Chapter 1

   From Venice to Cathay, from Seville to the Gold Coast of Africa, men anchored their ships and opened their ledgers and weighed one thing against another as if nothing would ever change.  Or as if there existed no sort of fool, of either sex, who might one day treat trade (trade!) as an amusement.
   It began mildly enough, the awkward chain of events that was to upset the bankers so much.  It began with sea, and September sunlight, and three young men lying stripped to their doublets in the Duke of Burgundy's bath.

Chapter 1

   Catherine de Charetty, having chosen a lover just after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (a festival highly regarded in Bruges), was much put out tol earn that, at nearly thirteen, she did not possess all the required qualifications.  She began immediately praying for puberty.

Chapter 1

   That November, God sent snow to north Italy,. to the inconvenience of all who had to travel on horseback.  The way between Porretta and Bologna became choked, and only the robust cared to use it.  Among these was the friar Ludovico de Severi da Bologna who set out from Porretta one evening in a mood of ferocious good humour.  The snow had brought him good luck.

Chapter 1

   To those who remembered him, it was typical that Nicholas should sail into Venice just as the latest news reached the Rialto, causing the ducat to fall below fifty groats and dip against the écu.  Instead of leading the welcome party, Gregorio sent Cristoffels to St. Mark's Basin instead, with a group of senior officals who didn't know Nicholas.  He hoped Christoffels remembered what his employer looked like.

Chapter 1

   Henry had often considered killing his grandfather; there was so much of him, and Henry disliked all of it.
   Today the impulse came abck quite strongly when, sticking hs head upside down through the caement, he discovered the old man himself riding over the Kilmirren drawbridge.  He could see his big hat, and the pennants, and the baggage-mules, and the men in half-armour to protect what was in all the boxes.  They hadn't sounded the trumpets, and below in the courtyard people were scampering in every direction, attempting to help with the horses or even running away. No one liked Henry's grandfather.

Part I: Summer, 1471
Prologue: The Chute of Lucifer
Chapter 1

   Among the richer class of dealers and traders, the kidnapping of the heir to a bank signifies trouble.  Some investors snatch back their ducats at once, assuming that half an ear and a ransom note are about to arrive at the counting-house.  Those with propositions to make do not make them.  Invitations dro off. The market oscillates; the Bourse proceeds to lose bottom.
   Finding itself assailed by such rumours in Venice, the Banco di Niccoló took immediate measures to quash them.  Fortunately, its management was adroit. Busienss clients were calmed by Gregorio, the company lawyer.  The well born were embraced by the handsome notary Julius, and left heartened.  THe heir to the Banco di Niccoló, they all learned, was aged two. And the kidnapper was the Bank's founder himself, the child's legitimate father.

Part 1: Polonaise

   The wind blew from the north, from Siberia, and the clatter of hail on his shutters woke the captain.  He had only been in bed for an hour, but land noises disturbed him.  He grunted, considered, then dragged on his robe and, without taking a lamp, made his way to the leeward side of the villa.  He had built this one only last year, and put in a brick chimney-wall: warmth from the stove below mellowed the air and his mood, although his throat was wrugn dry, an dhe was still wearing his wrinked day shirt and hose, as when he had droped - or been dropped - on his bed.

Chapter 1

   From Venice to Caffa, from Antwerp to the Gold Coast of Africa, merchants anchored their ships and unloaded their cannon and flipped open their ledgers as if in twenty years nothing had changed, and nothing was about to change now.  As if old men did not die, or younger ones grow up, eventually.  There was no fool in Europe, these days, who treated trade as a joke.  All that sort were long sobered, or dead.  Or were temporarily unavailable like Nicholas de Fleury, who had removed himself to the kingdom of Scotland, far to the north of the real world of pretty women, and international intrigue, and the benefits of social and financial success.
   North of the real world, it was noticed quite soon that Nicholas the Burgundian was back.