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       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

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