Days Without Number (38 page)

Andronicus Paleologus was John's most trusted adviser and, for the purposes of this occasion, his plenipotentiary.

The most difficult question to answer is what they were negotiating. The Latin Empire established in the Balkans by the Crusaders in 1204 by now amounted to little more than Constantinople itself. It has been suggested that John Vatatzes sought from Richard - and was given - a free hand so far as his ambitions to reclaim the city were concerned. Those ambitions were not ultimately fulfilled until after John's death. The Emperor who eventually reconquered Constantinople in 1261 was none other than Michael Paleologus, who had accompanied his father, Andronicus, to Cyprus twenty years earlier.

The Crusader states were, in truth, ill-equipped to obstruct John Vatatzes' progressive moves against the Latin Empire. He hardly required their consent, tacit or 318

otherwise, although he may have seen it as a useful guarantee of non-interference by their more powerful patrons in Western Europe. If so, it is strange that no record of such a policy has ever come to light. The negotiations in Limassol cannot, strictly speaking, even be proved to have taken place. We know the principals to have been present there at the same time. It would be absurd to suggest that this was for any other purpose than serious discussion. But those discussions were unusually and enduringly secretive. We can still only guess at their content today.

One of the strangest consequences was the souring of several alliances which, at the time, must have seemed firmly founded. John Vatatzes was later to charge Michael Paleologus with conspiracy. Although Michael succeeded in evading the charge on a technicality, the episode has never been properly explained. As for Richard himself, his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who served as his deputy during his stay in the Holy Land and participated in the Limassol negotiations, was later to wage civil war in England against Richard and his brother, King Henry III.

Mistrust and misfortune of several kinds devolved upon those who conferred in such unexampled secrecy at Limassol. For Richard, March 1241 was perhaps the apogee of his reputation and his achievements. When he left the Holy Land for good two months later, his viceregal service had reached what seemed a triumphant conclusion. But the triumph did not last for long. The peace treaty he had negotiated with the Sultan of Egypt was to collapse within a year and the Templars and the Hospitallers were soon to be at one another's throats.

Of Richard's activities on a wider diplomatic front during the remainder of 1241 we shall have much to say, but let us look ahead first to his return to England in January 1242, since we are told (Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora) that he was sorely downcast to learn upon his 319

arrival at Dover that a vessel he had despatched ahead of him from Acre the previous spring had been lost in a storm off the Scillies, its journey tantalizingly close to completion. The vessel had been under the command of Ralph Valletort, Richard's aide-de-camp in the Holy Land, who had, we can safely assume, been privy to the agreement reached at Limassol, though whether his ill-fated voyage was connected in any way with that agreement - whatever it may have been - can only be conjectured.

This disappointment still lay in the future when Richard reached Sicily in June 1241 and was drawn at once into Emperor Frederick IPs attempts to ...

Nick stopped reading and tracked back a few lines to the mention of Ralph Valletort. It was as Emily had said. There was a connection. There was a meaning. And for a split second, like the fugitive memory of a dream, something some trace, some fragment - flitted across Nick's mind. Then it was gone.

His imagination was playing tricks on him, he reasoned. He had no insight into the truth. He had no means of decoding the secret. All he could hope to do was to halt the sequence of events his family had become caught up in. In looking for Basil, he was looking also for a way out, an escape route for those still able to take advantage of it.

It was gone eight o'clock - seven o'clock in England. He had to phone Irene. He could delay no longer. He stowed Drysdale's book in his bag in the wardrobe, then headed out.

The night was cold, still and moonless, with a dank mist rising from the canals. Venice - the part of it Nick was in anyway was a dead city, a place of silence and shadow. He hurried along the deserted calles, pausing only to check his route on the map. A few more pedestrians appeared as he neared Strada Nova. After no more than a couple of wrong turnings, 320

he reached the campo with the row of payphones he had passed earlier.

As he approached, card in hand, one of the phones began to ring. He stopped and stared at it, the noise magnified by the enclosing walls of the buildings around the campo. A couple walked by, glancing curiously first at the phone, then at him. The ringing went on.

Nick stepped forward and picked up the phone. 'Yes?' he said hoarsely.

