Gemini (55 page)

He was so intent on his first sight of the house that he almost missed the most welcome piece of news—that Gregorio was here, the good friend who had once been Marian’s lawyer and who now owned and managed the former Venetian branch of the Bank. ‘Master Gregorio would be so pleased that Monseigneur had managed to come! They were all so pleased!’ said Ryke suddenly. He was beaming. It came to Nicholas, with misgiving, that he had attained some sort of legendary status in his own former Bank, despite the fact that all he had done was throw away his money and leave. But he did nothing to destroy the man’s image of him, and slipped a coin in his hand as they arrived, and Diniz and Tilde and the girls and then all the staff, it seemed, were hurrying out into the courtyard. And Gregorio.

He looked older, and browner, and thinner, but the narrow face and the bony scoop-nose were the same, and so was the enthusiasm under the velvet hat, which was well made and had no lappets, nor, like the rest of him, anything of the desk-bound lawyer about it at all. Nicholas opened his arms and they hugged, banging each other on the back, while Diniz stood laughing. Then Diniz and Tilde, his wife—Tilde, who was Marian’s daughter, though not his. With the years, oddly, she had become paler and less like her mother, although her eyes were still bright and her smile loving. The little daughters, Marian and Lucia, were shy, and he kissed them both lightly and left it at that. Time enough to make them his friends. Time enough if he stayed. Time enough if he came back. And if not, they wouldn’t miss him. Then he had to shake hands with everybody else, from cooks up and downwards. He was to visit the dyeyard tomorrow. Old Hennic had gone, but there were plenty of others who wanted to see him. Then later—

He let Diniz talk. Eventually, he would have to explain that he couldn’t stay long. Not if he were to go back and get Sandy home before winter.

Indoors, he heard all their news. Gregorio had already decided to visit, after those bastards at the Signoria gave in to the Turk and upset all the merchants. Diniz and he always conferred, even though they ran separate businesses. Then he had got Diniz’s message to say Nicholas was coming from Scotland, and here he was, panting. So, what was happening?

He told them, briefly, for the alignment of power between France and Burgundy, England and Scotland affected Bruges. Then he heard their views on Maximilian and the future. Diniz said, ‘Do you think Adorne will come back?’

Nicholas said, ‘Do you think that he should?’

‘It’s better,’ Diniz said. ‘That is, the Archduke is making his own enemies, and the friends of the last administration are less of a target. I
wouldn’t advise he come today, but every month makes a difference. If he comes, would you come? Or do you feel you want to do more for Scotland?’

‘It would be hard to leave just now,’ Nicholas said. ‘Ask me again when this little crisis is over, and we’re in clear water again. If the next crisis hasn’t arrived, that is.’

‘You’re enjoying it,’ Gregorio said. Once, he had worked closely with him in Scotland. He knew Will Roger. He knew what it was like. He added, ‘And I hope you got Beltrees back, after Simpson.’

Gregorio had seen it being built. Nicholas said, ‘No. The castle burned down, and he didn’t have the land, or the barony. The house was rather unpleasant, in any case. I created it for the wrong reasons, and he distorted it further. What?’

‘Nothing,’ Gregorio said. Then the conversation, as was inevitable, moved on to children.

Gregorio’s son Jaçon was aged seven, and flourishing. As might be expected, there had been no other offspring. Gregorio was not far short of fifty and Margot out of her child-bearing years. They had been blessed, to have their one well-made boy.

The same was true, of course, of Jordan de Fleury. He had no siblings. It was not intentional. It was only partly intentional. There was a limit to the number of people Nicholas felt he could protect. Or so he told himself.

Then, of course, there was the subject of Adorne’s small daughter by Phemie. ‘Does he resent her?’ Tilde asked. ‘Not just the deafness, but that she took Phemie from him? And, of course, he must have hoped for a son.’

‘No. He cares for her tenderly,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think he feels humble. Last time, you see, he chose to preserve his wife’s life and risk the life of the infant, which died. This time, the choice was not his.’

‘You sound as if you approve,’ Diniz said.

‘No. I am explaining how he thinks, not how I think,’ Nicholas said.

