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With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents the House of Niccol ?series. The time is the fifteenth century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire. In 1461, Nicholas is in Florence. Backed by none other than Cosimo de' Medici, he will sail the Black Sea to Trebizond, last outpost of Byzantium, and the last jewel missing from the crown of the Ottoman Empire. But trouble lies ahead. Nicholas's stepdaughter-at the tender age of thirteen-has eloped with his rival in trade: a Machiavellian Genoese who races ahead of Nicholas, sowing disaster at every port. And time is of the essence: Trebizond may fall to the Turks at any moment. Crackling with wit, breathtakingly paced, The Spring of the Ram is a pyrotechnic blend of scholarship and narrative shimmering with the scents, sounds, colors, and combustible emotions of the fifteenth century.… (more)
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This novel is a continuation of the story of the young dyer's apprentice Nicholas from Bruges who takes his merchantile company from Belgium to Italy and then to what would be today Turkey to the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire to set up a trade contract with the Empire there. In the mix is a rival Italian merchant who competes with him, tries to sabotage him and kill him. Needless to say Nicholas wins out in the end - but in a way that sets up the conflict for the next book as it ends with his wife and head of the company dead and Nicholas on the outs with her two daughters.
Tobie and Godscalc hear Nicholas raving with swamp fever, and find out about Henry.
I am confused, no doubt on purpose, as to how much of what happens is coincidence, and how much Nicholas's design, or the design of other players such as Simon and his father, the Naxos princesses, the other men in Nicholas' company... confused but intrigued!
Niccolo's personality is as entertaining as they come. His bad boy ways earn him a reputation known far and wide as reckless and daring. Entering Florence, he aims to secure the Silk Road, the only accessible trade route to the East. That is his singular quest for the rest of The Spring of the Ram.