Caprice and Rondo (56 page)

‘You told Gelis exactly what happened?’

‘I told her that he couldn’t bear to keep it, he missed Jodi so much. At least she would know, despite the marriage nonsense, that he wasn’t uncaring.’

‘You and Anna want Gelis to take Jodi and join him. It’s too soon, Kathi.’

‘I know that. Anyway, Gelis is determined to work for the Bank all this winter. Do you know what she is going to do?’

‘Diniz told me. He was stiff with anxiety, and Govaerts and Moriz weren’t much better. She’s going to consult with them in Bruges, and then go and join the Duchess’s household at Ghent. Gelis used to be maid of honour to Margaret of Burgundy. She can speak English. She can do what even Nicholas couldn’t. She can stay where the financial decisions are being taken — for the war, for the future of the towns and the Burgundian states. And she can act as the voice of the Bank.’

‘And the Bank’s army,’ Kathi said. ‘You know she’ll make her way to the war front. You know she’ll deal with Astorre, and talk to John, and work out their contracts. You ought to be in the field. It’s what Nicholas was training you for.’

In recent times, with mild horror, she occasionally heard herself giving voice to some feminine plea of this kind. It was unfair, for he couldn’t give way. Robin was a conscientious young merchant, worthy successor to the business and lands of his family. However poor the country might be, fatherhood called him to Scotland and duty would chain him there: cheap fanfares of renunciation wouldn’t help him at present.

The fact remained that the brief training for war under Nicholas had shown Robin to be ideally suited to the chivalrous arts. It had been one of the happiest times of his life. Even the military structure of Poland had entranced him. After this baby was born, she must release him for a little, to put some of his youth and talents at venture, so that he would return yet more skilled, yet more robust. He was Robin of Berecrofts, whom she was refining for Scotland because she, too, felt that she should have foreseen and stopped what her friend, her other friend, her mortifying other friend had accomplished. Anna would have forced Nicholas to stop.

Anna didn’t have Robin. Anna only had Julius.

‘I can’t go to Neuss. I don’t want to. What are you thinking of?’ Robin said.

‘That I’m tired of painting,’ said Kathi with infinite pathos.

Chapter 22

B
Y
D
ECEMBER
, winter had fallen with unusual severity on the merchant city of Caffa, fraying the palm trees and congealing the seas to the north. Although daily awaited, no message arrived from the seamaster Ochoa de Marchena. The lost gold remained lost. After some weeks of deepening anxiety, Anna von Hanseyck cornered her elusive Circassian steward. ‘You have been divining.’

He wondered how she had guessed, for his hands were unmarked and he worked only at night, when the toll it took would not be obvious. Now he did not deny it, but told her the truth. ‘I didn’t want to distress you or the Patriarch. I did think I ought to try, for Ochoa’s sake. He is alive, but not near.’

Her voice, striving for calm, sounded strained. ‘You will harm yourself with that pendulum more than you harm either of us. So now you have found him, can you stop?’

‘For a bit. The occasional question won’t kill me. He’s on the other side of the Black Sea, probably waiting to sail when the weather clears.’ He smiled. ‘What will you do when you are rich again? Buy an estate and become a great lady, with Julius? Give up the business and raise children, and teach them to sing?’

‘What will you do?’ she said.

‘What would you have me do?’ He tried to speak to her with his eyes.

For a space, she made no reply. Then she said, ‘Send for Gelis. That is what we have told you from the beginning. Send for Gelis and Jodi.’ With whatever effort, her manner was normal, even admonitory. But her amazing eyes, scanning his, now held pain.

Enclosed in an alien place in one house with this remarkable woman, Nicholas had never thought it would be easy to keep the promise he had made to himself. He had not anticipated its effect upon her.

The mansion, in itself, was the best managed he had ever lived in: everything in it formed for comfort and striking in its simplicity. The staff, all of them good Christians chosen by Brygidy, had learned to treat
Nicholas, when alone, as their master, since it was impossible to maintain his pretended race at close quarters for so long. Yet in all that time, he had never touched Anna. So far.

