The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [178]
Chapter 25
A YOUNG MASKED woman of good appearance entering the Republic of Florence with a well-accoutred retinue and lodged at an unexceptionable address attracted some attention, of course; but in July, men were less vigilant than in cooler weather, and once it was established that the lady was neither a relative of the Medici nor a prostitute, the Republic’s interest waned.
So sedate and well planned, indeed, was the arrival of Gelis van Borselen that it was some time before even the ruling family realised that a relative of the Duke of Burgundy was in their midst. And even when news of her identity was finally carried to Piero de’ Medici in his sickbed at Careggi, it was several days before it spread to the other vital quarters: those of the dealers and merchants and bankers such as the Vatachino, the Strozzi, and the Florentine agent of the Banco di Niccolò who did not know what to do, but who finally sent a page to her house with a box of sweetmeats and a message begging the lady to order whatever assistance or pleasure she wished.
On the same day, naturally, an urgent letter flew from the same agent to Bruges addressed to the lady’s husband, his magnificence the lord Niccolò de Fleury. Gelis did nothing to stop it. Long before it arrived, Nicholas would have left Bruges for Florence. The message would pass him on the way. Or if it did not, Nicholas would hardly turn back; not with a ship already laid up in Pisa (she had checked) with space reserved between decks to take him to Egypt in September. By now, he must be only two weeks away.
Waiting, she maintained, unimpaired, the chaste serenity with which, of late months, she had conducted her life. The town might be unfamiliar to her, but the Italian merchants in Bruges had been ready to tell her about every great house, every market, every church. From Tommaso Portinari she learned where to seek her coloured leathers and silks. From Michael Alighieri, an expert on goldsmiths, she found out where Nicholas and his small band had stopped on their way to Constantinople and Trebizond, and heard the story of the farmuk, the spinning toy which had so enchanted the little grandson of the late great Cosimo de’ Medici himself. Which had so enchanted Tilde, when Nicholas sent her one. Oh, Nicholas her husband knew whom to beguile; and when; and how. And when to stop.
In Florence, she made herself quickly at home. She installed her household in the middle-sized house discreetly found for her by a van Borselen kinsman. The permanent guest-house, so graphically conjured by her husband, proved to be wholly fictitious. The dame de Fleury, veiled and chaperoned, moved about Florence methodically pursuing her business, and showed no surprise when, at the end of the first week of her visit, the madonna Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, merchant in spectacles, sent her chamberlain to call and presently followed in person.
She was sixty-three now, the matriarch of the once-powerful Florentine Strozzis, the black hair greyed, the eyes dimmed by the painful years of campaigning which, three years ago, ended when the Medici lifted the ban on her sons and allowed them to come back from exile: Filippo Strozzi, already a magnate; and Lorenzo, the discontented juvenile of Bruges, now wealthy and settled in Naples. Lorenzo’s mother knew all about Nicholas.
‘And so you plan to surprise your young husband. How charming. Although poor Bertuccio, your husband’s agent, has been sorely alarmed. But then, one must make allowance for the raptures of first love. I am so glad,’ said Monna Alessandra, ‘that the young man has achieved such an unexpected and elevating marriage. I must tell you that the Republic was not impressed when he paid his first visit to Florence. There was a certain wildness of conduct.’
‘He has matured,’ Gelis