Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

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Author: Luther Blissett
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balancing the payments made with the letters that actually correspond to the money really deposited in the bank, and the payments made with the fake letters. We’ll circulate most of the fake ones in peripheral markets, and in that way we’ll gain more time and at the same time it’ll be harder for the Fuggers to make their checks.’

‘How long will the whole business take, if we don’t get killed first?’

‘According to my calculations, if we’re careful to distribute the fake letters in different markets, it’ll take them no less than five years to uncover us. And anyway, that’s as long we need to insure our old age. A hundred thousand florins a head. Does that sound all right, gentlemen?’

Absolute silence falls, even the lapping of the waves against the belly of the ship seems to stop.

I look at Eloi: ‘And your role in all this?’

My friend’s eyes are shining, but it’s Gotz who replies: ‘He’ll be your colleague in the enterprise.’ A fit of coughing. ‘One last thing, we mustn’t neglect the details: you’ll have to get yourself accustomed to using a false name.’

While Eloi bursts out laughing, I reply: ‘No problem.’

I listen to the echo of our feet as we set off along the jetty. Gotz von Polnitz, the mathematical wizard, has said goodbye to us, giving us an appointment for the day after tomorrow.

We walk along, deep in the same thoughts. Perhaps Eloi is waiting for me to object. I say, ‘There’s something that doesn’t seem right to me.’

He nods: ‘I know what you’re thinking. Why does he need us? Why doesn’t he do it all on its own, or turn to people who are already in commercial activity?’

‘Got it in one.’

He knows there’s no point in playing at secrets now, from this point onwards we’re business associates.

‘For the same reason that he can’t show his face in Antwerp. Polnitz is a name of convenience. The man you’ve just met has been dead for three years.’

‘So who on earth is he?’

He smiles: ‘The man to whom the Fuggers owe their dominion over Antwerp. Their best agent: Lazarus Tucher.’

My eyes stand out on stalks. Eloi guffaws and puts his finger to his lips: ‘Shhh. After he finished off old H�chstetter and prepared the way for the ascent of Anton Fugger in Antwerp, his merits brought him the post of first agent at the Cologne branch. But in ‘35, when Fugger decided to equip an expedition that would finally go off and bring back gold from the New World, the management of such an important operation was entrusted to the diligent Lazarus. Except that a storm off the Portuguese coast sank the whole fleet as soon as it set off. That’s what any sailor down at the port can tell you: the biggest fiasco since Anton has been in charge of his family’s activity. What isn’t known is that one ship was saved, the flagship, and with it all the money that was to have financed mineral excavations in Peru.’

‘And Tucher was on that ship.’

I can see where the story’s going, but Eloi isn’t about to interrupt himself halfway through. ‘He set sail for Ireland, and from there he moved on to England, where he hid out for three years, dealing with the friends of Henry VIII.’

‘And now he’s decided to perform a sting on the coffers of his former bosses.’

‘Precisely.’

We walk down the narrow little street that runs along this stretch of the estuary. The bell-towers of Antwerp appear through the mist on the horizon, the gulls inspect the water from above, a stork watches us motionlessly from its nest, on the flagpole of an abandoned wreck.

Eloi’s eyes are on the ground as he thinks about what to say to me.

He stops: ‘It isn’t just a swindle on a magisterial scale.’

A few steps on I wait for him to come out with it.

‘It isn’t just about money.’

‘What then?’

‘Credit. How do you think traders would react if they thought fake Fugger credit letters were circulating around all the markets of Europe?’

‘I don’t think they’d accept a single piece of paper with Anton Fugger’s signature on it.’

‘Exactly so. What’s a banker without credit? He’s like a sailor without a ship. If people stop accepting his signature as a guarantee because they think it might be fake, he’s finished, he’s a dead man. You remember the story of old H�chstetter? That’s how they finished him off: by discrediting him. People start withdrawing their deposits from the bank, mistrust is a contagion that quickly spreads: who’s going to want to do deals with someone who’s losing customers rather than acquiring them?’

‘So you’re saying that Tucher wants to do the Fuggers of Augsburg over: cheat the cheaters?’

He shakes his head: ‘He’s interested in money. And so am I. But if we really do manage to put Fugger’s credit in jeopardy, he could be ruined within a few years.’

My heart beats hard at the pit of my stomach, my guts turn to jelly: Ferdinand, Charles V, the Pope, the German princes. All tied to the purse-strings of Anton the Sly.

I murmur it quietly, as though a vision were revealing itself to me: ‘And along with them the courts of half of Europe.’

Eloi too lowers his voice, although there’s no one else there as far as the eye can see. ‘“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.”’

Chapter 43

Antwerp, 2nd June 1538

‘Has he seen the cargo?’

‘Yes.’

‘The ships?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he raise any objections?’

‘A few questions about the route we’re planning to follow.

