The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [47]
“No?” She was amused. “Did I not hear of one the other day? The splendid woman. The splendid woman, passing through Bruges, who said you would make a fortune. Is she in Florence?”
“No,” said Nicholas. He debated for a moment, his eyes on his platter. His voice, when he spoke, sounded laconic. “There are all kinds of commitments. The vows of an apprentice when he marries his mistress are tolerably binding.”
“In his own interests,” said Monna Alessandra. “But when a richer, younger mistress appears?”
He found he had his knife in his hand. He laid it down with a rap. He said, “I know, madonna, the lady my colleagues referred to. Her name is Violante of Naxos. My wife and I met her in Bruges. She is married. She is at present in Venice. And she has no more interest in me than I have in her. May we now change the subject, Monna Alessandra? Or I regret I must go.”
She changed the subject, having learned, no doubt, much of what she wanted to know. He spoke automatically, while his mind referred him to all that had been said. He felt bruised. On the other hand, all he had said had been true. Or was true by now. The scent in Pagano Doria’s Florentine house would have vanished long since.
Just before they embarked, Cosimo de’ Medici summoned the company to his presence. It was one of his better days. He rose to receive them with his heavy-lidded sardonic gaze, the embodiment of the old Maestro’s droop-nosed St Cosmas with his coarse hair and lined cheeks. Tobie wondered if, surveying them, the chief citizen of Florence observed a difference in the Charetty company: an air of assurance which had been missing in December. Since then, like a new galley put through its trials by a master, Nicholas had been tested in public in a field of the greatest complexity which was new to him. Now he had completed the course, and few could complain of the outcome. Of course, he had needed his officers, and had used them. They knew where, but for them, he would have made an ill-informed decision, or would have failed, through inexperience, to identify a lack, a trend, a danger. But equally each man had to admit—even Julius—that none of them could have equalled the outpouring of energy, intellectual and physical, that Nicholas brought to the endeavour. Because of his gifts, Julius and Tobie, Godscalc and Astorre had come prepared to tolerate him as nominal leader. John le Grant had made his own assessment, and accepted him. It was unlikely they would ever cease watching him. It was unlikely they would ever be less than critical. But he had proved himself again to be able; and youth, strength and good humour had further sweetened the pill. They were, for the moment, a unit.
Cosimo de’ Medici said, “You go to trade. You represent the Republic of Florence, and I know that I can rely on you all to remember the trust we place in you. You also represent something wider. Since the pagans descended on Rome, the Greek and Latin worlds have been the poorer for the growing gulf between them: the contempt the ignorant on each side have had for the other. The need to heal the breach has never been stronger, now that Constantinople itself is in Turkish hands, and the heathens cast envious eyes on the Christian lands at their frontiers.
“Unlike Venice and Genoa, Florence has no colonies in the East. We have never striven to seize land there; we are not disliked. We wish to sell and buy in these cities, but the loss if we did not would not destroy us, as it might destroy them. We are not therefore sending you to hold back the hordes single-handed. We are sending you in the hope that, where you find Florentine traders, you will assist and protect them; and that in serving the Grand Comnenos of Trebizond, the Emperor David, you will at the same time do God’s work in making our two churches and our two purposes one. May He protect you and bring you back safely.”
Outside, Julius said, “What do you think he was saying?”
Astorre had disappeared, to plant a fifth