From the bulb of a rare flower blooms ambition and scandal
Rome 1635. As Flanders braces for another long year of war, a Spanish count presents the Vatican with a means of disrupting the Dutch rebels’ booming economy. His plan is brilliant. They just need the right man to implement it.
Enter Ludovico da Portovenere, a charismatic spice and silk merchant. Intrigued by the Vatican’s proposal—and hungry for profit—Ludo sets off for Amsterdam. His voyage is interrupted, first by a timid English priest with a message from Rome, then by a storm, then by a pirate raid. The storm brings him a quick-witted young admirer he uses as a spy. The pirate raid brings him a girl, Alina, who won’t go home. Each development has significant consequences for Ludo’s plans and even greater ones for the people he is involved with.
Set in a world of international politics and domestic intrigue, The Chosen Man spins an engrossing tale about the Dutch financial scandal known as tulip mania—and how decisions made in high places can have terrible repercussions on innocent lives.
The book has done fairly well. There is a demand for age of sail adventure stories at present
Chapter One
The Vatican , Italy, Early March 1635
“Another particularly tenuous idea from Spain. Grasping at straws.”
“Stems.”
“What?”
“You mean grasping at stems.”
“Is that supposed to be amusing?”
“Well, the whole thing is ridiculous.”
“Perhaps, but it could do significant damage,” replied the younger man, who had been made a cardinal at twenty-three. He sat down behind his desk and picked up the Spanish envoy’s gift to examine its jewels.
The pope’s other, less effective nephew watched his cousin raise an exquisite crucifix to the light: silver on mahogany, emeralds and purple-blue lapis lazuli from the New World; a gift from Spain—or a reminder of their territory.
“A set back in finances won’t damage established Dutch tradesmen very much. I certainly can’t see it having any effect on their war with Spain,” he said.
“It will if they’re using this new banking system. If the hard-working middle-classes, artisans and the like, are selling tulip flowers at high prices then putting their profit in banks, and the Dutch government is using that money to finance resistance to Spain—when the market suddenly collapses there’ll be a run on those banks. And if the money isn’t there…. Can’t you see? That’s what the Spanish are after; trying to undermine Protestant confidence, shake and weaken new foundations.” And this is why I am a cardinal and you are my secretary, he added silently to himself.
| Language | Status |
|---|---|
|
Spanish
|
Translation in progress.
Translated by Juan Campos
|
