To Lie with Lions (99 page)

‘I don’t know. She wanted half a ship,’ Nicholas said. They had
talked of nothing of consequence, because his mind was empty of everything of consequence. Nothing had touched him since he had sent that message to Augsburg: not the poetry; not the small, exquisite tableaux; not the music. He worked without thinking. Others drew up contingency plans; and prayed that the conference would come to its end while the weather remained mild and sunny, and the sewers were manageable, and the provision barges and wagons could travel, and the mills and the brewers had water. He could plan only from day to day.

He left his thoughts to find Adorne speaking. ‘… with her fiancé. Of course, she had to display him in Ghent, and in Bruges. But she should be joining us any day now.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Nicholas said.

Adorne looked amused. ‘Kathi. Katelijne Sersanders. She is contracted to marry at last. And of course, you can guess to whom. But I am not going to confirm it. She wishes to tell you herself.’

Four days after that, Nicholas found his path blocked by the large, unkempt figure of the Franciscan Ludovico da Bologna, Patriarch of Antioch, carrying a dead duck on a string. He had recently shaved. He said, ‘Ah. Lord Bullturd, I hear. Follow me.’

‘Belchtrees,’ Nicholas corrected, entering the small chamber after him. He thought, felicitously, of something Julius had told him. ‘And how is Antioch,
le pissoir?’

The Patriarch paused, clearly pursuing the phrase. At last: ‘Nerio the sodomite,’ he said with satisfaction, closing the door and dropping the duck on a board. ‘Whose mother you resorted to with such vigour in Cyprus. Hadji Mehmet was shocked. And then you have the impudence to turn your back on Persia and Venice, who have kept that indefatigable envoy her husband so conveniently busy elsewhere?’

Nicholas walked across to the table and picked up the duck. He said, ‘Are you saying what I think you are saying?’

‘Or you’ll ram that where I will enjoy it least? I said what you thought I said. Nerio is the son of Violante of Naxos. Watched you, did he?’

Nicholas dropped the duck on the floor and sat down. He said, ‘Christ.’ After a moment, he gave a half-laugh. ‘Who was the father?’

‘I’ll tell you one day,’ the Patriarch said. ‘If you make it worth my while. So you don’t like what Venice did, and have bolted to Burgundy?’

Nicholas said, ‘I don’t like what Venice did, but I didn’t bolt. It was my plan all along. Burgundy and the Emperor.’

‘Burgundy, the Emperor and the East. Now you can have power in
them all, if you want,’ the Patriarch said. ‘That’s what our meetings here are about. The Emperor has appointed a commission of Germans and Burgundians to study the Eastern question. I have the Pope’s sanction to drum up money and armies. I’ll get conscience money at least out of the Emperor and the Duke, and the troops they finance could be yours. Did Bessarion speak to you?’

‘Yes,’ Nicholas said.

‘And you liked what he said, but won’t throw your weight behind Venice. So what about other places that need help against the Grand Turk? Uzum Hasan isn’t Venice, although he’ll use them. Caffa on the Black Sea isn’t Venice.’

‘It’s a Genoese colony,’ Nicholas said.

‘Not entirely,’ said Ludovico da Bologna.

‘In any case, the answer is no,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or not at the moment.’

‘Not at the moment?’ said the Patriarch in astonishment. ‘How long would Lord Bullbelch wish the Grand Turk to wait? Two years? Three?

‘I have something to resolve,’ Nicholas said.

‘Well, resolve it,’ the Patriarch said. ‘She rode in today with that mountebank doctor. She’ll be at the banquet tonight. Do you need someone to tell you how to wipe your own nose?’ He stood up. ‘I’ll pick up the bird. I don’t trust you.’

‘Why ever not?’ Nicholas said.

The banquet followed a mass at St Maximin. The Duke, not the man to solicit advice, had clothed the Abbot’s halls of reception in cloth of gold embroidered with pearls, and himself in a golden robe to match, edged with scarlet and laden with jewels. The Abbey blazed with the Duke’s chapel ornaments, and the banqueting chamber contained a complete suite of tapestries and his famous nine-storey credence stacked with gold plate. The guests sat at eighteen tables, and the meal lasted for four hours, during which forty-two courses were served.

‘He’s a bloody fool, isn’t he? Look at the unicorns,’ Julius said, nudging his padrone. There were three of them, cast in pure gold, and worth a middle-sized duchy.

Then he said, ‘Ah. Pardon me for interrupting. You’ve noticed Gelis.’

