The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [348]
She said nothing. He turned. Then the two dimples deepened and deepened. He said, ‘Col Dieu, he has.’
On Thursday the twenty-first of February, the squadron of galleys of the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem dropped anchor in the basin at Venice and the embassy of noble Knights stepped ashore, among whom were Tobias Lomellini of Genoa and the chaplain, Father John Gosyn of Kinloch. With them was a Persian delegation of over one hundred gentlemen, led by the lord Hadji Mehmet.
The Signoria, warned of their coming, sent a suitable party to welcome them and to conduct them to their lodging. From there they brought back, after due expressions of gratitude, the Persian ruler’s gifts to the Doge, which included ten barrels of caviare, five bundles of carpets and twelve parcels of silk. On Friday, once rested, the lords of Persia and their conductors were received in ceremonial audience by the Doge, and a number of less formal meetings were arranged, to culminate in a presentation before the full Council on Monday.
Returned to their lodging, the Knights and the delegation expressed their readiness to receive the Duke of Burgundy’s Envoy that afternoon and, when the Baron Cortachy arrived, engaged him for three hours in unheated discussion.
The Genoese Knights of Rhodes, not averse to Western food and good wine, accepted the Baron’s invitation to dine at his palazzo. The remaining Knights and their turbanned charges found it more convenient to remain where they were and entertain the merchant Nicholas de Fleury in the manner already arranged between them on Rhodes.
The meeting lasted into the night. It was understood in the course of it that the deployment of certain resources of gold was still under discussion within M. de Fleury’s company, who were prepared to open informal talks between then and Monday’s meeting with the Signoria. It was difficult at times to follow the argument, such was the racket of trumpets, singing and uninhibited shouting outside. It was explained that at present Venice was in Carnival.
Jan Adorne, excluded from the deliberations of his father, took the advice of his new and urbane friend, the chevalier Simon of Scotland, and had himself fitted with an exquisite costume ready for Martedi Grasso, the crescendo of unimaginable excitement which on Tuesday would finish the Carnival. The hose and shoes were of silk, and the hood and mask made entirely of cock’s feathers. Between now and then, he wore his best taffeta doublets with a black mask and cloak, as Simon recommended. Simon said he was going as Dionysus.
As the son of the Baron Cortachy, Jan Adorne was not of course in want of a guide or companion, but he was impressed, despite himself, by St Pol’s familiarity with the city, and with certain houses in it.
Jan was an orthodox young man, and had behaved himself in Paris and Pavia as orthodox students did; but on this journey he had been forced to observe unnatural standards of conduct. The all-important post in his grasp, he had permitted himself at last to gaze at the wealth in the windows of Florentine goldsmiths; to smile at the pretty girls smiling at him from garlanded Ferrara balconies. And now here he was, masked, in a city tumbling into the unlicensed frenzy of Carnival, its roofs merry with flags, its exquisite buildings garlanded, its squares and lanes blowing with silken awnings and tassels, hung with cloth of gold, with damask, with carpets, and crowded with handsome people, and music, and laughter.
Whatever Simon did, Jan could do. He chose his own mistress, for example. That is, stumbling out of the heat and heavy scents of one of the houses Simon took him to, Jan became aware, as he swayed, of an exquisite masked girl on a bridge. The mist, rising like smoke, made it seem that she floated; a slender wreathed body suspended in air, one narrow, gloved hand holding back a fold of her cloak. Her face, cowled in black, was formed of white porcelain: a pure oval mask whose sleek, still eyes studied him above the rigid flare of the delicate