The Long Sword(117)
‘The legate shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘The Bishop of Geneva means him humiliated or dead.’ He gave me a rueful smile. ‘The safest place for him is on crusade.’
‘Does the legate know what you did?’ I asked, looking around. ‘In Milan?’
Sabraham frowned. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ he said. ‘And neither does the legate.’
The next morning, over watered wine and stale bread, I put some of this to the legate, who smiled his saintly smile.
‘You are going to tell me that God will provide,’ I said.
Father Pierre nodded.
My faith, much abused, sinned against, and manipulated, was as strong as it had ever been. Despite which, I suspected that God’s will would function best – as it did on crusade – if we were worthy, took precautions, and avoided ambush.
Two days west of Milan, I sat in a chilly arbour – no grapes left – and read an old itinerary that the inn kept, a list of destinations and distances. I called Sabraham who had already scouted the road with his two professionals. I wasn’t sure which of us was in command: he was without a doubt the more experienced, but I was a knight. He was retiring, almost mild. He never stayed to drink wine in the evenings, and he was all but invisible in a group.
I showed him the itinerary. ‘What if we approached Genoa from the south?’ I asked. ‘Two days extra travel …’
Sabraham nodded, really pleased. ‘This is well considered. What a valuable little book.’
Sister Marie overheard us. She nodded to Sabraham and stood with a false demure hesitation. ‘I could copy it,’ she said, riffling the scroll. ‘Two hours.’
The little scroll covered Northern Italy as far south as Florence. It looked to me like a mighty resource, and Sabraham agreed. Sister Marie sat and copied. To speed us on the road, Sabraham and I both joined her, and before we were done, Ser Nerio sat down and stained his hands with ink. We paid the innkeeper to make that copy and I have it yet. Listen, knowing the fastest way from one place to another is all very well, but for a soldier – or a spy – it is useful to know all the other ways, too. And whenever I learn one, I add it to the scroll.
Thanks to that little book, we went south, skirted the marches of Florentine territory, and arrived on the coast. The road wasn’t bad and the people were delighted; they had pilgrims in summer, but winter was a hard time. Twice we heard of brigands, but they were elsewhere or thought better of an armed party.
At the southern extent of the Ligurian coast, we caught a small trading ship, a Pisan, and he dropped us on a wharf in Genoa, unannounced and safe.
Genoa is a very different city from Venice. Perhaps the principle difference is in the people. In Venice, the small trades share the prosperity of the city. Our grocers were prosperous people; the guildsmen were rich, by English standards, and not just the Masters; the men who owned ropewalks were rich, and so were the men who owned boatyards.
In Genoa, only the rich are rich. A handful of men own everything, just thirty or forty families. The caste of workers derives no benefit whatsoever from the riches of Genoa’s overseas empire. Let me give you the simplest example. On a Venetian merchant ship, all sailors, even the oarsmen, are allowed a space to ship their own cargoes, even if that space is only a single small chest as long as your arm and as wide as the span of a man’s hand. But fill that chest with spice at Alexandria, the richest city in the world, and sail it home to Venice or to England or Flanders, and an oarsman might make ten years wages in an afternoon.
Genoese oarsmen are not allowed anything. Their masters feel that to allow them to trade might cost the owners some profit. The guilds derive little profit from the sea trade, because their wages and their products have set values: values set by the men who rule the city. They call themselves a republic, but they have fewer men involved in government than the Savoyards, who call themselves a feudal state.