To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Willie said.

  ‘I am. But not as drunk,’ Nicholas said, ‘as I’m going to be.’

  Chapter 31

  IN THE FIRST days of May, Margriet van der Banck, dame de Cortachy, loved and loving wife of Anselm Adorne, died in her home at the Hôtel Jerusalem, Bruges, in a chamber filled with her children. Her oldest son, Jan, summoned from Genoa, was by turns desolate and furious, blaming his lady mother for succumbing at all, and especially for being so thoughtless as to die before his arrival. Even the very grand funeral was already over, and the guests and kinsfolk departed, with the exception of the nuns, friends of his sisters, who were staying to look after the children and order the household; and Jan’s two Sersanders cousins with whom he had never seen eye to eye.

  The house was stinking with incense. On the day of his arrival, he went to pay his respects in the crypt and found himself in the company of two weeping servants and someone from the Dry Tree praying in front of the altar. He entered, with some trepidation, upon his first meeting alone with his father, who seemed worn and pale; but the initial constraint melted before the warmth of the Baron’s welcome. They embraced each other, and Jan wept. Later, his father was ready to hear a little about Jan’s shameful treatment at the hands of the Curia, and the preposterous position he had been placed in, vis à vis the Bishop of St Andrews in Rome. He noticed after a while that his father’s attention was slackening and, breaking off, advised him kindly to rest.

  It surprised Jan next day to find his father had left the house for the first time, it was said, for many weeks; and that he was remaining abroad, evidently with the intention of dining at the home of a friend. Dr Andreas was also elsewhere. Jan left his brothers and sisters and, changed into a rather fine gown, went to call on a few friends himself.

  The town of Antwerp was flat. To Gelis van Borselen, brought up in the low lands of her name-country, it should have appeared reassuringly familiar: a relief from the spiny ridges of Edinburgh, the funnelled views, the shrill winds. Instead, she found herself established in her new home with a reluctance which became apprehension, for it was only mid-May, and Nicholas was no longer consistently present. And soon, when he rejoined his army, he would be elsewhere for weeks at a time.

  She had already endured his five-week absence in Iceland, but that was a single project, now finished. For half a year before that, their daily lives had been shared. She knew where he was, and she heard what he was doing. In some things, they had even acted together: in the ceremonial visits to Court; in the social life of the merchant community; in the making of the Play, which had seemed, at first, to offer such a manifest opportunity, and then had been revealed as the greatest threat, perhaps, she had yet faced.

  While he was there, she could create her planning around him; when they were apart, his unpredictability baffled her. You would think, from the tales he freely told, that he had been perfectly candid about his voyage to Iceland. Only she noticed the lacunae: the parts which none of them ever discussed or explained. The girl Kathi, sometimes helpful, could not be reached. Archie had extracted what little he could from young Robin, but the boy had been reluctant and awkward. If there had been a dark side to that visit, a romantic young page was unlikely to know.

  It fretted her, this impenetrable barrier. She was reminded of the swift, merry stream they all talked of, usefully busy, until suddenly the wholesome rock splits and the scalding marrow spurts forth. She was made anxious by any untoward influences – those of Africa, of Sinai, of the Play – that threatened to move Nicholas to another dimension; that had the power to replace logic with something more powerful. She did not want an emotional crisis of that sort again. Or not until she was ready.

  Visitors came to the house. It was built of red brick, one of a row in a narrow street to the west of the Cathedral and not far from the river upon which Antwerp lay. It was smaller than the great house in Spangnaerts Street, but sufficient for herself and the child and the nurses and household attendants. There had been an agent, Jooris, occupying the upper floor, who had discreetly moved out to the riverside, where the counting-house and the packhouses were.

  She knew why she had been settled here, because Nicholas had told her quite frankly: to avoid repeating the experience she had already had, living as an object of curiosity in the Bruges house run by Diniz and Tilde. She had brought that upon herself by her connection with Simon, and Nicholas showed little sympathy.