He managed it partly by absence. Fortified now by the coins from Qirq-yer, he was free to explore at least some of the business openings he was seeking for Julius. It had helped to authenticate his reasons for remaining so long with the Khan. The threatened meeting with Squarciafico and the Genoese consul had not been unreservedly pleasant but Nicholas had convinced them, he thought, that he had been lustfully revelling in the stews of Qirq-yer, rather than interfering with the Tuduns of Caffa. He had taken the consul some fermented liquor, and gratified him, as they drank, with a number of tales of a breathtakingly physical character, some of them true. When he left, Squarciafico was sweating.

To Father Ludovico da Bologna, on the other hand, he told everything.

The Patriarch listened. At first, his comments were purely political. He turned to the personal later. ‘Russia. The Tartar-Muscovite betrothal seems likely. Your pretty lady may well get her furs, but you would have to prepare the way first. Confess to Dymitr Wiśniowiecki that you are not a Circassian. He may betray you to the Genoese, but I rather think not. If he is sufficiently pleased, he will support the Khan’s Tudun when he comes. The pretty lady in the meantime should know nothing. Joy is an uncertain emotion, always indiscreet and often short-lived.’

‘I must remember,’ Nicholas had said. ‘Shall I tell her about the gold?’

‘Oh yes, you wish me to congratulate you on your fiendish divining. You also remind me that the gold is your fee. Leave her in the belief that the shipmaster is where you have said. It is safer for her. Given the chance, the Genoese would claim both Ochoa de Marchena and his gold. Do you want me to tell you that I find your assistance quite useful?’

‘It would worry me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was coming anyway, for the gold.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ the Patriarch said.

Hence Nicholas for several weeks had found an easy excuse to be absent, as Anna, too, was seldom at home, having occasion to visit Sinbaldo her agent, and cultivate those merchants and shippers she knew. Winter in the Crimea was normally sociable for, isolated by ice and by storms, the permanent groups within the colony took leisure to renew their communal bonds. The Christian lawyers and agents in Caffa were married members of a complex community, tracing their presence back for over three hundred years. The high officials were appointed, on the contrary, for a single short term, and seldom imported their families. As a result, the Caffa brothels were of exceptional quality, as were the courtesans
who fulfilled the functions of wives. But to a man such as the Genoese consul, vanity required that he dazzle his guests with a truly blue-blooded hostess — no less than the gracious Contessa Anna von Hanseyck. Nor did Anna object. It led to introductions, and knowledge, and social credit which in due course she could transfer to Julius.

Once, escorting her home from the castle at night, her servants had led her past the quiet, discreet street of the baths, and their lantern had glanced on a face that she knew. Warm with wine and laughter and civilised company she had slid from her horse and, catching her veil, had called after him softly. But Nicholas turned on his heel, and had vanished before she could reach him.

The days passed. The Feast of St Nicholas came and went unremarked, for Mameluke servants did not celebrate such anniversaries. Nicholas was thirty-four years of age, and since the Feast of St Catherine, Kathi had been twenty-one. She was no longer in Bruges. Nicholas thought she and Robin had travelled to Scotland, but for some time was not perfectly sure, as he preferred to limit the hours of his divining.

He did not know if Kathi’s baby was born. He did know that Julius was still alive, and in Thorn. He knew all the time that Gelis and Jodi were well, through Mistress Clémence. It was through Mistress Clémence that he finally learned that Gelis had gone to Ghent, and that Jodi was travelling with Kathi and Robin to Scotland. Tobie and the nurse were going with them.

It meant that Clémence was no longer with Gelis, and that his bodyguards, from what she hinted, had been split. He did not know whether or not to be afraid, but forced himself not to misuse the pendulum, for Gelis had learned to tell when he was tracing her, and he did not want her to be troubled. Gelis, or anyone else. These people were nothing to do with him, now. He must not shackle them. And he had other things to think of soon enough, from the moment that the Khan’s secretary Karaï Mirza made his promised visit to Caffa.

Nicholas was playing argumentative chess with Dymitr in the Russian quarter when the man from Qirq-yer, heavily muffled, was ushered into the low-ceilinged room. There was a second man with him. Karaï Mirza threw off his cloak, and Nicholas leaped up, filled with unexpected pleasure at the sight of the broad Tartar face with its smiling cheekbones. They embraced, and Dymitr strode up to shake hands, while the stranger unfastened his great hooded cloak. Beneath it, he wore the robes and turban of an Islamic religious teacher, a jurist, an imam.