That night, they all drank together and it was, again, what it had been like when it was all one company. He remembered what made them laugh, and what excited them. It returned him, too, to the bright, merry level, half carefree, half watchful, that had marked all his life here. The torrent of mixed Flemish and French swept away all his Scots. Sometimes they mentioned Gelis. He had expected admiration, but was made silent, for a moment, by their obvious affection for her. When he went to bed, he slept as if felled.

The following day, he called at the palace of Louis de Gruuthuse and his wife, Gelis’s cousin, and found there, as he had hoped, the senior van Borselen, Wolfaert of Veere. With them were Wolfaert’s bastard son Paul, and his pregnant wife Catherine de Charetty, Tilde’s sister.

He had not seen her since he gave permission, in writing, for her marriage. She looked happy and fearful at once, as she should, considering the escapades from which once he had rescued her. Nicholas said, ‘I am going to take Paul aside and tell him everything. Paul, she rides like a man, and likes lapdogs.’

‘I know. She has three,’ Paul said, and kissed his wife, who had gone pale and then pink. He patted her waist. ‘And, do you see? A future race of Conservators for Scotland.’

‘The merchants of Scotland will love you all,’ said Nicholas comfortably, and gathered Catherine and kissed her properly, with all the reassurance that she could want. He thought that Marian would have been proud of her daughters.

Later, there came the serious discussion with Wolfaert and Gruuthuse, where he learned what Diniz was not in a position to tell him, and reported what he wanted these two men to know. At the end, they asked him the same question as Diniz. ‘Will you come back?’

He did not immediately answer. Gruuthuse said, ‘I am sorry. We did not mean to place you in a difficult position. You have not yet completed your business in France.’

‘It is why I hesitated,’ Nicholas said. ‘But not because of embarrassment. I have been offered a pension, and also my grandfather’s vicomté, with the house at Fleury rebuilt, and the estate and title enhanced. I have not yet given my answer.’

‘Then we need not discuss it. As you will know, we have each taken precautions, Wolfaert and I. It is done the world over. I should not presume to give you advice, Nicholas,’ Gruuthuse said. ‘But I should be grateful if you would tell me, when your decision is made.’

‘I imagine,’ Nicholas said, ‘that should I agree, the King will broadcast it before ever I could.’

He had apparently missed Prosper de Camulio, who had touched Bruges for a few days, and gone. Returning to the Hof Charetty, Nicholas found a houseful of guests assembled to meet him, and it was late before he could ask.

Diniz said, ‘Prosper? Did you want to meet him, now Simpson is dead? Or—Of course, he’s got a bishopric, hasn’t he? The Pope wants to reward him for rousing opinion against Milan, and Scotland was pleased to oblige, in return for one or two much-needed favours. Result, Prosper de Camulio de’ Medici, Bishop-elect of Caithness. He’ll be a credit to you. Robes a little too silky, appendages a little too heavily jewelled, and most beautifully barbered, except for the time they put him in prison. Did Simpson arrange that?’

‘I think he helped,’ Nicholas said. ‘So is he being successful?’

‘In persuading rulers to make war on Milan? Well, you know Camulio. Gregorio knows Camulio. You remember him from St Omer.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Gregorio said sleepily. Nicholas judged that Margot didn’t approve of late nights. Then he added, ‘No, that isn’t really fair. He’s a humanist, he’s an educated, quick-witted man who is truly passionate about the sovereignty of Genoa, and desperately wants to get rid of Milanese rule. But, of course, he’s been employed by Milan in the past, and tried to get work from the Medici, and turned his hand to anything, in bad times, that would make him money. All this recent prosperity has come about because he’s a favourite of the Pope’s nephew.’

‘So people don’t trust him, and won’t commit themselves to join the Pope and Naples?’ Nicholas said.

‘It’s more,’ said Gregorio, concentrating, ‘that the Milanese are less disorganised than he is. Cicco Simonetta knows just how to discredit him. Everywhere he goes, the Milanese ambassadors are there before him, calling him names.
Fonticho di puzza
is one of the best of them. He’s still esteemed by the Empire and Naples: Frederick appointed him consul to Genoa, and Prosper’s son (did you know he had a son?) serves King Ferrante. But France won’t listen. And he might be a mixed blessing in Scotland, referred to as
in culo mundi
by Milan.’

‘In which case, they should be pleased that Prosper is going there,’ said Diniz lazily. ‘Did I tell you Julius is joining you soon? Things are dull in Cologne, and they seem far from dull in Scotland, from all you say.’