At the end of the four hours, when he had got rid of the others, Nicholas made his way under the hanging lanterns to the two great inner courtyards, still full of subdued conversation as guests sought
the fresh air. He had thought Wolfaert van Borselen might be with her; she had been seated beside him. But in the event, it was Tobie who peered down to see who was knocking, and Mistress Clémence who opened the door.

The nurse smiled, which was altogether unusual. ‘My lord. The Lady will be happy to see you. I am afraid Master Jodi is asleep.’

‘I should hope so,’ he said, smiling back. ‘And I shouldn’t dream of disturbing him.’ He had learned to be patient. It was nearly six weeks since they had met; but Jodi was nearly five now, and knew about absences. Then she went off, and Tobie came, with a curious mixture of alarm and relief on his face, and offered to take him to Gelis.

He clearly knew, or thought he knew, what was happening. Nicholas said, suddenly ruffled, ‘Well, for God’s sake get some wine and come with me. Introduce me. You’ve taken long enough to get here.’

‘It’s all right, Tobie. He’s in a bad temper. It was a tedious supper,’ Gelis said. She had come out of her chamber. She looked the way she had at the van Borselen table, with the light on the jewels in her hair. She looked like a fine drawing, whereas Julius’s wife reminded him of a painting on gesso.

She said, ‘Aren’t you coming in? Both of you?’ And when he moved forward she added, ‘Ah. You haven’t been drinking water.’

‘I was nearly driven to it,’ he said, ‘once or twice. But I wanted to stay mellow for you.’ He couldn’t remember what day or week he had stopped drinking water. He was sober, he thought. Sitting down, he observed that she was extraordinarily at ease. But then she knew, as it were, that she had come.

Tobie handed him a cup and said, ‘I’ve watered it. Presumably you don’t want to be too mellow for the Emperor. So tell us the gossip. Everything.’

He told them a few things that he thought were especially funny, and Tobie talked about Augsburg and their journey. Gelis contributed, but mostly inspected him as if looking for rust. After a while Tobie got up to go to bed. ‘When shall we see you? Are we allowed into the city?’

‘Astorre will be extremely annoyed,’ Nicholas said, ‘if you don’t come to the jousting. But normally, it’s probably easier for us to come here than for you to come to the Archbishop’s Palace. It depends how long it’s all going to go on.’

‘What is your guess?’ said Gelis.

‘Too long,’ he said.

Then Tobie had gone, and Gelis said, ‘Are you as drunk as you look?’

He realised he was standing, and sat down. He said, ‘I sent you a message.’

‘Is that all you can say?’ Gelis said. ‘No convincing arguments? Seductive persuasion?’

He said, ‘I assumed you would have made up your mind. You usually have.’

‘And you despair of changing it?’

‘I may not need to. You are here.’

‘You think I don’t have the courage to refuse you to your face?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I have a more flattering reason. I think you are clever enough to have shortened your campaign to suit. I think you have done all you want to do, and that you are prepared for a settlement now.’

‘Now?’

‘When the Duke’s business is done, and we are both free. Free to hold our accounting. Free to go where the winner chooses to go.’

‘I meant to ask,’ Gelis said. ‘Who decides who has won? Should we not have an outside adjudicator? Nicholas?’

He shook his head. ‘If you wish. I don’t mind.’

‘Good. But I shan’t ask you to select one tonight. I doubt if you could. Let me send you home safely to bed.’

He found he was standing again. He said, ‘You haven’t answered me yet.’

‘I thought you did it for me,’ Gelis said. ‘Of course I am ready. Come to me when the congress is over, and we shall arrange ours. Perhaps.’

He thought, afterwards, that her voice had sounded strained. He supposed his own had not been natural, either. So near, now.

The jousting, led by the Bastard Anthony, took place the following day in the marketplace before the guild church of St Gangolf. The gilt and paint on the tall houses sparkled, and their handsome mouldings and turrets and facings reflected the blare of trumpets and the rattle of drums and the roars of the banks of spectators. A battery of light guns occasionally banged. At noon all the churches added their muddled clangour: the measured beat of the Bürgerglocke, the chimes from the Church of Our Lady and the Cathedral. Astorre and his best men took part, and all the noblest seigneurs, including Anselm Adorne and the ablest Knights of the Golden Fleece, among them the Grand Bastard and Louis de Gruuthuse. Their shadows flickered back and forth along the west side of the marketplace: black on red walls; black across ranks of sunny faces, polished as apples, rapt and joyous.