'Walk east along Strada Nova,' responded a voice he did not recognize. 'Turn right into Calle Palmarana. Follow it to the canal. There'll be a water taxi waiting for you.'

'Hold on. Who--'

'You've got five minutes.'

The line went suddenly dead. Nick stared around him into the jumbled shadows of the campo. Nothing moved. A minute slowly passed as fear and curiosity wrestled within him. Then he put the phone back in its cradle and started walking - east along Strada Nova.

The water taxi was where Nick had been told it would be, moored at the end of the calle, its engine idling. The pilot looked up as Nick approached and pitched the remains of a cigarette into the Grand Canal.

'Signer Paleologus?'

'Yes.'

' P re go.' The man offered Nick a hand. For a moment, Nick hesitated. Was this really a good idea? No, the cautious part of his brain insisted. But what other idea did he have? He hopped aboard and stepped down into the cabin.

The pilot slipped the mooring and started away, back up the Grand Canal in the direction Nick had come from. A few minutes took them to the Ca' d'Oro vaporetto stop, where Nick had got off earlier. There was no vaporetto at the pontoon, but a figure stepped forward expectantly as they approached. The taxi slowed and manoeuvred alongside just long enough for him to jump aboard. They were actually 321

doser now to the rank of payphones Nick had left a short while ago than they had been at the point where he had boarded the taxi. If the person who had spoken to him on the payphone had been near by, watching him, he could have made his way to the vaporetto stop in ample time - and could now be stepping down into the cabin to join him.

'Hi,' the newcomer said, closing the cabin doors behind him as the taxi accelerated away and dropping a bulging carpetbag on to the floor. He was a short, corpulent figure dressed in a thin raincoat and baggy linen suit, with what looked like a cricket sweater beneath. His unshaven chin merged with a roll of fat around his neck, straining the frayed collar of his shirt. His hair, damp with rain or sweat or both, was plastered to his head. His eyes were sea-grey and skittering, his moist lips parted in a smile that revealed an orthodontic disaster area. 'Nick Paleologus?'

'Yes.'

'I'm Fergy Balaskas.' He lowered himself awkwardly on to the cream leather bench opposite and held out a large, wavering hand that Nick somewhat reluctantly shook.

'Where are we going, Mr Balaskas?' f

The airport. Well, I'm going to the airport. You're just along for the ride. You're coming straight back in this, as a matter of fact. The round trip will cost you four hundred | thousand lire, but what the hell? I'm not jetting off anywhere, by the way. It's just that from the airport I can take my pick of onward transport. Bus, taxi, motoscafo: enough options to keep you guessing. You and anyone else who might be interested.' f 'Why should I care where you're going on to?'

'No reason. But what you don't know you can't tell. You're a dog with fleas, Nick. I don't want to catch any.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Precautions, old boy. You should try them yourself.'

'Was that pantomime with the telephone one of those precautions?'

'It was. Thanks to which, we're having this chinwag out of

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sight and sound. I gather you got the book, incidentally. Real page-turner, isn't it?'

'Who are you?'

For answer, Balaskas pulled a business card from his pocket and passed it over. Nick held it up to read by the light of the cabin-lamp. F. C. Balaskas, Private Enquiries and Debt Recovery, 217a Leoforos Archiepiskopou Leontiou, Limassol, Cyprus.

'You're the man Jonathan Braybourne hired to investigate Demetrius Paleologus?'

'I am indeed.'

'You don't sound like a Cypriot.'

'That's because I'm not one. My father was, through and through. But he emigrated to England straight after the War and married a Londoner. I went out to Cyprus during a career slump about twenty years ago to see the relatives and soak up some sun, but I spotted an opening for confidential services to the ex-pat community and stayed on. They've been generating more than enough debt and divorce work for me ever since. I wish I'd stuck to it and told Braybourne to stuff his conspiracy theories, but nobody needs glasses in the hindsight game, do they? I bet you've been looking back and trying to work out where exactly you took the wrong turning yourself.'

'Did you leave the parcel for me at Luigi's bar?'

'Yep. He tipped me the wink you'd shown up and I dropped the book off so we'd have what you could call a frame of reference for our conversazione. You're here to find your brother? Well, maybe I can point you in the right direction. I met him a few days ago. Funny sort of a fellow. I showed him the book too. You can hang onto it, by the way. I shan't be wanting it back.'