  The other reason she understood even better. Simon’s heir Henry was now a page with her van Borselen cousins, living either in Bruges, or at their castle sixty miles north of Antwerp at Veere. And if the handsome Simon, at forty-seven, had cause to dislike her, she knew without doubt that this boy of eleven held her and her child in abhorrence. Mistress Clémence had been warned never to take Jordan to Bruges or to Veere, nor to allow him to be taken.

  There was no harm, of course, in Wolfaert van Borselen and his wife calling on Gelis at Antwerp, provided Henry did not come with them. Indeed, they came sooner than she had expected to congratulate her on her new status. Nicholas, who was there at the time, received them solemnly, and the charming docility of Jordan transfixed them. Mistress Clémence, presented, described him as a sweet-natured child, and later found herself drawn into gracious conversation with the lady Charlotte de Bourbon, married for four years to Wolfaert, and now expecting her third. Pasque was presented.

  Gelis, smiling continuously, found that she had caught her own husband’s eye, and freed it immediately, to quash any suggestion of conjugal conspiracy. She averted her gaze after that, aware now that his amused gaze seldom left her. For a moment it felt like last summer: herself a shadow, an echo, and Nicholas her invisible watcher. When their visitors left, and when, later, he himself departed to Bruges, Gelis even experienced some relief. She wished him well, cynically, of his business, and then felt a pang, for he was also going, of course, to condole with Anselm Adorne on his loss.

  Nicholas had not been in Bruges for three years; not since another death, the death of his friend Father Godscalc. After that had come his work far afield: in the Tyrol and Egypt, Cyprus and Venice, Scotland and Ultima Thule. Throughout, he had never deliberately lost touch, save for the time of his disappearance with Jordan. Now, arriving at Bruges, he had called first at the Hôtel Jerusalem and found Adorne and his eldest son absent; and next at his own house in Spangnaerts Street from where, although pleased to embrace and admire his step-daughter Tilde and her baby, he had continued almost at once, to seek Diniz and all the élite of the town at a feast of the White Bear Society.

  Nicholas de Fleury, burgher of Bruges, had long since been admitted to this, its most prestigious club, whose bulk shadowed the bridge of the great merchant quarter, and whose emblem, the het beertje van der logie, gazed from its niche towards the opening of Spangnaerts Street. A merchant prince and a baron himself, the head of the Banco di Niccolò had no difficulty entering here. Indeed, the moment he sent in his message, young Diniz came bursting into the hall, to hug him and drag him into the banquet.

  Adorne was present. It was the first thing Nicholas saw as he was welcomed into the chamber, where the songs had begun although half the food still remained on the table, and a willing place was being found as they crowded about him.

  Adorne wore black and looked blanched; in his eyes was a record of a long and wretched vigil. The others fell back as he came forward. He said, ‘Nicholas? I have to congratulate you and thank you. You deserve the honour, and I am glad of it. My nephew will thank you in person. But I owe you more than I can say for what you did for Anselm and Katelijne in Iceland. Come, sit with me.’

  ‘That is generous of you,’ Nicholas said. ‘I came to speak to you: to say we have no words, Gelis and I, for your loss. It is mine, too. I shall never forget her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Adorne said. ‘I should not be here, but Jan must leave for Rome again very soon, and I wished to present him here first. There he is.’

  There he
was. Unlike those who had jumped up to greet Nicholas – the famous faces of Gruuthuse and Metteneye, de Walle and Reyphin, Vasquez and Bonkle and Cant – the eldest son of Anselm Adorne had remained firmly seated, deep in talk with someone unknown bending over him. It was not unexpected. The last time they had met was in Venice, during Jan’s brutal teasing by Nerio, the young Greek beauty disguised as a girl. Unfortunately, the seat now offered Nicholas lay between Anselm Adorne and his son.

  Sighing invisibly, Nicholas sat. Jan looked round. Before he could speak, the singing had started again. It was the custom, after a feast, to call on each guest to perform, and Nicholas de Fleury was known for his fiendish ability to reduce a room to wails of painful enjoyment. He was invited to entertain almost immediately and did so. He was a natural mimic, and it came easily. After that, others obliged, and he had time to eat and drink, and look round.

