The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [131]
Now it was the third week in May and he knew that the time had come to curb Nicholas de Fleury, for none of his other staff would. And particularly not Jannekin Bonkle, fast integrating into the traditional merchant network of Edinburgh. Jannekin thought he was commissioned by Midas, and however much gold Nicholas chose to throw into Scotland, there would always be more.
Jannekin therefore was not present, but safely engaged in the clerks’ room, the miniature chancery upon which the Scottish lord Whitelaw, Secretary of a kingdom, had looked once, withholding his envy. Next to that was the secure room which held the locked chests with their wealth, and spread through the house and its yards were the other chambers and workshops Nicholas had created for the artisans he had brought or was bringing. Close to the ovens was a chamber of stone for the furnace. But access to that was not easily granted.
For the rest, the house was not unlike the two mansions the Bank used in Bruges, except for the grandeur of its great parlour, and of the bedchamber in which Gregorio now sat, preparing to argue with Nicholas.
There were other differences. In Bruges, by the end of May, the worsted bed-hangings would have given place to fine say, and the great Irish bedcover removed – the bernia which Margot had bought when Nicholas first came back to Venice and which still lay here on his Edinburgh bed, with the brazier burning low at its foot.
Gregorio said, ‘Why do you stay here if you find Scotland cold? Listen to my advice. Wait for the wedding, recover your loans from the dowry, and let all but the best of these other schemes go. One single good cargo from Alexandria will give you double the profit. Kings are dangerous. If Edward of York falls, he could bring down the Medici.’
‘You think James of Scotland, just turned seventeen, is going to bring down the House of Niccolò?’ the other man asked. He left the brazier and sat down, a model of patience.
Gregorio said, ‘I think you’ve punished Simon quite adequately and made life sufficiently uncomfortable for Jordan. I think you should finish competing with them and get out, before you forget that you have a Bank and a number of partners.’
‘And a family,’ said Nicholas de Fleury. ‘Or no. You could put them down as self-supporting. Look. I understand. I agree, to a point. But banking means taking risks, and in my view this throne is secure.’
‘And what circator did you get that from?’ Gregorio said. ‘Lord Boyd, Tom Boyd’s father, has gone south on some errand and he hasn’t come back. He could be plotting with England.’
‘He is plotting with England,’ the other said. ‘He’s promised, among other things, to have Chancellor Avandale killed when the Scottish nobles sail in with his son and the child-bride from Denmark.’
Gregorio stared at him. It sounded true. It probably was true, given the kind of network Nicholas had undoubtedly established south of the border. Gregorio said, ‘So that the Boyds can renew their grip of the King? If they do that …’
‘They won’t,’ said the other man.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’ve seen to it that they won’t. Have you ever met the Sheriff of Renfrew? Simon’s baronial superior and neighbour?’
‘No. Why?’ said Gregorio. He spoke sharply because he knew now, why Nicholas had appeared so unduly patient. He was waiting for somebody – and probably the somebody whom he could hear arriving outside. Gregorio went to the window.
It was not a short view, such as you got from a window in Bruges. Behind the Canongate houses, the open land bumped its way past leekbeds and pastures and fruit trees to a narrow valley, and then rose beyond to a fine sunlit crag grazed by sheep. Immediately below, the paved back yards of this house and its neighbours were crammed with a jumble of stables and wells, bakehouses and byres, styes and