To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [140]
He waited for, and got, de Fleury’s real bastard’s stare. He knew who Ada was, and how long Mick had been bedding her. De Fleury said, ‘I thought she could count, at the very least. How many have you got between you by now? Three?’
‘Two,’ said Crackbene shortly. It was true, for the moment. He had had no idea he was watched.
‘Two and eight-ninths, I am told,’ de Fleury said. ‘It’s your affair. I have no objections. But hear this. No one steals anything or searches for anything at Coldingham without my instructions. That is an absolute embargo. Do you understand?’
Crackbene understood. He didn’t trust vander Poele either. M. effing de Fleury.
It fretted Martin of the Vatachino, as well, that Anselm Adorne refused to leave his wife’s side, or break the period of mourning for his infant. The nephew, who thought a lot of himself, was not helpful. ‘You have the plan all made. The master is coming, isn’t he?’
‘He’ll be here and in place by next month. You are going yourself?’
‘Of course,’ said Anselm Sersanders. ‘Someone has to protect my uncle’s business. You have a full crew?’
‘Near enough,’ Martin said. ‘I need a purser, that’s all. It should pierce that Olympian complacency just a little. You know we’ve cornered the paper?’
‘For Colard?’
‘And others. It has a unicorn on it. Very appropriate.’
‘So he can’t print,’ Sersanders said.
‘He can, but it would cost him. And he doesn’t have the reserves. He can’t have. Not with all he’s loaned the King, and spent on the play – how does he expect to recoup that? And he’s vowed to redeem all his gold from the Knights: that’ll involve some outlay. And Beltrees. The sums they’ve spent on that castle!’
‘I heard that was the fault of his factor,’ Sersanders said. ‘With Bel of Cuthilgurdy to encourage him. Does she belong to the Vatachino as well?’
Martin had laughed. His teeth were bad: in the red-head’s pale skin they looked like the gravel grin of a snowman. ‘I wouldn’t know. David and I only work with Egidius, and our sub-agents are with other firms. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have women, though: it would certainly brighten things up. Your sister Katelijne for instance. There’s a sport.’
Sersanders was silent. He was trying very hard, and so was his uncle, to keep Kathi ignorant of what they were doing. Business was a cut-throat affair, best left to those who comprehended it. And anyway, her constitution was weak.
Into the trembling kaleidoscope dropped the news from outside, nudging, shaping. Late in January, the dispatches from Rome: telling of Jan Adorne and the Bishop of St Andrews; of the presence of Nerio and the Patriarch; of the departure of the Legates, including Bessarion and Barbo; of the coming union of Zoe and Ivan of Muscovy; of the plans for the joint spring attack on the Turk. The report to the Casa Niccolò was signed by Lazzarino; Julius had already departed for Venice. The reports to Anselm Adorne, and thence his niece and his nephew, were from Jan Adorne himself. He expressed the hope, at the end of the volley, that his mother did well, and his sister or brother, whichever had come.
Late in February, a dispatch came for Nicholas alone from Gregorio. He read it in his room, before he unpacked the rest of the satchel, ready to read and annotate and discuss it with Govaerts. It was in the lawyer’s usual black ink and forceful penmanship, but this time different from any he had received from him before.
Nicholas, I have a son. I have a son born in December. The birth was easy. It was like seeing a flower reach for the air, and then open. I was there. Margot and I held him in our arms, weeping for joy.
His name is Jaçon. He is perfect.
Nicholas rose, paper in hand. Soon, he would take it down to the counting-house, and they would celebrate. He would tell all the others who knew and remembered Gregorio, and they would write letters, and mobilise gifts, and send such a parcel over the Alps as would break the backs of the mules.
Only later did he sit down again to