An Interrupted Tapestry

by Madeline Hunter

  He peered now and saw the small blue dot moving on the lane alongside the house next to his. Giselle’s stride spoke of her indignation even at this distance. He watched as she turned onto a lane parallel to his, and he waited each time she disappeared behind a house for her to show again.

  It had been a surprise to see her in the hall. A wonderful surprise. It had been all he could do not to drag Signore Alberti out to his horse and send him off at once.

  He smiled ruefully at his reaction. So much for time dulling a youthful fascination.

  Giselle’s tiny figure finally became obscured. Andreas pictured her entering the house that her brother could no longer afford to maintain, and moving around the furnishings that were remnants of a life much grander than they now lived. On the wall across from the hearth the silk tapestry would be hanging, a banner of Giselle’s belief that their lost nobility would one day be restored.

  Every year that passed made that less likely. Andreas knew their current situation very well. He might have ceased visiting that house, but he had never lost sight of Giselle.

  He fixed his gaze on a spot of distant garden visible between the edges of two buildings. He waited for the blue dot to appear there. The wind was right, and if she played her lute he would hear it today.

  “Did Signore Alberti still appear amenable?”

  Andreas glanced back to his youngest brother, who also served as his clerk and assistant. Stefan was meticulously unpacking parchments from a wooden chest. “Yes, he did, Stefan.”

  “It will be a great alliance, and I hear that his daughter is most lovely.”

  “So it is said.”

  “It is an ambitious plan for you to attempt to join the power of the Hanse with that of Venice.”

  It was ambitious, but if it worked his family and the Alberti would form a trading network more vast than any ever known. The entire world, from Eire to the Far East, would know their names.

  He had first gotten a glimmer of the possibilities of this union when he was no more than a youth. With the death of his father, who did not trust Venetians, he had begun considering it more seriously. When his wife passed away three years ago, the means to achieve it had been placed in his hands. Signore Alberti was also an ambitious man, but would only form the alliance if the head of Andreas’s family bound himself, literally, to the Alberti and Venice.

  “Some say it is too bold and contrary to tradition,” Stefan said.

  “Tradition can be a cage. If some men do not reach between the bars, nothing ever changes.”

  Andreas kept his sight on that bit of garden, waiting, suddenly not caring much about Signore Alberti and this bold, ambitious dream.

  When he had seen Giselle in the hall, he had briefly, stupidly, let himself think that she had understood after all. That she had come because she understood. He had assumed that they would talk of it, finally, and—and what? He wasn’t really sure.

  Instead, she had been distant and officious and spoken only of money and loans. He had barely contained his disappointment and sense of insult. In his vexation, he had given back what he got.

  He had imagined a reunion with her many times, but never the one that they had just had.

  “Should I be drawing up a preliminary contract?” Stefan asked. “Obviously, there will be many changes and negotiations, but if we make the first document it will be to your advantage.”

  “Yes, you should probably do that.”

  He pictured her sitting in his hall, the sunlight glowing off the coppery tones of her deep red hair. She had been so close and so beautiful that it made him ache. She had appeared unsettled and embarrassed, and he had thought—well, he had thought wrong.

  Of course he had. He had never revealed his hunger for her. Until today. That had been clumsy and hard and an impulsive reaction to her haughty manner.

  He kept watching for her, regretting what he had said, how he had said it, and how he had treated the whole episode.

  Finally, the blue dot appeared. It sat on a bench under a tree. Moments later, the vague trickling of a lute’s notes rose and receded on the capricious breeze.

  Images of their meeting moved through his mind. He forced himself to see them without the rancor he had felt in the hall.

  If she had come to him at all, she must need the money very badly. If she had offered to sell the tapestry, she must be desperate.

  “Stefan, carry a message to Alberti. Tell him that a sudden matter of trade means that I cannot visit him tomorrow, but that I will contact him when I am again available, and well before the galley leaves.”

  “Are you sure? He might misunderstand.”

  “Bring the amber and gold necklace I bought in Novgorod. Say it is for his daughter. He will know its value and will not misunderstand. Beneath all of his silk and Venetian superiority, he is a merchant.”

