Caprice and Rondo (87 page)

‘The wine,’ said Nicholas crossly.

They were the last words he uttered that evening; and the last fragment he remembered, apart from Acciajuoli’s cursory chuckle.

‘S
O
YOU
FIND
YOURSELF
back at the Troitsa. My dear Nicholas, you would make Ahasuerus feel depressed,’ remarked Ludovico da Bologna.

Nicholas flung up his hands and sat down again in his cell. He had had two days in which to establish exactly where he was, although no one would tell him why. Food was brought by one of the brethren. He had caught sight, once, of Brother Gubka, who had then glided quickly away.

The Patriarch, in one of his tidier manifestations, was expressing modified derision. He looked well fed, and someone had cleaned up his crucifix. Rumour said that in the weeks since their original release, he had spent quite as much time in the monastery as he had in the foreign merchant quarter of Moscow. Nicholas had only met him on the rare occasions when he called on Rudolfo, when he seemed more interested in investigating his larder than the state of his soul. But with the Patriarch, as he now knew, appearances could be misleading. The Patriarch said, ‘In case you don’t know, the lady is not seriously hurt, merely in a state of discomfort.’

The permanent millstone operating between his breastbone and his stomach slipped several times, and began experimenting with different rhythms. ‘So you know what happened,’ Nicholas said.

‘I imagine everyone but Julius knows what happened,’ the Patriarch said. ‘He says you raped her, and she says she can’t remember.’

‘So he is insisting on justice,’ Nicholas said.

‘Well, he was,’ the Patriarch said, glancing about. ‘But of course, they’ve gone, now.’

‘Gone,’ repeated Nicholas. He said, with an effort, ‘If you’re looking for food, there isn’t any.’

‘They’re bringing food. I was looking for platters. Yes, gone back home. Left Moscow yesterday. Moscow hasn’t time for petty disputes among Franks.’

Yesterday. They would go to Novgorod first. ‘Who decided? Who sent them?’ said Nicholas.

‘It was left to the Latin community. They appointed their own judge. The Duke supplied the men to enforce the decision. They won’t be allowed to stay in Novgorod,’ the Patriarch said. The door opened and his thick face assumed an expression of expectancy.

The meal that entered was better than any Nicholas had been offered so far. The serving monk laid it down and retreated. ‘And me?’ Nicholas said. ‘Why was I not sent off with them?’

‘The Adjudicator,’ said the Patriarch, helping himself, ‘did not
consider it wise. The dispute between you would only have caused trouble by erupting elsewhere. Hence you will be held until it is known that Julius has passed out of the ducal domains, and possibly even after.’

‘How long?’ Nicholas said. He looked, with disbelief, at what the Patriarch was doing with the food. The Patriarch laid it all down and surveyed him.

‘As long as is necessary. Are you brain-soft? You couldn’t all stay. You couldn’t slaughter one another en route, so one party had to leave ahead of the other. And of the two, you are the one the Grand Duchess is paying to work for her.’

‘I want to leave now,’ Nicholas said.

‘You can’t,’ the Patriarch said. He opened his mouth and filled it with something.

‘Then I want to see the Adjudicator,’ Nicholas said.

He waited. The Patriarch munched. The Patriarch swallowed, and picked up a small bird, and stretched his lips open again. Nicholas said, ‘You are the Adjudicator.’

‘Of course,’ the Patriarch said.

E
VEN
IF
IT
DROVE
HIM
to the edge of his sanity, the violence with which Nicholas resisted this decree at least released part of the pent-up energy which had made the preceding weeks so tormenting. Now the torment was of a different kind. It was some consolation to discover, as he importuned everyone within sight, that he was not alone. Although they could not know his reasons, Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli was not unwilling to intercede for him with the Grand Duchess, and Fioravanti, against his own preference and interest, was ready also to petition that Nicholas should be allowed to go home. It surprised him, finally, to discover that the Adjudicator’s embargo had not been born of indifference or mischief. Father Ludovico had recommended to the Duke that Nicholas should be released after a week. The Duke had refused, and the Patriarch had not tried to insist.