‘No, you didn’t tell me,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I was thinking of seeing him anyway. What is happening tomorrow?’

They told him. It included a feast at the White Bear, and a drinking session with the Crossbowmen. ‘And the next day—’ Diniz began.

‘Diniz, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to leave after tomorrow,’ said Nicholas. ‘If I’m to get to Cologne and then back.’

They were disappointed, and he, too, felt the wrench. His company, his friends were as close to him as ever they had been. It was not there, but outside the Hof Charetty that so much had changed. Without Tommaso, without Lorenzo, without Astorre and Felix and Thomas and Jan … without Godscalc … without Marian, without Kathi, without Adorne, without Sersanders … without Gelis, it wasn’t the same. And quite soon, even the Hof Charetty would have gone, for the company was moving to Antwerp. He had advised them to do it, and Diniz, the responsible family man, shrewd and eager and attractive, grown from the distraught boy of Rhodes and Ceuta and Arguim, had set to work to bring it about.

Now Diniz Vasquez was his own man, cut off in every particular from his mother’s family; disowning Kilmirren as Kilmirren had disowned him. And yet, earlier that day, he had taken Nicholas aside and asked him to come back. ‘You established the office in Antwerp. Yours
has been the vision that made the business what it now is. It is yours. I only ask to be your partner.’

Diniz was more than that. He was a St Pol, however he might deny it. He was part of the past: the past that contained Umar and Zacco, Gelis and Bel, and the deaths of his parents. Nicholas had refused, shaken, as gently as he knew how. It was not a rejection of Diniz, or Marian’s daughters: it was the opposite. This was their life. If he came back, he would not interfere with it.

He left a day later, and they talked of him.

Gregorio said, ‘I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten what he was like.’ He sounded angry, and resentful, and even afraid.

‘But he is different,’ said Tilde. ‘I remember him joking all the time. Now the good humour’s still there, but it’s more a solid contentment, inside. And he makes time for the laughter, but there are other things that mean as much to him, or more.’

‘He is needed. That’s the difference,’ Diniz said. ‘He made a mistake, he went back to make reparation. He found a purpose perhaps.’

‘Perhaps,’ Gregorio said. ‘But he isn’t sure yet. And which Nicholas should we hope for? Not Claes: he has gone. But there is a place short of hegemony, surely, for the considerate nature, the gift for happiness which made him such a good friend, such an easy business partner? Or would constraint be a sin, now his arts have developed, so that even rulers begin to depend on him?’

‘A life of duty?’ said Diniz. ‘He obeys his conscience, when brought to it. It is one of the things that I love him for. But a
life
of duty?’

‘It depends,’ Gregorio said, ‘on what you think life is for.’

J
ULIUS OF BOLOGNA
was in no doubt about what life was for, although others frequently disagreed with him.

At his school for indigenous orphans, it had been for rebellion. In Paris, at the Bologna college of notaries, it had been for drinking and gambling and other forms of light entertainment, which had got him into trouble with his subsequent master, the Cardinal Bessarion. Later, with reasonable qualifications and no money, he had traded briefly on his good looks (briefly, because he was not a particularly sensual man) and obtained this post and that until, one day, he had taken himself in hand, looked at his life, and decided what he was going to do about it.

He had been to Geneva before, during his training, and had been intrigued by Jaak de Fleury’s cloth business. They had no vacancies then, and he wasn’t yet qualified, but that was where he saw Nicholas for the first time, although they called him Claes, and he was young. Cheeky, and nine years younger than Julius was. By the time Julius came back, aged twenty-four, and became Jaak’s poorly paid company lawyer, Nicholas had gone to the Charetty at Bruges, and it hadn’t taken Julius long to decide that he wanted to follow him. He had met few people as unpleasant as Jaak, and not many who made him as uncomfortable as did Jaak’s wife Esota.

Marian de Charetty, the widowed head of the firm, after some typical female delay, had appointed Julius as notary and also as bear-leader and tutor for Felix her son, who went to the University of Louvain, and was to be killed not long afterwards. Nicholas went to Louvain also, as Felix’s servant, which was where he picked up the education he had. Being not only illegitimate but disowned, he would have had little chance otherwise. Then, of course, Nicholas, aged nineteen, had
married
Marian
de Charetty, the little whelp, and was on his way to becoming wealthy and powerful.