The Iron King (16 page)
‘Is that true?’
‘It is,’ said Tolomei with the most innocent air in the world.
He was lying, and was sure of being able to do so with impunity, for Robert of Artois, though clever in intrigue, understood very little about accountancy.
‘Oh!’ said the latter, vexed.
He scratched the stubble on his chin and meditatively shook his head.
‘All the same, when I think of the Templars … You ought to be pretty pleased this morning, eh?’ he asked.
‘Yes and no, Monseigneur; yes and no. For a long time they have done our business no harm. Who is going to be attacked next? Is it to be us, us Lombards, as we’re called. Dealing in gold is not an easy business. And without us nothing could be done. But by the way,’ Tolomei went on, ‘has Monsieur de Valois said anything to you about another change in the value of the Paris pound, as I hear is proposed?’
‘No,’ said Artois who was following his own line of thought. ‘But this time I’ve got Mahaut. I’ve got Mahaut because I hold her daughters and her niece in the hollow of my hand. And I’m going to strangle them … crack! … like that!’
Hatred hardened his features and made him almost good-looking. He had moved nearer to Tolomei once more. The latter was thinking, ‘This man, due to his obsession, is capable of almost anything. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind to lend him another five hundred pounds – though he does smell of game.’ Then he said, ‘How have you done this?’
Robert of Artois lowered his voice. His eyes were bright.
‘The little sluts have got lovers,’ he said, ‘and last night I found out who they are. But, not a word, eh! I don’t want anybody to know – yet.’
The Siennese grew thoughtful. He had already heard the story, but had not believed it.
‘What good can it do you?’ he asked.
‘Good?’ cried Artois. ‘Listen, banker, can’t you imagine the scandal? The future Queen of France caught like a whore with her coxcombs. There’ll be a row, they’ll be repudiated! The whole family of Burgundy will be plunged up to the neck in the midden, Mahaut will lose all credit at Court, their inheritance will no longer be within reach of the Crown; I shall reopen my case and win it!’
He was walking to and fro and the boards and furnishings vibrated.
‘And are you proposing to explode the scandal?’ asked Tolomei. ‘You’ll find the King …’
‘No, Messer, not I. I should not be listened to. But there’s someone else, much better placed to do it, who is not in France. And this is the second thing I came to ask you for. I need a sure man who can take a message secretly to England.’
‘To whom?’
‘To Queen Isabella.’
‘Ah! so that’s it,’ murmured the banker.
There followed a silence in which could be heard the noises from the street, the hawkers offering their wares.
‘It is indeed true that Madame Isabella is said not to like her sisters-in-law of France overmuch,’ said Tolomei at last. He had no need to hear more to understand how Artois had set about his plot. ‘You’re very much her friend, I believe, and you were over there a few days ago?’
‘I came back last Friday, and got to work at once.’
‘Why don’t you send a man of your own to Madame Isabella, or perhaps a courier of Monseigneur of Valois’s?’
‘In this country, where everyone watches everyone else, all my men are known, as are Monseigneur’s. The whole business might easily be compromised. I thought a merchant, and particularly a merchant whom one can trust, would be more suitable. You have many agents travelling for you. Moreover, the message will have nothing in it that need cause the bearer any anxiety.’
Tolomei looked the giant in the eyes, meditated a moment, and then rang the bronze bell.
‘I shall endeavour to render you service once again,’ he said.
The hangings parted and the young man, who had shown the Archbishop out, reappeared. The banker presented him, ‘Guccio Baglioni, my nephew, who has but recently come from Sienna. I don’t think that the Provosts and sergeants-at-arms of our friend Marigny know him well as yet, although yesterday morning,’ Tolomei added in a low voice, looking at the young man with feigned severity, ‘he distinguished himself in a pretty exploit at the expense of the King of France. What do you think of him?’ Robert of Artois looked Guccio up and down.