In the past, when inconvenienced by Ludovico da Bologna, Nicholas had expected to manipulate his way out of the difficulty, and had generally found the process enjoyable even if, surprisingly, he did not always win. He realised, by now, that he had never understood Father Ludovico nor expected to understand him. It was not until this long exile that he had begun to learn, largely through other men’s eyes, what impelled this gross caricature of a priest in his burst sandals, to inflict his criticisms and trumpet his impossible demands in the faces of scared monks and Imperial rulers alike. Josaphat Barbaro, speaking of him in Persia, had said, ‘One meets him everywhere, does one not, as one might expect to see
the ubiquitous God? But what one meets is not God, but one’s own conscience.’

He was not a man, therefore, to whom one took one’s petty concerns. What lay between Anna and Nicholas was a matter only for the two of them, and for Julius. The Patriarch already knew, very likely, about the danger from David de Salmeton. If he thought Nicholas despicable for not going home before this, he had never troubled to mention it.

He had never mentioned, either, the obvious fact that Nicholas was once more seeking reassurance through his pendulum. It frightened him that he had felt nothing last summer, when de Salmeton’s attack on Jodi had been made. And yet, another time, months ago, here in the Troitsa, he had stood in the cathedral and experienced a sense of loss so vivid that his heart thudded, as if he were swimming against a great tide of death. But no one dear to him had died, that he knew of, and when the visitation of grief had occurred, there had been no one else in the church, except the lanky person of the youth Andrea Fioravanti, about to leave on a well-prepared trip to Milan. The boy had shown no previous interest in the ikons, but had presumably been told by his father to study them. A decent enough lad; he had talked about gerfalcons all the way home.

Now, the cathedral in the Kremlin was beginning to rise. Tied by his invisible leash, Nicholas lived again with Fioravanti and helped him to build. He saw it in his mind’s eye as one day Fioravanti would see it in reality: stepping through the prodigious hooded door and standing in unimaginable space, between the tall painted pillars, and enclosed on three sides by the figured walls soaring up to the sky, and on the fourth by the heavenly plates of the golden iconastasis. One day, a son of Ivan would be crowned Grand Prince in this place, and would father another Ivan, perhaps, in his turn. Above, there were to be five golden domes.

In theory, he could have escaped: concealed himself in a cart with money sewn in his dress and horses waiting outside the walls. In practice, he had to account for himself every night. And whoever helped him or overlooked his brief absence would suffer. He didn’t know what was happening in Bruges, but here at least he could show that he did not fail friends. And the loyalty bred loyalty, in its turn.

Julius was long away, but not yet in Bruges when the slight commotion occurred at the Kremlin gates, and a troop of the Grand Duke’s guard cantered out of the castle and, surrounding a group of disreputable incomers, brought them to lodge in the fortified quarters of the Andronikov monastery. In the castle, a meeting of the Duma was called. The following day, the newcomers were transferred, under redoubled guard, to the Troitsa, and Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli gave himself the pleasure of calling at the house of Rudolfo Fioravanti, to take wine with Nicholas and tell him about the arrivals.

‘Travellers,’ the Greek explained, holding the goblet in delicate fingers and indolently crossing his good ankle over the other, both finely slippered below the magnificent double-cut gown. A jewel as big as a horse-brass flattened the folds of his florid, face-shadowing hat. Since the unexplained little
crime passionel
, the room had been rearranged, and the table-top leather replaced, although still avidly scanned by the several ladies who came with their husbands these days in the hope of encountering Nicholas. The tiles had been simple to wash.

‘Refugees,’ the Greek now continued. ‘Or so the leader insisted on delineating himself and his companions. Certainly, they had not the appearance of men one would invite into one’s house, being attired in ripped, filthy clothes and tattered old lambskin jackets and caps, thick with grease, so that the merchants who allowed them protection held their noses and begged them to keep their distance, they said, all the way from Riazan in Moscow. And what a tally of woe! Sick in Fasso; immured in a cowshed in Tiflis; struggling to winter in Derbent, half drowned while being rowed up the Caspian; threatened and cheated and robbed by the Tartars at Astrakhan; starved in the wilderness; chilled and soaked on the Volga and the Don; and now penniless here, owing Tartar and Russian merchants and the ambassador himself for all the money loaned them, at interest, on the journey.’

‘The ambassador?’ Nicholas said.

‘Marco Rosso, the Grand Duke’s envoy to Uzum Hasan. He brought this wretched man and his party from Derbent. But for his explanations, they would never have been allowed into Moscow. It is still not quite certain, it seems, whether they are who they claim to be.’

His voice was solemn. Knowing his nature, there was no need to believe all that he said. Nicholas believed most of it, because he had begun to realise, with a faint glow of shameful satisfaction, who the ragged refugee must surely be.