Lazarus Tucher, the man who came back to life, Gotz von Polnitz, the mathematical wizard, shakes his head disconsolately: ‘They must think they’re omnipotent. They’re so certain of their strength that they can’t even imagine that someone might try to cheat them. The bastards.’

‘And that certainty is all to our benefit, isn’t it?’

Gotz ignores the question, following his own train of thought: ‘Did he go for the fifty thousand florins?’

‘He didn’t bat an eyelid. He asked us for three thousand as a deposit, which he’ll return to us after the first expedition. I did as you said: I handed them over without a murmur, so he’d think we’ve got a considerable amount at our disposal.’

‘Fine. But if I’d been in his shoes it wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.’

‘Then we’re lucky we’ve got you on our side.’

The former Fugger agent pours me a little glass. ‘Time to drink a toast. You’ve done well. We’ve taken the first step.’

The barge on which Lazarus Tucher hides the secret of his existence is hidden in a bight of the river. Inside it looks like a normal house, apart from the strange objects hanging from the walls in every corner: swords, pistols, musical instruments, maps, the clear shell of a tortoise.

I know it would be better to say nothing, but you don’t often meet someone like this.

‘Eloi told me your story.’

He doesn’t seem surprised. ‘He shouldn’t have done. If they get us, the less we know about each other the better it is for everyone.’

I make myself comfortable on the leather sofa. ‘Do you mean to say Eloi’s told you nothing about me?’

Gotz shrugs: ‘All I know is that you were in M�nster with the madmen, and I tell you in all sincerity that if those had been your only credentials, I wouldn’t have involved you. But Eloi said you were the man for the job and I trust his intuition: someone who’s managed to keep his head above water for twenty years amidst Antwerp’s sharks, without getting himself done over, must be a pretty good judge of character.’

I chuckle and pour the spirits: ‘You’re right, they were madmen. But they took over a city. Have you ever done that?’

Gotz’ eyes are two black dots set deeply among his scars. He has no need to reply, it seems that the Anabaptist and the merchant understand each other very well.

‘You have to be fanatical to attempt an enterprise of that kind.’

‘You have to believe in it.’

‘And did you believe in it, really?’

A good question. ‘Let’s say that it wasn’t the money that attracted me in those days.’

He smiles and fills a second glass. ‘Do you want to hear a really interesting story about M�nster?’

‘Something I don’t already know?’

‘Something known only to me, Anton Fugger and perhaps the Pope.’

‘It sounds like a state secret.’

He nods slyly, smoothing his moustache. The gulls shriek outside the little window, the only sound.

‘At the beginning of ‘34 I was in charge of the affairs of the Fuggers in Cologne. It was there that I learned the tricks of the trade, and everything that’s going to come in useful for our operation. What happens is that one day I receive a letter on which is written only a sum of money . No signature, just a seal: a big letter Q.’

‘Q?’

‘Stamped on the wax. I ask for an explanation from the agency’s accountant, who’s been in the service of the Fuggers for more than ten years, and he tells me that, when you get a letter like that one, you have to prepare the money and wait for someone to come and get it, showing the seal.’

I interrupt him: ‘I don’t see where M�nster comes into it.’

Gotz flinches slightly. ‘Let me finish. At this point I ask to be told more: how do we go about getting money into the hands of an unknown man? The old accountant tells me that a few years previously, word came from Rome to open unlimited credit on the Fugger coffers for a secret agent working in the imperial territories. “Herr Q”, the accountants of the German branches called him.’

‘A spy.’

He won’t interrupt his story. ‘So I prepare a letter of credit for the sum requested, and prepare to receive it. And you know who turns up? A cleric. Wrapped in a dark habit, with a hood covering his eyes and half his face. He shows me the ring with the Q, identical to the one stamped on the letter. However, when he sees the letter of credit he tears it into a thousand pieces in front of my eyes and tells me he wants hard cash. I point out that it’s dangerous to travel with that kind of money in your pocket, but he insists: he wants the gold. Fine, I open the strongboxes and give him what he asked for After that he asks me if I can tell him of a horse-hiring company that would cover the distance between here and M�nster. I direct him towards the biggest stables in Cologne.’

He falls silent. The story is finished. A dark presentiment forces its way into my head, but I can’t articulate it. I put my glass on the table, my hands trembling slightly.

Gotz waits for a reaction. ‘Isn’t that a great story? Maybe if you want to take over a city you need fanatics who believe in it, but if you want to infiltrate a city with a spy, you need money. Cash always comes into it.’

He notices my unease.

The dark line of the spirits in the bottle swishes gently back and forth in time with the boat.

The tortoiseshell gleams darkly.

A white heron slices through the fragment of sky framed by the little window.

The map of the English coast has, in the bottom left-hand corner, a wind-rose that looks from here like a black-and-white flower.

Gotz, sunk deep into his armchair, doesn’t move a muscle.

Gotz. Lazarus. Different names, different