The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [60]
Doria’s eyes shone. “They demanded all the arrears?”
“They demanded all the arrears,” said the Bailie. “Equipment for one thousand horses, added to one thousand prayer rugs and one thousand measures of corn. Multiplied sixty-fold.”
“Imbeciles,” Tobie said.
“The King of Kings didn’t pay it?” Doria suggested.
The Bailie said, “He didn’t keep the envoys, or kill them. He told them to go in peace, for soon he would bring these things with him, and pay what debt he might owe. He keeps his promises, Sultan Mehmet. He means war. Against, one assumes, Uzum Hasan. Against, very likely, more than Uzum Hasan. They say he is building a fleet there in Constantinople, the like of which has never been seen.”
The Bailie paused. The Bailie said, “You, my lord consul of Florence, my lord consul of Genoa, knew the danger, I should suppose, before you left Italy. In sailing east, you have already committed yourselves to more than the business of trade. You are brave men. I shall not ask what you carry, or what you propose to do: we here in Modon are trading ourselves under sufferance. But I salute you.”
“Capers, mainly,” said Nicholas cheerfully. The high spirits were genuine, Godscalc noticed. He supposed he ought to find that reassuring. Nevertheless he was relieved when the visit ended quite soon. After such news, there could be little to say. What there was, he hardly heard anyway.
Rather more important than capers, the Ciaretti was bringing a hundred armed soldiers to stiffen Trebizond. If the Turk ever suspected, they’d never win past Constantinople. And if the prankish Pagano Doria ever found out, it could be equally dangerous. Meanwhile, what they had heard merely attached names and dates to risks they already knew. Before, there had been a chance that the Medici trial year would elapse and the Turk would do nothing in Asia. Now, the summer might see an attack. But not necessarily on Trebizond. Remote, mountain-girt Trebizond from which the Sultan was already milking off tribute. That secluded Paradise, Bessarion had written, rich with all the treasures of the earth.
The doctor Tobie, who spoke a different language from Bessarion, had put it at once in a nutshell. “You want to know about our business venture in Trebizond? If the Turk doesn’t attack, or attacks someone else, we’re in clover. If the Turk attacks and we win, we’re in roses. If the Turk attacks and we fall, then you and I get a stake up the arse, Julius gets cut for a eunuch and Nicholas gets to wind up a dye business as well as a farmuk. It’ll make a real mess of his ledgers.”
“He’ll adapt,” Godscalc had said. He half meant it. It was his reading of Nicholas, then.
After the animation of leave-taking, the Bailie’s guests were on the whole a subdued party, walking downhill to the sea gates. Of the Charetty company, Julius had his mind on arrows for crossbows. Both Tobie and Godscalc were thoughtful. John le Grant, who said very little, had long ago lapsed into silence. Only Messer Pagano, leaving his officers, had linked his arm through that of Nicholas and now fell into step with him, talking. On each side of them came the Bailie’s guard with their torches, and behind, their own servants had joined them. Among them was Loppe, taking care to keep clear of black Noah.
Doria seemed in good humour, and in no want of a more friendly companion. He produced a stream of good stories, some (in a murmur) at the expense of their recent and well-meaning host. Julius distrusted Pagano’s style of humour. Nicholas evidently did so as well. He smiled now and then, but without undue resort to his dimples. It was the first time Julius had observed this phenomenon.
Pagano Doria knew Modon. Instead of making direct for the shore, he got their escort to take them nearer the fringe of the town, where the solid houses were fewer and reed-thatched cabins clustered instead; the homes of the smiths. This was not