The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [29]
First, Nicholas dismissed the two servants. Then, ignoring questions, he walked down to the Arno, unlocked the door of a warehouse nobody knew he had rented, and invited his three companions to enter before him. Then he shut the door and confronted them.
Julius, who had continued to resist long after the chaplain and Tobie had fallen silent, was still repeating, “…do you think you are doing?” He stopped. His eye twitched.
“Calling you a fool to your face,” Nicholas said. “Why in the name of the Ever-Virgin Mother of God did you not tell me what went wrong in Bologna?”
There was a pause. “You said everyone knew,” Tobie said. He used the voice Julius mistrusted most.
“How should I know?” said Nicholas. “I was an apprentice.” His expression was uniquely unpleasant.
Julius looked at him, confounded. From the time Nicholas was eighteen, squabbles, arguments had been the common history of their relationship. Since Nicholas had married the demoiselle de Charetty they had all, to their periodic annoyance, had to modify their behaviour in public. Nicholas was the Charetty company, and you didn’t therefore take the back of your hand to him. When he had good ideas Julius, like everyone else, was ready enough to adopt them. But he wasn’t ready—by God, he was not—to accept a full-blown tongue-lashing before his own senior colleagues. He said, “You silly young—”
He was interrupted by Father Godscalc, who addressed himself smoothly to Nicholas. “If you didn’t know, you spoke most convincingly. About the repayments, for instance. But if, uh…”
“If Nicholas didn’t guess right, and Julius didn’t repay the money, Cardinal Bessarion is going to ruin the Charetty company. Well, well,” said Tobie in the same voice as before.
“Of course I repaid it!” said Julius. “Do you think I’m a thief? Do you think I enjoyed standing there and telling the whole story?” Do you think, he drew breath to say, that I would bother telling all that to the most shiftless serving apprentice in Flanders? He didn’t say it, since it was obvious.
Nicholas said, “Did you tell nobody?”
Up to that point, guilt had helped to moderate the notary’s natural indignation, but there were limits. Julius snapped, “My God, who should I have told? The Eight on Security? The City Rackmaster?”
“Any member of this company who would bother to listen,” Nicholas snapped in return. “We’re here to raise funds on the strength of our name. Who’ll trust us if we don’t know the facts about one another? We’d have been spared all this nonsense if just one other person—Tobie, Gregorio—had been warned.”
“And had informed you,” Julius said. “You don’t see it yet, do you? Who cares if a servant is born out of wedlock? You never did. Although you never brought yourself, did you, to tell us the truth about your quarrel with your famous Scottish lord Simon until it blew up in your face, and you had to leave Bruges? Bastardy isn’t anyone’s fault, but a professional man is judged by his reputation. Do you think Cornelis de Charetty would have taken me on if he’d known I was in trouble with the Church? Use your head.”
“I need to, don’t I,” said Nicholas, “if you’re not going to use yours? How’s it going to help you keep afloat if you wreck your employer’s business? It’s also a trifle unfair to Godscalc and Tobie and Gregorio. They have reputations as well. If you see trouble coming, then tell them. I can assure you that they won’t pass it on: they don’t think I’m reliable. But they’ll tell you if they think you’ve lost your wits or your senses or even your sense of what’s funny. What do you say?”
“Go away,” Julius said simply. He used different words, from his Bologna days.
“I’m going,” Nicholas said, “to be agent for Florence in Trebizond. It’s a question of where you are heading for.”
“So you want me to leave. I’ll leave,” Julius said. “You couldn’t keep me.”
“Julius,” Tobie said. It was his sweetest voice. “Think again, Julius. Nicholas stood up in there and told the Medici to tear up their contract because he wasn’t going to dismiss you. Does that sound as if he wants