 … As some visiting teacher from Cairo might commend you to those of Muslim faith
.

Nicholas stood still while the Tartar, his smile deepening, introduced him. The man’s name was Ibrahiim. He bowed to Dymitr his host, but
addressed Nicholas in Arabic. ‘Misra Niqula. The professors of al-Azhar know of you.’

Misra Niqula:
Egyptian Niccolò. ‘You come from Cairo?’ Nicholas asked. The grave, bearded face of the imam was brown and not black, and wholly unlike that of the pedagogue best known to him, unless you counted a sense of stillness, of composure, of peace that had been Katib Musa’s as well.

‘He has come here to teach for the winter,’ said Karaï Mirza, answering for the imam as they sat. ‘You may visit him in any of the towns where his classes are held. As for me, my stay will be shorter, and we should not be seen together in public: I have imposed myself on our good friend Dymitr simply to tell you that I have great hopes of obtaining your furs, but success will largely depend on which Tudun will be chosen to rule in the Khan’s name in Caffa. So tell me. What views have you heard expressed?’

Karaï Mirza was here to talk of the disputed appointment. His own possible candidature was not mentioned. None the less, in extracting the views of the household, his very competence threw into relief the weaknesses of the late Governor’s brother and son. He was not only experienced, after all. He was of the inner council of Mengli-Girey himself.

The Russians, Nicholas could see, were won over. If Karaï Mirza were to be accepted as governor, Dymitr and his friends might expect a spring present from Moscow which would allow them to compensate Anna and escape the penalty for her loss. It was a bonus, naturally, for Nicholas too.

The visitors did not stay long. Before he left, the imam Ibrahiim took Nicholas to one side. ‘I have a letter for you from Brother Lorenzo. Find me if you wish to reply. I have not read it.’

‘I shall like to find you, if I may, in any case,’ Nicholas said. ‘And hear news of my friends.’

The imam closed the folds of his hood over his beard. ‘I am busy,’ he said. ‘But of course, you may always attend one of my classes. Any Believer will tell you where to go.’

Nicholas caught Karaï Mirza’s small Tartar grin as he left. Damn Karaï Mirza. Then he tore open the letter and retracted it all, for inside was a message from Ochoa.

He took it to Anna. As once before, he hurled himself into his house and had to be halted: the Lady was entertaining. The guests included one of the more self-important officials of the Uffizio della Compagna of Genoa: having got rid of them all with extraordinary speed, the Gräfin shed her fine, high-bred calm and, hearing Nicholas out, hugged him at the end of his recital as closely as she might have hugged Julius. ‘You’ve heard from Ochoa! And he’s bringing the gold in the spring!’ And then,
pulling away, ‘Show me! Wait, we must have wine — Brygidy, bring us more wine. Now, show me.’

Only when he spread the page before her did her face cloud. ‘It’s gibberish! I can’t read it! Cipher?’

‘Of course you can read it,’ said Nicholas. But although he was patient, she found the sheet of letters beyond her and instead turned, like a satisfied mother, to stroking the words of his transliteration. ‘All your gold, in the spring. He has deceived the Knights of St John? And once he can move, he will send you word where it is?’

‘In code,’ Nicholas said. ‘So you mustn’t fall out with me, whatever I ask, before then.’ Then he drew a breath, wishing he had put it some other way, or left: the whole story till morning, for her lips had parted and her eyes had become very bright.

Anna said, ‘But we shall never fall out. Our fortunes are bound together. Don’t you feel it?’

What he felt he did not want to put into words, although there were many words for it. Nicholas presented her with one of his generous grins, only a little breathless, and said, ‘Naturally. I’m joining your company, and am about to make you both exceedingly rich. I didn’t tell you that Moscow is about to compensate you for the loss of your furs? Well, possibly. And only if the Khan thinks I am helping him. And not at all if the Genoese get to hear that I met his secretary at the Russians’ tonight …’

The story took a little time in the telling, and allowed him to master himself, and presently to leave her in a civilised way, and take himself back to his room. Even then, he continued to think of her. The night was not over. Long and industrious practice had taught him some understanding of women’s desires, and he was afraid for Anna as well as himself. It was not surprise that shook him, therefore, when he heard a sound at his door, and Anna’s voice spoke his name. It sounded muffled. He rose, and let her in.