The next day the princes disagreed, and were reconciled yet again. Two days later, the Emperor was entertained by the Duke, and the following day, the Duke was entertained by the Emperor. Nicholas went to see Jodi.

Gelis was absent, but Tobie was there, and Mistress Clémence. Poems were discussed, and the habits of pigeons, and the saddle was demonstrated. Tobie said, ‘What’s happening at the Palace?’

‘Stalemate,’ Nicholas said. ‘The Duke wants to be King of the Romans; Frederick is hesitant; the Duke has laid down his terms. No coronation, no daughter.’

‘He could get it,’ Tobie said, ‘if all seven Electors agreed. Couldn’t he?’

‘In theory,’ Nicholas said. ‘But even in theory, I’ve only got three of them bribed, and that isn’t enough. But I’m working on it.’

‘You’re joking,’ Tobie said.

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas.

November came. The sun shone. The beer began to run short, and the bread became black. Nicholas, who had not been entirely joking, cultivated the Prince Electors within reach, and Anna, who occasionally joined them for supper, commented on it.

‘I don’t think that even you, Nicholas, will manage to convert the Archbishop of Mayence. And two of the Duke’s greatest opponents are not here. Brandebourg and the Count Palatine are bound to vote against him.’

Recently, by permission of Julius, they had begun to use Christian names. Nicholas said, ‘You don’t think Fritz le Mauvais might have a change of heart? No. But it only needs one conversion to tip the balance. And of course, if the Emperor decides he wants Charles to be King of the Romans he will be, no matter what.’

‘In fact; but not for public consumption. And I don’t think he will. There is too much French being spoken in Trèves.’

‘Agents? Spies?’ He had heard nothing.

‘Gentlemen paid by King Louis. Or so I hear. The Emperor is afraid of a vassal as powerful as Duke Charles. To appoint him his deputy, his successor, is a big step. There are many persuasive arguments against it. The Emperor listens to these. He listens to astrologers. He is jealous of his inheritance. All his books bear the initials AEIOU –
Austriae est imperare orbi universo
. To Austria belongs the empire of the whole world.’

‘So he is fulfilling his Imperial Vowels. The Duke’s motto is
Ainsi je frappe
. I can see the difficulty. But of course, the Duke has no interest in temporal power. Rather, he sees himself as God’s secular vicar on earth, bringing peace to the Imperial garden.’

‘I thought you were in his employment,’ said Anna, amused.

‘That’s what Astorre keeps reminding me,’ Nicholas said. ‘But then, I’m in everyone’s employment at the moment.’

He saw nothing of Gelis, but a great deal of everyone else. Nothing moved; nothing budged. He forced himself to attend meals, and to watch what he drank, and to appear calm. He avoided Tobie.

The farce continued. During the first week in November, the Emperor decided to invest the Duke of Burgundy with the Duchy of Guelders and did so, enthroned on an open-air platform on the jousting-place in his crown and full regalia, surrounded by a forest of banners. The Duke, entering the city in dazzling procession, paraded three times round the marketplace, climbed the steps and, kneeling before His Imperial Majesty, inaudibly did homage for the duchy King James had once hoped to seize, and was invested with it.

Nicholas, exchanging signals of self-congratulation with his other exhausted organisers, felt no surprise. It was bound to happen. What was significant was that it had happened just now. A sop. A sop because Charles wasn’t going to get very much else?

He had appropriated for himself a high window in someone’s expensive merchant building from which to overlook the performance. His eye, idly roving, fell on the spectators at another similarly tapestried window. Someone waved.

He waved back, the sun in his eyes, and found that he was looking at Anselm Adorne. Beside him, he thought he saw Jan, and several people from the van Borselen household. Finally, he observed that someone else was waving even more vehemently: someone so small that the grimly ceremonial caul on her hair barely reached her uncle Cortachy’s shoulder.

Kathi. Katelijne Sersanders. Everyone’s friend.

And beside her, his hand raised in greeting, the diffident, smiling face of Archie of Berecrofts.

Nicholas failed to join them. Instead, he observed his usual custom, and mustered his hard-working friends at the beer barrel till bedtime. When he rose, rather late, the following morning, it was to find that he had a choral interlude and a playlet to arrange, and someone wished to consult him on the subject of fireworks. He wondered what the fireworks were for.

He learned, in time, that they were for the Duke’s fortieth birthday, a week hence. He became extremely occupied with the Emperor’s contribution. Just before the due date, a number of rumours began to be heard in every tavern, during the hours they were able to open.
The Duke had been refused the crown that he wanted, and had been offered another. Nicholas swore.