To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [338]
Dark hair, violet eyes, a spine like the curl of a fern. ‘Who could forget?’ Nicholas said. ‘She owns half the Fleury. No, of course I remember her for many much better reasons, not least that she has had the valour to marry you. I am going to toast your good luck all over again. Is my wife here as well?’
‘Well, kiss her!’ said Julius.
‘I think,’ said the demoiselle Anna, ‘that you will find her in the abbey of St Maximin very soon, with your son and Dr Tobias. I was able to leave Augsburg a little more quickly.’ Smiling, she stepped forward and offered her cheek, and as he kissed it, touched his arm and spoke softly. ‘I wished to say how sorry I am about James de Lusignan. It is a long friendship severed. You must have been glad you were there.’
‘Except that he might have been accused of poisoning him, if he hadn’t been knocked on the head,’ Julius said. ‘The Vatachino! Do you know whom we saw outside Luxembourg? Martin! Martin, who …’
She moved back, and Nicholas went off to find wine and collect the others. Julius was happy, at least.
On Wednesday, the twenty-ninth of September, the Holy Roman Emperor arrived at the gates of Trèves, a day ahead of his guest. With him came two thousand five hundred nobles, four Electors, and Maximilian, his son of fourteen: blond and long-faced and sullen. Also the refugee half-brother, aged twenty-five, of the Ottoman Sultan. Like Tom Boyd, like the princess Zoe, like Sandy of Albany in his time, Calixtus Ottomanus was being fostered as a potential puppet. Everyone did it.
Two thousand five hundred German noblemen settled into the city of Trèves, and Nicholas was sent for to the Archbishop’s Palace. At fifty-eight, the Emperor had a lined, bearded face with drooping eyes, and a bush of reddish hair to his shoulders. Pene stupidum, the late Pope Pius had called him. Almost stupid, but not absolutely so. This was a man who, apparently indolent, had controlled an empire of millions for thirty-three years, and kept all predators at bay, largely by limping sideways at the right moment. If his son married Marie of Burgundy, Maximilian would be the richest young man in the world.
The Emperor, it transpired, considered himself fortunate to have the services of the distinguished Nicholas de Fleury, Baron Beltrees, and congratulated him and his colleagues on the appearance of the streets. He examined, with faded curiosity, the renovated table fountain that John had produced for him, and uttered a question or two about the Bank which Nicholas answered with care. The Emperor knew all about the Banco di Niccolò. The Cardinal Bessarion had stayed at the Imperial court in his time, as had the Patriarch of Antioch and the Emperor’s impecunious cousin, Duke Sigismond of the Tyrol. Sigismond, who had been so unsurprisingly unavailable recently, since behind everyone’s back he was promoting a lunatic war with the Swiss.
Frederick knew precisely what force the Bank could or could not exert; and what it was worth in Imperial politics. That was what Nicholas counted on.
He returned to his work, and the master plan for the Duke of Burgundy’s Entry tomorrow. Gelis had not yet arrived, but there was no cause to be anxious as yet. The journey from Augsburg could take well over a week, and she would have a heavy armed escort. The place where she was to stay, the town-like Abbey of St Maximin outside the city, was in a continuous uproar, as the officers of the Duke and the Abbot strove to prepare for the coming descent. Very early, Nicholas had used all his authority to secure rooms for his wife and her party. He would be sent for, he hoped, when they came.
There was no cause for anxiety, except that he had made a proposal. (Were you expecting one? I hear the lady Violante was in Nicosia.) Looking into the future, he had concluded that he dared not wait until December for their dénouement. The game should end before the board changed.
He believed she would be ready. The Duke’s stay would last, surely, for most of October. He credited her with good planning; and he thought