The She-Wolf

3

Messer Tolomei has a New Customer

OLD SPINELLO TOLOMEI was in his study on the first floor. He moved the arras aside with his foot and pushed open a little wooden shutter to reveal a secret opening which enabled him to keep an eye on his clerks in the great room on the ground floor. By this judas of Florentine invention, concealed among the beams, Messer Tolomei could see everything that went on below, and hear everything that was said.

At the moment his bank and trading-house appeared to be in considerable confusion. The flames of the three-branched candelabra were flickering on the counters, and his employees had ceased moving the brass balls on the abaci by which they kept the accounts. An ell cloth-measure fell with a clatter to the flagstones; the scales dipped on the money-changers’ tables, though no one was touching them. The customers had all turned towards the door, and the senior clerks were standing with their hands to their chests, making ready to bow.

Messer Tolomei smiled; from the general disturbance he guessed that the Count of Artois had entered his establishment. An instant later, he saw through the spy-hole a huge chaperon with a red-velvet crest, red gloves, red boots with ringing spurs, and a scarlet cloak that hung from the shoulders of a giant. Only Monseigneur Robert of Artois had this peculiarly shattering way of making an entrance. He set the staff trembling with terror; he tweaked the women’s breasts in passing, while their husbands dared make no move; and it seemed as if he could set even the walls quaking merely by drawing breath.

However, the old banker was not particularly impressed. He had known the Count of Artois much too long and had watched him too often. And now, as he looked down on him from above, he was aware of how exaggerated, forced and ostentatious this great lord’s manner was. Monseigneur of Artois behaved like an ogre because nature had endowed him with exceptional physical proportions. In fact he was a cunning and crafty man. And Tolomei held Robert’s accounts.

The banker was more interested in the personage accompanying Artois. This was a lord dressed entirely in black; there was an air of assurance about him, though his manner seemed distant, reserved and somewhat haughty. At first sight Tolomei judged him to be a man of considerable force of character.

The two visitors stopped at the counter displaying arms and harness. Monseigneur of Artois’s huge red glove moved among the daggers, stilettos and the patterns of sword-hilts, turned over the saddle-cloths, the stirrups, the curved bits, the scalloped, pinked and embroidered reins. The shopman would have a good hour’s work to put his counter in order again. Robert selected a pair of Toledo spurs with long rowels; the shanks were high and curved outwards to protect the Achilles tendon when the foot exerted a violent pressure against the horse’s flank; a sound invention and certainly of great use in tournaments. The side-pieces were decorated with flowers and ribbons with the device ‘Conquer’ graven in round letters in the gilded steel.

‘I make you a present of them, my lord,’ said the giant to the gentleman in black. ‘The only thing that’s missing is a lady to buckle them to your feet. But she won’t be missing for long; the ladies of France are soon aroused by people from abroad. You can get anything you want here,’ he went on, with a wave at the shop. ‘My friend Tolomei, a master usurer and a fox in business, will supply you with everything you need. I’ve never yet known him fail to produce anything one asks of him. Do you want to present your chaplain with a chasuble? He has thirty to choose from. A ring for your mistress? He has chests full of stones. Scenting the girls before pleasuring them? He’ll provide you with a musk straight from the markets of the Orient. Are you in search of a relic? He has three cupboards full. And what’s more, he sells gold to buy it all. He has currency minted in every corner of Europe, and you can see the exchanges marked up on those slates there. He sells figures, that’s what he really sells: farming profits, interest on loans, revenues from fiefs. There are clerks adding and checking behind all those little doors. What would we do without this man who grows rich on our inability to count? Let’s go up to his room.’

The steps of the wooden corkscrew staircase were soon creaking under the weight of the Count of Artois. Messer Tolomei closed the spy-hole and let the arras fall back into place.

The room the two lords entered was sombrely, heavily and sumptuously furnished; there were massive pieces of silver plate, while figured tapestries muffled every sound. It smelt of candles, incense, spices and medicinal herbs. All the scents of a lifetime seemed to have accumulated among the rich furnishings.