‘Contarini,’ he said.

The Greek looked at him, affecting surprise. ‘Of course, you and the gentleman were at Tabriz together. Had you been at the gates, you might have identified him for the porters! The Magnificent Ambassador Ambrogio Contarini, of the Illustrious Signory of Venice. I understand the poor gentleman has a very weak head for drink.’

‘I fear so,’ said Nicholas.

‘In which case, he is about to find the Grand Duke’s banquets somewhat demanding. He is also a Venetian, of that Republic which has outraged the Grand Duke (he has now decided) by treating behind his back with the Golden Horde. He will not be well received.’

‘I am sorry for him,’ Nicholas said.

‘And lastly, Signor Contarini owes a number of Russian subjects a
great deal of money which he is unable to pay. None of them is likely to allow him to leave until Venice has been informed, and has sent to settle his debts. He may be here for some time.’

‘I feel for him,’ Nicholas said. He said it carefully, for he sensed something in the air. Fioravanti, who had been smiling broadly, looked at them both.

‘Indeed. The Duke, of course, has been most pressing in his desire to retain your services, but there is now a question of accommodation to be considered. Signor Contarini’s present rooms are not to his liking, and Signor Rosso, in the expectation of future satisfactory repayment, with interest, has suggested that he should be offered apartments somewhere more pleasant. There is, of course, a great scarcity of such places.’

Fioravanti lost his smile. ‘No,’ he said.

‘You don’t even know Signor Contarini!’ said the Greek, mildly chiding.

‘I’ve heard you just now. I know you. No!’ said Fioravanti. ‘In any case, I haven’t the room.’

‘But you would have, if Niccolò left,’ Acciajuoli said.

There was a short silence. Nicholas said, ‘How have you come so far without having your throat cut? Rudolfo, I didn’t know this was happening, and I have to tell you that you would never finish the rest of the cathedral if Contarini comes to stay here. Say no. They’ll find somewhere else.’

‘There
is
nowhere else,’ said the Greek. ‘And much as you may enjoy being selfless,
I
have to tell
you
that this is your one chance of leaving Moscow forthwith. It permits the Duke to remain loftily impartial and you to depart without allotting blame for small matters like stabbings. It is a pity, I agree, for Rudolfo.’

‘I am glad you agree,’ said Rudolfo.

‘But it will not last long. As soon as Niccolò has gone, someone will discover that your work has degenerated through overcrowding. Contarini will be asked to leave.’

‘You promise?’ said Fioravanti.

‘I am a Greek from Florence,’ said Acciajuoli. ‘At this court, I have only to ask.’

‘Really,’ said Nicholas sourly. But his heart was suddenly high.

Chapter 37

A
FTER
THAT
, the end of Nicholas de Fleury’s stay in Moscow came with extreme suddenness. There was time for several feasts, mindless with drink, with Dymitr Wiśniowiecki and his Russians; with Fioravanti and the entire working group from the cathedral; with the merchants he had worked with on Julius’s behalf. He had an audience with the Grand Duchess, although not her husband, and was given, to his embarrassed astonishment, a cloak lined with ermine and a thousand squirrel skins, packed in a bag. He was also to have a guide, and a safe conduct which would procure him another at each stage of his journey. He failed to see Rosso, who had left to travel north with the Duke, but he went to renew his acquaintance with Ambrogio Contarini, for whom he was vacating his rooms.

The accommodation and stabling the Venetian occupied was certainly uninviting, although after the hardships he had endured, you might think that things could be worse. Hardships were not, however, much referred to by the ambassador, who preferred to remember graciously the delightful court of Uzum Hasan, and to express particular interest in the speed with which Messer Niccolò and his companions had made their way north to Moscow, with all the Crimea held in enemy hands. He must be as resourceful as his dear friends Josaphat Barbaro and Marco Rosso. Nicholas replied politely that the ambassador himself had proved at least as resourceful. In its way this was true, although he suspected that most of the resources had been provided by the two servants and elderly Father Stefano, his chaplain, who sat, yellow of skin, in exhausted silence. With a Barbaro, there might have been some profit in exchanging information. With Contarini, it was not worth the risk. Nicholas produced a reassuring account of Rudolfo Fioravanti’s temper and living arrangements, and left. It was only as he stepped from the doorway that the name of the Patriarch of Antioch was mentioned, with distaste.