  Tommaso Portinari was absent. There was no sign of Anselm Sersanders, and those members who were related to the Duke of Burgundy were also missing; but that was understandable. He had heard the rumours of trouble himself, meticulously forwarded by Astorre and by Diniz. He wondered what Adorne was making of it all, now one supposed he had time to turn his mind to the future. The truce between France and Burgundy was meant to last another month yet. If it broke, Scotland would immediately be involved. And Anselm Adorne was now deeply identified with Scotland.

  Jan Adorne said, as if he had spoken, ‘What a pity you will never be able to sell fish in Antwerp again. The King has forbidden it. All Scots merchants must sell to Bruges, and my father is Conservator of Scots Privileges in all the domains of the Duke. Do you know what that means?’

  ‘Yes, I know. It is a great honour. Jan, I came because of your mother. I know you will miss her so much. What are your brothers and sisters going to do?’ He kept his voice quiet. Under the chorusing, no one could hear them.

  ‘It means,’ Jan continued, ‘that for his lifetime, my father has power to govern and direct and administer law to the Scottish subjects in the dominions of Burgundy. He is allowed to tax staple wares for his salary, and can arrest anyone who won’t pay him. And all because of the way my father represented the nation of Scotland not only at the papal court and in Christian countries, but among the barbarous nations of the Saracens and the Turks. You represented nobody but yourself.’

  ‘Did it seem so? Then the misfortune was mine, in having no son who could write about it. Your father must be proud of you.’ He turned to Adorne. ‘And I dare say Jan has brought you the latest information from Rome. What of the papal Crusade?’ It was all he could think of to say. The song then being sung was not very papal, or welcome to a man still in mourning.

  ‘Your reports, I am sure, are as good as mine,’ said Adorne. ‘The combined fleets have presumably left for the East, your own ships among them. They will do what they can. The main assault, as you know, is next year. And the fund-raising legates have gone – Cardinal Bessarion towards France, and Cardinal Barbo to the Emperor Frederick, unfortunately for Jan.’

  ‘I heard,’ Nicholas said. ‘But Bishop Graham has found him a post?’

  Jan Adorne opened his mouth. ‘Unfortunately,’ said his father, ‘the Bishop, although a good man, is receiving less support than he would like from King James. Or perhaps it is fortunate, for Jan is able to render him help so long as he stays in Rome. Once the Bishop goes home, Jan will have to seek other employment.’

  ‘Perhaps I can help,’ Nicholas said. ‘Or Lazzarino my agent, or Julius. Added, of course, to your own excellent circle of friends.’

  ‘The way you helped my mother and father?’ said Jan in a low voice. ‘My mother might be alive today, without the burden of the Earl and Countess of Arran all those months. My father thanked you for what you did for my cousins. What did you do? Betray my father’s ship to the Hanse, try to wreck it; have one cousin captured and take the other aboard and debauch her!’

  ‘Jan!’ said Adorne, also quietly. He had turned his back on his neighbours.

  ‘This is not the place,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I must speak for your cousin Katelijne. She came aboard to prevent us from fighting. She came immediately under the care of my chaplain, and stayed so. Her brother was never in danger of being captured. As for the device to rid myself of a pirate ship and a rival, I must claim that to be quite legitimate. Martin would have done the same in my place.’

  ‘A pirate ship!’ said Jan. His voice, properly scathing, disregarded a protest from his father. ‘The Hanse believe they are the only authority, but there are others more private. My father was sanctioned by the Bishop and Governor of Iceland.’

  ‘And I by the King of Scotland,’ said Nicholas dryly. ‘I fancy that my next cargo might even be permitted in Antwerp, under the circumstances.’

  Jan looked at his father. After the first moment of surprise, Adorne’s lips produced a wry smile. He said, ‘My compliments. I believed my staff-work was good, but I see yours is better. You did well.’

  ‘But you got the sulphur. Martin is a very shrewd man,’ Nicholas said. ‘Although careless. He really should have checked what had become of Anselm and Katelijne. Where is Anselm?’

  ‘I hoped you would ask,’ Adorne said. He turned in his seat, opening the conversation again to the table. He called across. ‘Jehan: Nicholas is impatient to talk to my nephew.’