The banker came forward. Robert of Artois, who had not seen him for many weeks – indeed, for almost three months during which he had had to accompany his cousin, the King of France, first into Normandy at the end of August, and then into Anjou for the whole autumn – thought the Sienese was looking older. His white hair was thinner and fell more sparsely over the collar of his robe; time had set its crow’s-feet on his face and, indeed, his cheekbones looked as if they had been marked by a bird’s feet; his jowls had fallen and swung beneath his chin; his chest seemed narrower and his stomach more protuberant; his nails, which were cut short, were splitting. Only his left eye, Messer Tolomei’s famous left eye, which was always three-quarters shut, still lent his face an expression of cunning and vivacity. But the other eye, the open eye, seemed a little absent, a little weary and inattentive, as if he were worn out and less concerned now with the exterior world than with the disorders of his old and exhausted body which was nearing its end.

‘Friend Tolomei,’ cried Robert of Artois, taking off his gloves and throwing them, a pool of blood, on to a table. ‘Friend Tolomei, I’m bringing you another fortune!’

The banker waved his visitors into chairs.

‘How much is it going to cost me, Monseigneur?’ he replied.

‘Come on, come on, banker,’ said Robert of Artois, ‘have I ever made you make a bad investment?’

‘Never, Monseigneur, never I admit it. Payment has sometimes been a little overdue, but in the end, since God has vouchsafed me a fairly long life, I have been able to gather in the fruits of the confidence with which you have honoured me. But just think, Monseigneur, what would have happened had I died, as so many people do, at fifty? Thanks to you, I should have died ruined.’

This sally amused Robert of Artois whose smile, spreading widely across his face, revealed strong but very dirty teeth.

‘Have you ever incurred a loss through me?’ he said. ‘Do you remember how I once made you wager on Monseigneur of Valois against Enguerrand de Marigny? And look where Charles of Valois is today, and how Marigny ended his wicked life. And haven’t I paid you back every penny you advanced me for my war in Artois? I’m grateful to you, banker, yes, I’m grateful to you for having always supported me even when I was in my greatest difficulties. For I was overwhelmed with debts at one time,’ he went on, turning to the gentleman in black. ‘I had no lands but the county of Beaumont-le-Roger, and the Treasury refused to pay me its revenues. My amiable cousin, Philippe the Long – may God keep his soul in some hell or other! – had imprisoned me in the Châtelet. Well, this banker here, my lord, this usurer, this greatest rogue of all the rogues Lombardy has ever produced, this man who would take a child in its mother’s womb in pawn, never abandoned me. And that’s why as long as he lives, and he’ll live a long time yet …’

Messer Tolomei put out the first and little fingers of his right hand and touched the wood of the table.

‘Oh, yes, you will, Master Usurer, you’ll live a long time yet, I’m telling you … Well, that’s why this man will always be a friend of mine, and that’s on the faith of Robert of Artois. And he made no mistake, for today I’m the son-in-law of Monseigneur of Valois; I sit in the King’s Council; and I’m in full possession of the revenues of my county. Messer Tolomei, the great lord I’ve brought to see you is Lord Mortimer, Baron of Wigmore.’

‘Who escaped from the Tower of London on August the first,’ said the banker, making an inclination of the head. ‘A great honour, my lord, a great honour.’

‘What do you mean?’ Artois cried. ‘Do you know about it?’

‘Monseigneur,’ said Tolomei, ‘the Baron of Wigmore is too important a personage for us not to have been informed. I even know, my lord, that when King Edward issued the order to his coastal sheriffs to find you and arrest you, you were already embarked and out of reach of English justice. I know that when he had all the ships sailing for Ireland searched, and seized every courier landing from France, your friends not only in London but in all England already knew of your safe arrival at the house of your cousin-german, Messire Jean de Fiennes, in Picardy. And I know, too, that when King Edward ordered Messire de Fiennes to deliver you up, threatening to confiscate all his lands beyond the Channel, that lord, who is a great supporter and partisan of Monseigneur Robert, immediately sent you on to him. I cannot say that I was expecting you, my lord, but I was hoping you would come; for Monseigneur of Artois is, as he has told you, faithful to me and always thinks of me when a friend of his is in difficulties.’

