Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

I told Williams, when I ran him to earth, that I was interested in putting some funds into the activities of an Italian house called Cola, and wondered whether this man was sound and trustworthy. He looked at me a little strangely, and replied cautiously that, as far as he knew, the house of Cola was funded entirely on its own resources. He would be very surprised indeed to discover that he was bringing in outsiders. I shrugged, and said this was what I had been told.

“Thank you for the intelligence, then,” he said. “Your news confirms what I have suspected.”

“Which is?”

“That the house of Cola must be in considerable trouble.

Venice’s war against the Turks has devastated his business, which has always been in the Levant. He lost two ships last year with full cargoes, and Venice still cannot prise open markets controlled by the Spaniards and Portuguese. He is a fine trader; but he has fewer and fewer people with whom he can trade.”

“Is this why he set up here?”

“Undoubtedly. I believe that without the goods England takes from him, he would not float for long. What, exactly, is this venture?”

I said I wasn’t sure, but had been assured it was of the greatest potential.

“Probably to do with printed silks. Very profitable, if you know what you are doing, but a disaster if you do not. Sea water and silk do not mix very well.”

“Does he have his own ships?”

“Oh, yes. And very well-found vessels they are.”

“He has an agent in London, I believe. Called di Pietro. What is he like?”

“I know him only a little. He keeps himself to himself. He doesn’t mix much with others in the trading world, although he is well in with the Jews of Amsterdam. Again a warning for you, for if we go to war with the Dutch, that connection will be worse than useless. The house of Cola will have to choose which side it is on, and will inevitably lose yet more business.”

“How old is di Pietro?”

“Oh, old enough to know what he is doing. In his fifties, I believe. He talks occasionally of going back home and living an easier life, but says his employer has too many children who need to be provided for.”

“How many children?”

“Five, I believe, but three are daughters, poor man.”

I grimaced in sympathy, even though the man might well turn out to be an enemy. I knew enough to be aware that for a trader, whose lifeblood depended on keeping his capital close by, three daughters could be a killing burden. Fortunately, even though my two sons were both fools, they were presentable enough to be married to women of fortune.

“Indeed, a grave disappointment,” Williams continued.

“Especially as neither of the sons is minded to follow him. One is a priest and—begging your pardon, doctor—useful only for consuming money rather than creating it. I believe the other plays the soldier; he did so, at least. I have not heard news of him for some time.”

“A soldier?” I said with astonishment, for this quite important fact had been entirely missed by the picture dealer, and I made a note to reprove him for his laxity.

“So I understand. Perhaps he never showed any inclination to trade and the father was too wise to force him. That was why Cola married the eldest daughter to a cousin in the Levant business.”

“Are you sure he’s a soldier? How do you know this?” I said, returning to the question and, I could see, arousing Williams’s suspicions.

“Doctor, I do not know any more,” he replied patiently. “All I know is what I hear around the coffee shops.”

“Tell me what you hear, then.”

“Knowing about the son will reassure you about investing in his business?”

“I am a cautious man, and believe in knowing everything I can. Wayward children, you must admit, can be a ferocious drain. What if the son is in debt, and his creditors make a claim on the father while he has my money?”

Williams grunted, not believing me but willing not to press.

“I was told by a fellow merchant who tried to open trade in the Mediterranean,” he explained eventually. “By the time the pirates and the Genoese had finished with him, he realized it was hardly worth the trouble. But he spent some time there a few years back, cruising around, and once landed a cargo on Crete for the garrison at Candia.”

I raised an eyebrow. It was a brave, or a very desperate, man indeed who would try to run a cargo through the Turks to supply that particular market.

“As I say,” Williams said, “he had taken losses and was desperate, so he took a chance. A successful throw, it seems, as he not only sold his entire cargo but was allowed to take a cargo of Venetian glass back to England by way of reward.”

I nodded.

“Anyway, there he met a man called Cola, who said his father was a merchant in the luxury trade of Venice. Now, perhaps there are two Colas who are merchants in Venice. I do not know.”

“Go on.”

He shook his head. “There you have my entire fund of knowledge on the subject. The doings of the merchant’s children are not my concern. I have more immediate matters to worry about. What is more, doctor, so do you. So why don’t you tell me what it is?”

I smiled and stood up. “Nothing,” I said. “Certainly I know nothing which might help you to a profit.”

“In that case, I am not in the slightest bit interested. But if ever…”

I nodded. A bargain is a bargain. I am pleased to say that I discharged my debt in due course as, through me, Mr. Williams was one of the first to know about the plans to reequip the fleet the following year. I gave him enough forewarning to allow him to buy up every mast pole in the country, so he could sell them to the navy at the price he named. Between us, we profited handsomely, God be praised.

The merchant he mentioned, Andrew Bushrod, I tracked down in the Reel prison, where he had been for several months—his creditors had tired of him when a ship carrying most of his capital had gone down and his family had refused to come to his rescue. This, apparently, was his own fault—when prosperous, he had declined to contribute to a cousin’s marriage portion. Naturally, they felt no obligation to him when hard times came.

So, he was not only in the Fleet, he was also at my mercy as I had sufficient influence to have him released if he did not cooperate; then his sanctuary would be lost, and his creditors would pounce. It took some effort to sift out the dross from what he told me and his accuracy in point of detail was dubious—it is enough merely to contrast his description of Cola with the plump, perfumed dandy I later encountered, to see that, even though his wounds then perhaps affected his appearance. Briefly stated, Bushrod’s account was that he had taken a ship into the Mediterranean and to Leghorn to sell a cargo of woolen goods there. The price he gained—he was no businessman—just about paid the cost of the voyage, and he was casting around for goods to bring back to England. At this point he chanced upon a Venetian, who told of a hugely profitable voyage he had just made to Crete, running food and weapons into Candia harbor under the noses of the Turks.

The town and its defenders were so short of everything they would pay virtually any price. For his part, however, he would not go back again. Why not? asked Bushrod. Because he wanted to live into his old age, the man replied. Although the Turkish fleet was incompetent, the pirates were much more effective. Too many of his friends had been caught and a lifetime in the galleys was the best you could expect if you were. The man then pointed out a beggar in the street outside, whom he said was once a sailor in a Candia ship. He had no hands, no eyes, no ears and no tongue.