  The solid cheeks of Jehan Metteneye quivered. ‘Patience! Patience! He will be here!’

  There was a ripple of laughter. Nicholas put on a complaining face. ‘There is a secret. I am excluded.’ All the eminent faces were smiling but one. Louis de Gruuthuse, conveying an unspoken message. Nicholas acknowledged it equally silently.

  Jan said, ‘He’s willing to speak to you, now you have forgiven your lady wife. You were talking of Julius, your lawyer.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Nicholas. Some of the diners had risen and were crowding round the inner door at the end of the room. He added, ‘He is coming to Bruges. You might see him.’

  ‘I hope,’ said Jan, ‘that he is bringing his new lady with him. A gräfin. Perhaps you have met her?’

  ‘He is bringing a lady,’ said Nicholas. ‘But no, I have not met her. You have?’ The doors at the end of the room were slowly opening.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jan Adorne said. ‘A vision of beauty. A little lacking in height, but the horizontal aspects more than make up for it. In fact, I have seldom seen a comparable girth outside a cheese-house. I should think he had to roll her over the Alps like a barrel, even to the danger of scratching her paint.’

  ‘Jan, that is ungallant,’ said Adorne sharply. ‘Nicholas, I am sorry. No gentleman speaks thus of a –’

  He stopped because his voice was drowned out by cheers. The doors stood open. The crowd before them fell back. Nicholas stood, and so did Jan and his father. Then Nicholas started to laugh.

  Entering the room, limping slightly, was Anselm Sersanders. His face was smiling; his dress, after the travel-worn quilting of Iceland, was stylish and rich. And by his side, two porters were trundling an object.

  It looked at first like a crate on four wheels. Then, as it stopped at the end of the table, Anselm leaned over and drew back the covering cloth. Nicholas saw that it was not a crate but a cage. A stout cage with thick iron bars, within which sat something enormous and furry and white. Sersanders put his hand through the bars and scratched the object under the chin, and the object sniffed him.

  It was a white Greenland bear. Nicholas said, ‘Há! The cub? Anselm, this is the cub? You went back for it?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Anselm Sersanders. ‘Meet the het beert je Besse gift from the White Bear Society of Bruges to the great and powerful Charles, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders and everything else. Uncle, come and shake hands.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Anselm Adorne, with amusement. But he walked over, Nicholas with him, and stood in front of the cage. Nicholas said again, ‘That’s a cub?’

  ‘Well, they’re born in winter,’ said Sersan
ders with mild irritation. Can’t cross the ice till their second year. Bears are big.’

  ‘Katelijne caught that?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘I helped her. I brought it back on my own. Well, with the Icelanders. So. Better than stockfish, do you think?’

  ‘It depends what you feed it on,’ Nicholas said. ‘Anselm, I do think that is enterprising. Where do you keep it?’

  He waited until the noise and laughter increased and the talk became general, and then made his way to where Gruuthuse stood a little apart. As Anselm Adorne was a loyal officer to the Duke, so the Gruuthuse family were one of the bastions of Burgundy. In their palace in Bruges had lived the exiled English King and his brother, before their triumphant return the previous year. In the same house, Gelis van Borselen had lain with her future husband for the first time since she seduced him in Africa. Nicholas said, ‘Something has happened?’

  Gruuthuse said, ‘You have spent a long time in Scotland.’

  ‘The winter. My army is still on the Somme, and I am here with my gunner as promised.’

  The other man’s face had always been lined, now it was more so. He said, ‘I told Duke Charles, but you should go to Arras to speak to him yourself. The King of France’s brother has died, poisoned, they say, by his order. The Duke of Brittany is preparing to march. It seems very likely that our Duke will then take the field.’

  ‘Breaking the truce?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘An oath made to a murderer is no oath. Your lady is with you?’

  ‘Gelis is well,’ Nicholas said. ‘She is in Antwerp. I shall return there tomorrow, and then report to the Duke. Are the English likely to send troops?’

  ‘They have sent them already. A thousand archers to Brittany under Earl Rivers. We may tempt them to invade France with us yet,’ Gruuthuse said. ‘There is enough land in France to please everybody.’