Roger Mortimer had listened to the banker with great attention. ‘I see, Messer,’ he replied, ‘that the Lombards have good spies at the Court of England.’

‘They are at your service, my lord. You must know that King Edward is very heavily in debt to our companies. When you have money outstanding, you watch it. And for a long time past your King has ceased to honour his seal, at least as far as we’re concerned. He wrote to us through Monseigneur, the Bishop of Exeter, his Treasurer, that the poor receipts from taxes, the heavy expenses of his wars and the intrigues of his barons did not allow of his doing better by us. And yet the duty he places on our merchandise, in the Port of London alone, should suffice to discharge his debt.’

A servant brought hippocras and sugared almonds, which were always offered to visitors of importance. Tolomei poured the aromatic wine into goblets, helping himself to no more than one finger of the liquor to which he barely put his lips.

‘At the moment, the French Treasury seems to be in a better state than that of England,’ he added. ‘Is it known yet, Monseigneur Robert, what the figures for the year are likely to be?’

‘Provided there’s no sudden calamity during the month to run – plague, famine, or, indeed, the marriage or funeral of one of our royal relations – there’ll be a surplus of twelve thousand livres, according to the figures Messire Mille de Noyers, Master of the Exchequer, placed before us at the Council this morning. Twelve thousand livres to the good! The Treasury was certainly never in so healthy a state during the reigns of Philippe IV and V – may God put a term to the list of them!’

‘How do you manage to have surplus at the Treasury, Monseigneur?’ Mortimer asked. ‘Is it due to the absence of war?’

‘On the one hand to the absence of war and, on the other, to the fact that war is continually being prepared, but is never in fact being waged. Not to put too fine a point on it – the crusade. I must say, Charles of Valois uses the crusade to fabulous advantage. But don’t go thinking I look on him as a bad Christian. He is extremely concerned to deliver Armenia from the Turks, indeed just as much as he is to re-establish the Empire of Constantinople, whose crown he once wore though he was never able actually to occupy the throne. But a crusade cannot be organized in a day. You have to arm ships and forge weapons; above all, you have to find the crusaders, to negotiate with Spain and Germany. And the first step must be always to obtain a tithe on the clergy from the Pope. My dear father-in-law has obtained that tithe and, at the moment, the Treasury is being subsidized by the Pope.’

‘That interests me very much, Monseigneur,’ said Tolomei. ‘You see, I’m the Pope’s banker – to the extent, at least, of a quarter share with the Bardi, but even a quarter share is a very large sum – and if the Pope should become impoverished …’

Artois, who was taking a big gulp of hippocras, exploded into the silver goblet and made signs that he was choking.

‘Impoverished, the Holy Father!’ he cried as soon as he had swallowed the wine. ‘He’s worth hundreds of thousands of florins. There’s a man who could teach you your business, Spinello! What a banker he’d have made, had he not entered the priesthood. For he found the papal treasury emptier than was my pocket six years ago …’

‘I know, I know,’ Tolomei murmured.

‘The fact is, you see, the priests are the best tax-collectors God ever put on earth, and Monseigneur of Valois has grasped that fact. Instead of being ruthless about the taxes, whose collectors are hated anyway, he makes the priests collect the tithe. Oh, we shall set out on a crusade, one of these days. But, meantime, the Pope pays by shearing his sheep.’

Tolomei was gently rubbing his right leg; for some time past he had felt a sensation of cold in it, and some pain in walking.

‘You were saying, Monseigneur, that a Council was held this morning. Was anything of particular interest decided on?’ he asked.

‘Oh, just the usual stuff. We discussed the price of candles and forbade the mixing of tallow with wax, and the mingling of old jam with new. For all merchandise sold in wrappers, the weight of the wrappers is to be deducted and not included in the price. But this is all to please the common people and show them we have their interests at heart.’

