Dorothy Dunnett - The Unicorn Hunt: The Fifth Book of The House of Niccolò

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 1999

Copyright1993 by Dorothy Dunnett
Introduction copyright1994 by Judith Wilt

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph, Ltd., London, in 1993, and subsequently published in hardcover in the United States in slightly different form by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, in 1994.

Vintage Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:

Dunnett, Dorothy.
The unicorn hunt / Dorothy Dunnett. 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Vander Poele, Nicholas (Fictitious character) Fiction.
2. Fifteenth century Fiction. 3. Bankers Europe Fiction. I. Title.
PR6054.U56U55 1994
823.914 dc20 93-35692

eISBN: 978-0-307-76243-6

www.randomhouse.com/vintage

v3.1_r1

When my chronicle of Francis Crawford of Lymond ended, it seemed to me that there was something still to be told of his heritage: about the genetic lottery, as well as the turmoil of trials and experience which, put together, could bring such a man into being.

The House of Niccol, in all its volumes, deals with the forerunner without whom Lymond would not have existed: the unknown who fought his way to the high ground that Francis Crawford would occupy, and held it for him. It is fiction, but the setting at least is very real.

The man I have called Nicholas de Fleury lived in the mid-fifteenth century, three generations before Francis Crawford, and was reared as an artisan, his gifts and his burdens concealed beneath an artless manner and a joyous, sensuous personality. But he was also born at the cutting edge of the European Renaissance, which Lymond was to exploit at its zeniththe explosion of exploration and trade, high art and political duplicity, personal chivalry and violent warfare in which a young man with a genius for organization and numbers might find himself trusted by princes, loved by kings, and sought in marriage and out of it by clever women bent on power, or wealth, or revengeor sometimes simply from fondness.

There are, of course, echoes of the present time. Trade and war dont change much down through the centuries: todays new multimillionaires had their counterparts in the entrepreneurs of few antecedents who evolved the first banking systems for the Medici; who developed the ruthless network of trade that ran from Scotland, Flanders, and Italy to the furthest reaches of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and ventured from Iceland to Persia, from Muscovy to the deserts of Africa.

Scotland is important to this chronicle, as it was to Francis Crawford. Here, the young Queen of Scots is a thirteen-year-old Scandinavian, and her husbands family are virtually children. This, framed in glorious times, is the story of the difficult, hesitant progress of a small nation, as well as that of a singular man.

Dorothy Dunnett
Edinburgh, 1998

October, 1468 February, 1471

(Those marked * are recorded in history)

Rulers

*England: King Edward IV, House of York, vying with *Henry VI, House of Lancaster

*Scotland: King James III

*France: King Louis XI

*Flanders: Duke Charles of Burgundy

*Pope: Paul II

*Venice: Doge Cristoforo Moro

*Milan: Duke Galeazzo-Maria Sforza

*Cyprus: King James de Lusignan (Zacco)

*Portugal: King Alfonso V

*Ottoman Empire: Sultan Mehmet II

*Mameluke Empire: Sultan Qayt Bey

House of Niccol
(COUNTING-HOUSES IN VENICE AND BRUGES):

Nicholas (Niccol) de Fleury, master (formerly vander Poele)

Gelis van Borselen, dame de Fleury, his wife

Gregorio (Goro) of Asti, lawyer and manager

Margot, Gregorios mistress

Julius of Bologna, notary and manager

Cristoffels (Cefo), Venice management

Tobias Beventini of Grado, physician

Father Godscalc of Cologne, chaplain

Father Moriz of Augsburg, chaplain and metallurgist

John le Grant, engineer, Alexandria agent

Diniz Vasquez, Bruges management

Mathilde (Tilde) de Charetty, his wife

Catherine de Charetty, her younger sister

Henninc, dyeworks manager, Bruges

Astorre (Syrus de Astariis) mercenary commander

Thomas, deputy to Astorre

Michael Crackbene, shipmaster

*John (Jannekin) Bonkle, agent in Scotland, bastard of the Provost of Trinity College, Edinburgh

Oliver Semple, Scottish land factor

Wilhelm of Hall, goldsmith

Bertuccio, agent in Florence

Achille, sub-agent, Alexandria

Govaerts of Brussels, steward

Ederic of Antwerp, manservant

Donat of Louvain, huntsman/groom

Dionigi, cook

Ochoa de Marchena, former shipmaster of the Ghost/Doria

Scotland

*James Stewart, (third of the name), King of Scotland

*Alexander (Sandy) Stewart, Duke of Albany, his brother

*Sir James (Jamie) Liddell of Halkerston, Albanys steward

*John Stewart, Earl of Mar, the Kings younger brother

*Margaret Stewart (Bleezie Meg), the Kings younger sister

*Mariota Darrauch, nurse to Margaret

*Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran, the Kings elder sister

*Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran, her husband

*Robert, Lord Boyd, father of Thomas

*James Stewart of Auchterhouse (Hearty James), half-uncle to King James

*John Stewart, Earl of Atholl, another half-uncle

*Margaret of Denmark, Norway, Vandalia etc., bride of King James

*Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, Master of the Royal Household

*Archibald Whitelaw, Royal Secretary

*Andrew Stewart, Lord Avandale, Chancellor

*Patrick Graham, Bishop of St Andrews (nephew of Bishop Kennedy)

*James Hamilton of Cadzow, 1st Lord Hamilton

*Joneta Hamilton, his natural daughter

*Sir Robert Semple of Elliotstoun, sheriff of Renfrew

*William Semple his son, second cousin to Oliver Semple

*Robert, Lord Fleming of Biggar

*Malcolm Fleming, his son

*John and David, his grandsons

Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren, vicomte de Ribrac, merchant-magnate of Scotland and France

Simon de St Pol the Younger of Kilmirren, his son

Henry de St Pol, son of Simons late wife Katelina, sister to Gelis van Borselen

Lucia, sister of Simon and mother of Diniz Vasquez

Matten, her maid

Isobella (Bel) of Cuthilgurdy, her neighbour

*Andro Wodman, escort of Bel

*John Lamb, Leith merchant

*Thomas (Thom) Swift, Edinburgh merchant

*William of Berecrofts (Old Will), Canongate merchant

*Archibald of Berecrofts the Younger (Archie), his son

*Robin, son of Archie

*William Sinclair, Earl of Caithness and Orkney

*Elizabeth (Betha) Sinclair, his daughter, widow of Patrick Dunbar of Blantyre and Cumnock