Free Scales of Gold by Dorothy Dunnett

abbot said.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘Yes, of course. Come along.’ He reverted to Latin for his farewells to the abbot. Godscalc’s Latin was better than his German or his Flemish. Walking through the cloisters, the priest took his arm. It felt like being arrested. The priest said, ‘I heard you were coming here, when making my humble call on Cardinal Bessarion.’
    ‘You came with Julius from Bruges,’ Nicholas said. ‘He didn’t tell me.’
    ‘Perhaps he didn’t have time,’ Godscalc said. ‘I hear you are in haste this evening yourself. We can talk of your plans in the boat.’
    They had reached the gate to the sea. Nicholas released himself and stopped. He said, ‘I can’t take you anywhere. I have to go across to Murano.’
    ‘So I gather,’ said Godscalc. ‘Julius and young Tilde are there, and you don’t want them to know where you’ve been.’
    Nicholas stared at what he could see of him. He said, ‘Loppe told you? Of course, you noticed Loppe.’
    ‘The porters had noticed him before I did. How could you bring him here?’ Godscalc said. ‘How could you subject another human being to that humiliation? Or don’t you know how a black man is regarded in Venice? I want to talk to you. Get into the boat.’
    He had begun to walk down the jetty. Loppe, a dim figure against the distant lights of Murano, was already waiting, the rope in his hand. Nicholas couldn’t see his expression and controlled the flood of anger he himself felt. For Loppe, for Julius, for Godscalc.
    He faced the priest and said, ‘Of course, you’ll tell Julius about this?’
    ‘About what?’ said the chaplain of the Charetty company. ‘That you are pretending a spiritual mission to the mythical king of a land no one can get into? That you’ve had a ghostly summons to abandon your Bank to rally the Christian natives of Africa? I am afraid,’ said Father Godscalc, ‘that Julius will merely find it amusing, which is more than I do. In any case, he will find out about it for himself, the moment he calls on the Cardinal.’
    Loppe said, ‘Father, you had better get into the boat. Voices carry.’
    Nicholas said, ‘I don’t want him to know yet. I didn’t want anyone to know. Why the … Why are you here?’ He followed Godscalc into the boat and tramped across it and sat down, still staring at Godscalc as Loppe cast off and jumped in. Loppe took up his oars, and after a moment Nicholas got hold of his and dug them in, pulling the craft away from the island with two or three strokes and then stopping. He had lost track of time. However expertly delayed, Julius must be on Murano by now. Loppe, watching him, also put up his oars. They drifted.
    Godscalc said, ‘I am not your chaplain now, Nicholas, as you know. I saved your face for you because Cardinal Bessarion gave you credence, and I would do nothing to hurt him. But unless you satisfy me, I shall tell Bessarion to have nothing to do with you, and the abbot to see that you are given no help. I am sorry, Loppe.’
    ‘Loppe knows all there is to know,’ Nicholas said. It was a lie, but this was a night for mendacity. The boat rocked up and down, and Loppe brushed the water with his blades to keep her from drifting.
    ‘Then I want the truth,’ Godscalc said.
    ‘Of course,’ Nicholas said. ‘You have the means to make me tell it.’ The last glow in the west had long gone, and the lights of Venice lay on the water. They were not strong enough to show the hurt he hoped he had caused.
    Godscalc said, ‘You have some scheme to go to Africa?’
    ‘Ask Gregorio how many schemes I have. This is one. A contingency plan. It may never be needed.’
    ‘And if you go, it will not be by way of Egypt?’
    ‘I could trade with Egypt. As things are, I couldn’t go there myself just yet,’ Nicholas said. He was supposed to be telling the truth. That was true. He would be killed, for what he had done in Cyprus.
    ‘So you mean to approach it from another direction. From