas said. “Violante knew, didn’t she, that Catherine was with Doria? She didn’t tell me; for I might have stopped her, and turned back, and never gone to Trebizond at all. Catherine was the bait. Doria was the manufactured object of hate, through whom the Genoese trade was to be ruined. And has been ruined. And I didn’t see it all until too late.” He was talking to himself, for there was no one else to talk to. He said, “I envied Doria.”
“Not his possession of Catherine?” said the Greek sharply.
The incongruity recalled him to himself. He sat down. “Hardly. No. His freedom. He cared for nobody. He was free. Free of conscience. Free of responsibility.”
“As you used to be,” the Greek said. “Would you wish to go back?”
“Yes, I should wish to,” Nicholas said. “But I know too much now. Or I should be dead like Doria.”
“And so?” said the Greek. “What now? Jason is dead, but the Fleece is still in the world, and the White Sheep, for that matter. There is a knight of Rhodes, I believe, about to join you for supper. He will talk about sugar. And there is another man who will tell you about furs. But perhaps trade has become anathema? Or trading in baubles? You would tell me that you prefer a cargo of grain stained with other men’s blood to a cargo of feathers and emeralds? I see the thought has occurred to you. You resent us. You fear us. You will go home to Bruges and run errands.”
“You forget,” Nicholas said. “It’s only a game. Men die for their own reasons, and are hardly concerned if their blood stains a loaf or a feather. I have one small reservation. Neither the loaf nor the feather should kill them. I shall enjoy working with Venice, but she will never again make me her tool. Or any friend of mine.”
“You have friends? How dangerous,” said the Greek. “Tell me. When you sailed here, you came no doubt by Volos?”
It seemed irrelevant. He said, “We didn’t stop there.”
“No. It was where the Argo was built. I wondered,” said the Greek, “if some god offered you a mystical twinge of second sight. But clearly not. I put your letter there. You had better read it, and return to the Bailie. He will forgive you anything now but an expensive meal ruined.”
Thoughtfully placed, the letter lay in a distant quarter of the room, and Nicholas read it there. It was not from Marian. That first disappointment made him aware, once again, of his fatigue. Then he recognised the handwriting, and his weariness vanished.