To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [119]
‘How did you know I was here?’ Adorne said.
‘I called at the Scots lodging. My God, I remember the Bishop from Linlithgow. I don’t know how you got here alive. I would have killed him, and then cut my own throat. You know that Nicholas is in Scotland with his family?’
‘My parents will be there by now,’ Adorne said. The wave of nausea was receding. He straightened his back.
‘I shouldn’t worry,’ said Julius. ‘They’ll enjoy sparring with one another, Nicholas and M. le baron your father. I only mentioned it to show that no harm came of all that nonsense at Venice. Nicholas took proper care of the child, and he and his wife are together again. And Simon de St Pol is shown up for the cur that he is. Wait till Nicholas gets him.’
‘He could be dangerous,’ said Jan Adorne. ‘His father more so. Afterwards, I thought his father was behind it. Jordan de Ribérac.’ He paused. ‘My father had nothing to do with it.’
‘We know that,’ Julius said. He lifted an eyebrow. He said, ‘I wonder. If you’re not going to eat me, M. Jean, could I beg a little refreshment? I’ve been waiting a long time.’
He said it in French. Jan realised he had been speaking French – Savoyard French – from the beginning. He said, ‘Yes, of course. I’ll call for something,’ and went off to find servants. When he came back, he was already half composed, and by the end of the meal more at ease than he would have thought possible. They had talked of a great many things: he could not remember how many. And Julius – he was to call him simply Julius – had offered to obtain him an invitation to Cardinal Bessarion’s great reception for the Florentine embassy in the Palazzo Colonna. At which, he guaranteed, Jan would come face to face with Cardinal Barbo.
By the time he saw Julius to the door and the others came back, Jan felt perfectly able to deal with them, answering their gambits like a tolerant uncle, and even able to laugh at some of the adventures with which they attempted to shock him. They also told him something of Julius, who had made an impression, it seemed, during his stay in the city. Apparently he was in love with some countess, and was expecting her to come to Rome before Christmas. Her name, as he understood it, was German. They said he had bribed the watch at the Flaminia to tell him the moment she appeared.
Jan was amused. Julius had said nothing of it, which made him appear both more human and a good deal less Olympian. He had confided to Jan that sometimes he found Nicholas too brutish for comfort; and his wife was a witch. Julius thought it a mistake for any man to father a child except in the first flush of youth. It was unfair to the child.
Jan agreed.
Chapter 16
STATELY, WHITE-BEARDED and chaste, the Cardinal Bessarion thought a great deal about banks. It was one of the reasons why, today, he was holding a reception for the envoys of the Republic of Florence in his home, the splendid Palazzo Colonna. Splendid, but not extravagant. Not at all. This was not a household noisy with hunting-dogs, flute-players, jesters. To build the Palazzo San Marco, the late Pontiff had required that a whole quarter of Rome be torn down. But in all this vast complex of houses and courts, the many lodgings which adjoined the Church of the Holy Apostles, there were only twenty servants to see to the needs of the Cardinal, his household, his scribes and his pensioners. Yet no one could deny that his house was well run, his table generous. To bankers, especially.
Sadly, this afternoon Lorenzo de’ Medici himself was not present, having been summoned from Rome by the increasing unrest in Volterra. The Holy Father had voiced his regrets, but made sure that Lorenzo received a gift of two classical busts and his pick of the late Pope’s collection of gems at a very reasonable price. The other envoys remained (including the inestimable Donato Acciajuoli), for there was no doubt, of course, that the Florentine Bank would continue to manage the finances of the Papal See, and to export its alum. The Medici