Dorothy Dunnett - To Lie with Lions: The Sixth Book of The House of Niccolò

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 1999

Copyright1995 by Dorothy Dunnett
Introduction copyright1996 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 1995, and in slightly different form in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1996.

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

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Dunnett, Dorothy.
To lie with lions / Dorothy Dunnett.
p. cm. (The house of Niccol; 6th)
1. Vander Poele, Nicholas (Fictitious character)Fiction.
2. Fifteenth centuryFiction. 3. BankersEuropeFiction.
I. Title. II. Series: Dunnett, Dorothy. House of Niccol; 6th.
PR6054.U56T6 1996
823.914dc20 95-50422

eISBN: 978-0-307-76242-9

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

For Halliday Alastair Dunnett

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

February 1471 November 1473 (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

*Burgundy: Charles, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders

*Pope: Paul II, Sixtus IV

*Venice: Doge Niccol Tron

*Cyprus: King James de Lusignan (Zacco)

*Ottoman Empire (Istanbul): Sultan Mehmet II

*Mameluke Empire (Cairo): Sultan Qayt Bey

*Muscovy: Grand Duke Ivan III, Autocrat of All Russia

*Scandinavia: King Christian I

*Poland: King Casimir IV

House of Niccol

Nicholas de Fleury, governor of the Banco di Niccol

Gelis van Borselen, dame de Fleury, his wife

Jordan (Jodi), their son

Clmence de Coulanges, senior nurse

Pasque, nursemaid

Bita, temporary nursemaid

Alonse, servant to Nicholas

VENICE COUNTING-HOUSE:

Gregorio (Goro) of Asti, lawyer and manager

Margot, his wife

Tasse, former servant to Jaak de Fleury, Geneva

Julius of Bologna, notary and manager

Cristoffels (Cefo), under-manager

BRUGES COUNTING-HOUSE:

Diniz Vasquez, manager, nephew of Simon de St Pol

Mathilde (Tilde) de Charetty, his wife

Marian, their daughter

Catherine de Charetty, Tildes younger sister

SCOTTISH BUREAU & ESTATES:

Govaerts of Brussels, manager, Canongate bureau

Oliver Semple, factor

Wilhelm of Hall, goldsmith

Tom Yare, lawyer from Berwick

*John Bonkle, natural son of the Provost of Trinity College

PERIPATETIC:

Father Moriz of Augsburg, chaplain and metallurgist

John le Grant, engineer, sailing-master

Michael Crackbene, shipmaster

Astorre (Syrus de Astariis), mercenary commander

Thomas, deputy to Astorre

Tobias Beventini of Grado, physician to Count of Urbino

OTHER NAMED AGENTS:

Lazzarino, agent in Rome

Jooris, agent in Antwerp

Eric Mowat, agent in Copenhagen

Achille, agent in Alexandria

COMPLEMENT OF THE SVIPA :

*Lutkyn Mere, Danish pirate

Yuri, from Muscovy

Dmitri, his son

(with Nicholas de Fleury, Mick Crackbene, John le Grant and Father Moriz)

PAST ASSOCIATES:

Ochoa de Marchena, former master of the Ghost/Doria

Filipe, former boy on the San Niccol

Duchy of Burgundy

BURGUNDIAN HOUSEHOLD:

*Charles, Duke of Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Flanders, Holland, Zeeland etc.

*Margaret of York, his wife and sister of King Edward IV

*Isabella of Portugal, Dowager Duchess of Burgundy

*Marie, daughter of Duke Charles by previous wife

*Bastard Anthony, natural brother of Duke Charles

*William Hugonet, lord of Saillant, Chancellor of the Duchy

*Philippe de Commynes, Master of Ducal Household, later chamberlain to King of France

*Loyet, the Dukes goldsmith

*Peter von Hagenbach, Dukes High Bailiff in Alsace

BRUGES AND GHENT:

*Anselm Adorne, merchant, magistrate, of the Htel Jerusalem

*Margriet van der Banck, his wife

*Jan Adorne, lawyer, their oldest son

*Katelijne (Kathi) Sersanders, Adornes niece

*Anselm Sersanders, her brother, Adornes nephew

*Dr Andreas of Vesalia, physician in Bruges and Scotland

*Louis de Bruges, seigneur de Gruuthuse, merchant nobleman

*Marguerite van Borselen, his wife

*Tommaso Portinari, Medici manager in Bruges

*Maria, his wife

*Angelo di Jacopo Tani, former Medici manager at Bruges

*Alexander Bonkle, merchant in Bruges and Scotland

*Justus of Ghent (Joos van Wassenhoven), painter in Urbino

*Hugo van der Goes, artist, sponsored by Joos