Dorothy Dunnett - Scales of Gold: The Fourth Book of The House of Niccolò

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 1999

Copyright1991 by Dorothy Dunnett
Introduction1994 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 hardcover in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd., London, in 1991, and subsequently in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1992.

The Introduction was originally published in slightly different form in the United States edition of The Unicorn Hunt, published in 1994 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

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

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

Dunnett, Dorothy.
Scales of gold / Dunnett. 1st American ed.
p. cm.(The house of Niccol)
eISBN: 978-0-307-76240-5
1. Fifteenth centuryFiction. 2. BelgiumHistoryTo 1555Fiction. I. Title. II. Series: Dunnett, Dorothy. House of Niccol.
PR6054.U56S33 1992
823.914dc20 91-58554

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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

May, 1464 July, 1468
(Those marked * are recorded in history)

Rulers

* Flanders: Duke Philip of Burgundy; Duke Charles, his son

* Venice: Doge Cristoforo Moro

* England: King Edward IV, House of York (Henry VI, House of Lancaster, imprisoned)

* Scotland: King James III

* France: King Louis XI

* Popes: Pius II, Paul II

* Milan: Duke Francesco Sforza; Galeazzo Sforza, his son

* Cyprus: King James de Lusignan (Zacco)

* Portugal: King Alfonso V, nephew of Henry the Navigator

* Ottoman Empire: Sultan Mehmet II

* Aragon, Spain: King John II, uncle of Ferrante of Naples

* Castile, Spain: King Henry

* Ethiopia: Emperor Zara Yaqob

House of Niccol:

IN VENICE AND BRUGES:

Nicholas vander Poele (Niccol), son of the first wife of Simon de St Pol

Gregorio of Asti, lawyer

Margot, Gregorios mistress

Father Godscalc of Cologne, chaplain and apothecary

Loppe (Lopez), former Guinea slave

Julius of Bologna, notary

Cristoffels, manager, seconded to the Charetty company

John (Jannekin) Bonkle, bastard of Edward Bonkle of Edinburgh

UNDER CONTRACT ABROAD:

Tobias Beventini of Grado, physician

Astorre (Syrus de Astariis), mercenary commander

Thomas, English captain, in Cyprus

John le Grant, engineer and shipmaster, in Cyprus

SEAMEN, THE GUINEA VOYAGES:

Jorge da Silves, Portuguese master of the San Niccol

Vicente, first mate of the San Niccol

Melchiorre Cataneo, ex Ciaretti, second mate of the San Niccol

Estvo, helmsman of the San Niccol

Ferno, helmsman of the San Niccol

Luis, seaman on the San Niccol

Filipe, boy on the San Niccol

Lzaro, boy on the San Niccol

Vito, ex Ciaretti, seaman-carpenter on the San Niccol

Manoli, ex Ciaretti, seaman on the San Niccol

Triadano of Ragusa, master of the Ciaretti

Ochoa de Marchena, Spanish master of the Ghost/Doria

Flanders and the Duchy of Burgundy:

THE CHARETTY COMPANY:

Mathilde (Tilde) de Charetty, daughter of Marian, late first wife of Nicholas

Catherine, her younger sister

Henninc, dyeworks manager in Bruges

OTHER FAMILIES IN FLANDERS AND BURGUNDY:

* Henry van Borselen, seigneur of Veere
Florence van Borselen, half-brother of Henry
Gelis van Borselen, younger daughter of Florence
Henry (Arigho) de St Pol, child of the late Katelina, sister of Gelis

* Wolfaert van Borselen, son of Henry van Borselen

* Mary his wife, aunt of James III of Scotland

* Alexander, Duke of Albany, her nephew, brother of James III

* Paul van Borselen, bastard son of Wolfaert

* Louis de Gruuthuse, merchant nobleman

* Marguerite van Borselen, his wife

* Tommaso Portinari, manager, Medici company in Bruges

* Benedetto Dei, Medici agent and merchant

* Antony of Bourbon, bastard of Duke Philip

* Baudouin, his half-brother

* Sir Simon de Lalaing, seigneur of Santes

* Ernoul de Lalaing, his son

* Anselm Adorne of the Htel Jerusalem

* Margriet van der Banck, his wife

* Anselm Sersanders, his nephew

* Jehan Metteneye, host to the Scots merchants

* Colard Mansion, scribe and illustrator

* Bartolomeo Giorgio (Zorzi), merchant of Pera and Cyprus

Republic of Venice:

* Marietta Barovier, glassmaker of Murano

* Alvise da Ca da Mosto, merchant explorer

* Antonio da Ca da Mosto, his brother

* Marco Corner, merchant, sugar-grower in Cyprus