'How did you come to meet Basil?'

'I was keeping a leery eye on the Palazzo Falcetto when he showed up there on Saturday. I trailed him back to the Zampogna, checked him out, then the following day . . . introduced myself. We, er, compared notes.'

'What about?'

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'Lighten up, Nick. We're on the same team. Well, the same substitutes' bench. Jonathan Braybourne hired me to find out who'd been paying his late mother hush money from a Cypriot bank. Well, I found out: Demetrius Andronicus Paleologus, wartime resident of Cyprus, later absentee hotelier and Venetian recluse. Since I dug into his affairs, the old boy's died. But Demetrius Constantine Paleologus, his iffy businessman son, is very much alive and kicking. I've got the bruises to prove it. And Braybourne has the headstone in Sutton Coldfield Cemetery. When a client of mine gets stiffed, I get nervous. With good cause, in this case. Someone came after me in Limassol a while back. Several someones, as a matter of fact. I had to vamoose. Which came hard for a bloke at my time of life who isn't a naturally swift mover. Seems what I found out about Demetrius the elder was a lot more than his son wanted anyone to know. Braybourne found out more still, I assume, hence the header he took into the canal.'

'You think Demetrius the younger had Jonathan Braybourne killed?'

"I think you'd be well advised to work on that assumption. I'm working on it.'

'Did you tell Basil this?'

'Of course. He didn't seem as impressed as he should have been, if you want my opinion. He had his own agenda. It's yours too, I imagine, and I don't suppose you're any likelier to let on what it is than he was. But I'm not a bad guesser. And my Greek's fair to fluent. The name Paleologus is a combination of two Greek words. Palaios: ancient. Logos: word. So, maybe it shouldn't be a big surprise if the Paleologoi carry old secrets.'

'What secrets?'

'Don't be coy, Nick. The newspaper cutting about Nardini gave your brother pause for thought, but he didn't take the threat seriously enough. Don't make the same mistake. Your family's tied into all this. If you don't know how, I sure as hell don't. What I do know is that an eight-sheet Venetian 324

portolan dated thirteen forty-one, sold at auction in Geneva last November, appears to show navigational details of the North American coast more than a hundred and fifty years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. So, it's either a fake or an authentic record of a secret chunk of history. Legend has it that Antonio Zeno, a Venetian merchant, sailed to Nova Scotia some time in the thirteen nineties, accompanied by a Scottish nobleman, Henry St Clair, Earl of Orkney, so who knows if--'

'Did you say St Clair?'

'Name rings a few bells, does it?'

It rang more than a few, though scarcely in harmony. 'What are you getting at, Mr Balaskas?'

'The truth, my old cock. And you're right. I'm getting at it, but not to it. Drysdale signed off his foreword to The Left Hand of the King with his address: Roslin, Midlothian. And Rosslyn Castle is the ancestral home of the St Clairs. If one of the St Clairs sailed to Nova Scotia with Antonio Zeno six hundred years ago, they'd have found a portolan like the one we're talking about hellish useful. Nardini acted as middleman for the sale on behalf of an anonymous client and there's no chance now of him putting a name to that client. But here's the strangest thing. Six months before the portolan was sold, Jonathan Braybourne came to Venice with a copy of Drysdale's book in his luggage. He wound up dead as well. When his wife got his possessions back, they included the book, which she later passed on to me. Inside, marking the page - the same page I left it in for you - was Nardini's business card.'

'Hold on. Braybourne's wife gave you the book?' Doubt was beginning to refine itself in Nick's mind. Ever since discovering that Demetrius Andronicus Paleologus was dead, he had been puzzled by Emily's apparent unawareness that the Demetrius her brother had gone to see in Venice could not be the same Demetrius their father had supposedly met in wartime Cyprus. She had also referred to her discovery of The Left Hand of the King among Jonathan's possessions. Her 325

discovery, not his wife's. Something was wrong. Something could not be reconciled. 'When was this?'

'Early January. Just after Nardini was killed. Which is when it got a lot too hot for me in Limassol. Coincidence? I think not. Someone had decided to take out some expensive insurance. Nardini and I were part of the premium. Like I told your brother--'