‘A good-looking boy,’ he said, laughing; ‘well set-up, a well-turned leg, slim waist, eyes of a troubadour and a certain cunning in the glance – a fine boy. Is it he you propose sending, Messer Tolomei?’
‘He is another self,’ said the banker, ‘only less fat and younger. Do you know, I was like him once, but I alone remember it.’
‘If King Edward sees him, we run the risk of his never coming back.’
And thereupon the giant went off into a great gale of laughter in which the uncle and nephew joined.
‘Guccio,’ said Tolomei when he had stopped laughing, ‘you’re going to get to know England. You will leave tomorrow at dawn and go to our cousin Albizzi in London. Once there, and with his help, you’ll go to Westminster and deliver to the Queen, and to her alone, a message written by Monseigneur. I will tell you later on and in more detail what you have to do.’
‘I should prefer to dictate,’ said Artois. ‘I manage a boarspear better than your damned goose-quills.’
Tolomei thought, ‘And careful into the bargain, my fine gentleman, you don’t want to leave any evidence about.’
‘As you will, Monseigneur.’
He took down the following letter himself.
The things we guessed are true and more shameful even than we could have believed possible. I know who the people concerned are and have so surely uncovered them that they cannot escape if we make haste. But you alone have sufficient power to accomplish what we desire, and by your coming to put a term to this villainy which so blackens the honour of your nearest relatives. I have no other wish than to be utterly your servant, body and soul.
‘And the signature, Monseigneur?’ asked Guccio.
‘Here it is,’ replied Artois, handing the young man an iron ring. ‘You will give this to Madame Isabella. She will know. But are you certain of being able to see her immediately upon your arrival?’ he asked as if in doubt.
‘Really! Monseigneur,’ said Tolomei, ‘we are not entirely unknown to the sovereigns of England. When King Edward came over last year with Madame Isabella to attend the great ceremonies at which you were knighted with the King’s sons, well, he borrowed from our group of Lombard merchants twenty thousand pounds, which we formed a syndicate to lend him and which he has not yet paid back.’
‘He, too?’ cried Artois. ‘And by the way, what about that first matter I came to ask you about?’
‘Oh, I can never resist you, Monseigneur,’ said Tolomei, sighing.
And he went and fetched a bag of five hundred pounds and gave it to him, saying, ‘We’ll put it down to your account, together with your messenger’s travelling expenses.’
‘Oh, my dear banker,’ cried Artois, his face lighting up in a huge smile, ‘you really are a friend. When I’ve regained my paternal county, you shall be my treasurer.’
‘I shall count upon it, Monseigneur,’ said the other, bowing.
‘Well, if I don’t, I shall take you to hell with me instead. Otherwise I should miss you too much.’
And the giant went out, too big for the doorway, tossing the bag of gold in the air like a tennis ball.
‘Do you mean to say you’ve given him money
again
, Uncle?’ said Guccio, shaking his head in reprobation. ‘Because you did say …’
‘Guccio mio, Guccio mio,’
the banker replied softly (and now both his eyes were wide open), ‘always remember this: the secrets of the great world are the interest on the money we lend them. On this one morning, Monseigneur Jean de Marigny and Monseigneur of Artois have given me mortgages upon them which are worth more than gold and which we shall know how to negotiate when the time comes. As for gold, we shall set about getting a little back.’
He thought for a moment and then went on, ‘On your way back from England you will make a detour. You will go by Neauphle-le-Vieux.’
‘Very well, Uncle,’ replied Guccio unenthusiastically.
‘Our agent in those parts has not succeeded in getting repayment of a sum due to us by the squires of Cressay. The father has recently died. The heirs refuse to pay. It appears they have nothing left.’
‘What’s to be done about it, if they’ve got nothing?’
‘Bah! They’ve got walls, a property, relatives perhaps. They’ve only got to borrow the money from somewhere else to pay us back. If not, you’ll go and see the Provost, have their possessions seized and sold. It’s hard and sad, I know. But a banker has got to accustom himself to being hard. There must be no pity for the smaller clients or we should not have the wherewithal to serve the greater. It’s not only our money that is involved. What are you thinking about,
figlio mio
?’