Tolomei listened and watched his two visitors. They both seemed to him very young. How old was Robert of Artois? Thirty-five, thirty-six? And the Englishman seemed much the same age. Everyone under sixty seemed to him astonishingly young. How much they still had to do, how many emotions still to suffer, battles to fight and ambitions to realize. How many mornings they would see that he would never know. How often these two men would awaken and breathe the air of a new day, when he himself was under the ground.

And what kind of man was Lord Mortimer? The clear-cut face, the thick eyebrows, the straight line of the eyelids across the flint-coloured eyes, the sombre clothes, the way he crossed his arms, the silent, haughty assurance of a man who had sat on the pinnacle of power and intended to preserve all his dignity in exile, even the automatic gesture with which Mortimer ran his finger across the short white scar on his lip, all pleased the old Sienese. And Tolomei felt he would like this lord to recover his happiness. For some time past, Tolomei had acquired almost a taste for thinking of others.

‘Are the regulations concerning the export of currency to be promulgated in the near future, Monseigneur?’ he asked.

Robert of Artois hesitated before replying.

‘Oh, of course, I don’t suppose you’ve been told yet …’ Tolomei added.

‘Of course, naturally I’ve been told. You very well know that nothing is done without my advice being asked by the King, and by Monseigneur of Valois above all. The order will be sealed in two days’ time. No one will be permitted to export gold or silver currency stamped with the die of France from the kingdom. Only pilgrims will be allowed to provide themselves with a few small coins.’

The banker pretended to attach no greater importance to this piece of news than he had to the price of candles or the adulteration of jam. But he was already thinking: ‘That means foreign currency will alone be permitted to be taken out of the kingdom; as a result, it will increase in value … What a help these blabbers are to us in our profession. How the boasters give us for so little the information they could sell so dear.’

‘So, my lord,’ he went on, turning to Mortimer, ‘you intend to establish yourself in France? What can I provide?’

It was Robert who replied.

‘What a great Lord needs to maintain his rank. You’re accustomed enough to that, Tolomei.’

The banker rang a handbell. He told the servant to bring his great book, and added: ‘If Messer Boccaccio has not left, ask him to wait till I’m free.’

The book was brought, a thick volume covered in black leather, smooth from much handling, and its vellum leaves held together by adjustable fastenings so that more leaves could be added as desired. This device enabled Messer Tolomei to keep the accounts of his important clients in alphabetical order and not to have to search for scattered pages. The banker placed the volume on his knees, and opened it with some ceremony.

‘You’ll find yourself in good company, my lord,’ he said. ‘Look, honour where honour is due, my book begins with the Count of Artois. You’ve a great many pages, Monseigneur,’ he added with a little laugh, looking at Robert. ‘Here’s the Count de Bouville for his missions to the Pope and to Naples. And here’s Madame the Queen Clémence …’

The banker inclined his head in deference.

‘Oh, she gave us a lot of anxiety after the death of Louis X: it was as if mourning put her in a frenzy of spending. The Holy Father himself exhorted her to moderation in a special letter, and she had to pawn her jewels with me to pay off her debts. Now she’s living in the Palace of the Templars which she exchanged against the Castle of Vincennes; she gets her dowry and seems to have found peace.’

He went on turning over the pages which rustled under his hand.

‘And now I’m boasting,’ he thought. ‘But one must do something to emphasize the importance of the services one renders, and to show that one’s not dazzled by a new borrower.’

He had a clever way of letting them see the names while concealing the figures with his arm. He was only being half-indiscreet. And, after all, he had to admit that his whole life was contained in this book, and that he enjoyed every opportunity of looking through it. Each name, each figure evoked so many memories, so many intrigues, so many secrets of which he had been the recipient, and so many entreaties by which he had been able to measure his power. Each figure commemorated a visit, a letter, a clever deal, a feeling of sympathy or one of harshness towards a negligent debtor. It was nearly fifty years since Spinello Tolomei, on his arrival from Siena, had begun by doing the rounds of the fairs of Champagne, and then come to live here, in the Rue des Lombards, to keep a bank.11