‘About England, Uncle,’ replied Guccio.
The return by Neauphle seemed to him a bore, but he accepted it with a good grace; all his curiosity, all his adolescent dreams were already centred upon London. He was about to cross the sea for the first time. A Lombard merchant’s life was decidedly a pleasant one and full of delightful surprises. To depart, to travel the long roads, to carry secret messages to princesses. …
The old man gazed at his nephew with profound tenderness. Guccio was that tired and guileful heart’s only affection.
‘You’re going to make a fine journey and I envy you,’ he said. ‘Few young men of your age have the opportunity of seeing so many countries. Learn, get about, ferret things out, see everything, make people talk but talk little yourself. Take care who offers you drink; don’t give the girls more money than they’re worth, and be careful to take your hat off to religious processions. And should you meet a king in your path, manage things this time so that it doesn’t cost me a horse or an elephant.’
‘Is Madame Isabella as beautiful as they say she is, Uncle?’ asked Guccio smiling.
S
OME PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS
dreaming of travel and adventure in order to give themselves airs and an aura of heroism in other people’s eyes. Then, when they find themselves in the middle of an adventure and in peril, they begin to think, ‘What a fool I was. Why on earth did I put myself in this position?’ These were precisely the circumstances in which young Guccio Baglioni found himself. There was nothing he had desired more than to see the sea. But now that he was upon it, he would have given anything in the world to be somewhere else.
It was the period of the equinoctial gales, and very few ships had raised their anchors that day. Having played a somewhat hectoring role on the quay at Calais, his sword at his side and his cape flung over his shoulder, Guccio had at length found a ship’s captain who agreed to give him a passage. They had left in the evening, and the storm had risen almost as soon as they had left harbour. Having found a corner below decks, next to the mainmast – ‘This is where you will feel the least movement’, the captain had said – and where a wooden shelf served as a bunk, Guccio was spending the most disagreeable night of his life.
The waves beat against the ship like battering-rams, and Guccio felt that the world around him was being turned topsy-turvy. He rolled off the shelf on to the floor and for a long time struggled in total darkness, colliding now against the ship’s side, now against coils of rope hardened by seawater or, again, against ill-stowed packing-cases which were noisily sliding from side to side. He kept on trying to clutch invisible objects that escaped his grasp. The hull seemed to be on the point of disintegrating. Between two gusts of the storm, Guccio heard the sails flapping and great masses of water breaking over the deck above him. He wondered whether the whole ship had not been swept clear, and whether he was not the only survivor in an empty ship that was thrown upwards to the sky by the waves and then dropped once more into the depths with a descent so rapid that it seemed to have no end to it.
‘I shall most certainly die,’ Guccio said to himself. ‘How stupid to die in this way at my age, engulfed in the sea. I shall never see my uncle again, or the sun. If only I had waited another day or two at Calais! How stupid I am! But if I come out of this
per la Madonna,
I shall stay in London; I shall become a water-carrier or anything else, but never again shall I set foot in a ship.’
In the end he grasped the foot of the mainmast in his arms and, falling upon his knees in the darkness, clutching, trembling, seasick, his clothes soaked, he waited for death and promised prayers to Santa Maria delle Nevi, to Santa Maria della Scala, to Santa Maria del Servi, to Santa Maria del Carmine – indeed to all the churches of Sienna whose names he could remember.
At dawn the storm suddenly lessened. Guccio, exhausted, looked about him: packing-cases, sails, tarpaulins, anchors and ropes were heaped in terrifying disorder and, in the bilges, beneath the open joints of the planking, water was sloshing.
The hatch which gave access to the bridge opened and a coarse voice cried, ‘Hi, there, Signor! Did you manage to have a good sleep?’