  Two

  Shortly after dawn the next day, Andreas walked down the lane toward Giselle’s house. Tucked in his tunic were the pledges that Reginald had made. They were his excuse to go and see her, but he hoped that they would speak of other things.

  It had been years since he had trod this street, but the old emotions assaulted him all the same, like spiritual echoes from his youth. The joy and expectation. The promise of peace and serenity. As a young man he only visited London for several months in any year, but the walks from the docks to this house had been full of anticipation, such as a man feels when returning home.

  Peace and serenity did not wait for him this time. Noise and confusion poured out of Giselle’s home. Neighbors loitered by their doors and hung out windows to watch the spectacle unfolding on her doorstep.

  As Andreas walked toward the disturbance, two local tailors passed him, carrying a long, heavy bench. With an adroit step, he blocked their path.

  “Why are you taking that?”

  The men set down their burden. One pulled a tally out of his tunic. “There’s four rich garments Reginald owes us for. This is hardly compensation, but one gets what one can at such times.”

  Andreas looked down the lane to Giselle’s house. A crowd of merchants and craftsmen surrounded the entrance, pushing and jostling to get in.

  “Return the bench,” he said.

  “We are within our rights.”

  “That remains to be seen. Return the bench, or no member of the Hanse will patronize your shop.”

  Andreas continued to the house. The tailors began shuffling after him, hauling the bench back.

  He waited patiently at the edge of the crowd. Eventually, he was noticed. Men moved aside. Some did because they knew him and wanted to stay in his good graces. Others did, he knew, because of his garments and size. London was a city that respected wealth and strength, in that order.

  He stepped into the crowded hall. An amazing sight waited for him.

  Waving tallies and pledges, men shouted demands for payment. Others had taken matters into their own hands and were stripping the house of its possessions. Loud thumps on the stairs heralded a bed board being dragged down from an upper chamber. Two merchants of high standing were bickering over the few pieces of silver plate propped on a high shelf.

  Giselle stood near the wall that displayed the silk tapestry, looking like a warrior maiden from the old myths. Her red hair streamed down her body, and her blue eyes flared a deadly challenge. She clasped her brother’s sword high by her shoulder, ready to bring it down on any man who approached.

  Andreas walked over to her. “Do you plan to kill them all?”

  “Only the ones who try to steal what is mine.”

  “What has caused this?”

  “They claim to have tallies from Reginald.”

  “Your brother has been leaving such things with merchants for years. Why are they all here to collect today?”

  She kept her fierce gaze on a knot of men who were waiting for her to weary so they could claim the prize that she guarded. “My brother has disappeared. His long absence has been noticed.”

  Tha
t would do it. Fearing no payment at all, every tradesman to whom Reginald owed money would try to grab something before nothing was left. Since Reginald had been liberal in his pledges and miserly in his payments, half of London would arrive before evening.

  Andreas stepped between Giselle and the agitated merchants. They all immediately shifted their attention from her to him.

  Reaching into his tunic, he retrieved a stack of parchments and held them high.

  “I have pledges from the owner of this property that are more than four years in the waiting. If any man has an older claim, present it now. Otherwise, mine take precedence, and I doubt that there is anything in this house that these parchments do not cover.”

  An outburst of objections greeted his announcement. He threw the pledges on the hall’s long table and allowed the others to paw through them to check his claims. A few men held older documents, and Andreas spent the next hour negotiating which of the house’s furnishings they could take in payment.

  Finally, the little swarm drifted away. Andreas watched as the long bench departed once again, only this time with two representatives of the Templars. Their claim had not been older than his, but a wise man did not argue such details with those particular money lenders.

  A hollow silence fell on the house. Andreas gazed around the hall where he had spent many contented days as a young man. He had served as his father’s clerk, just as Stefan now served as his, and his father had insisted that he take his board at an English home when trading brought them here. On his first visit he had met Reginald at a tavern, and decided that living with a young nobleman would be more fun than staying with an old merchant. It had been a good way to learn the language and the customs and to form friendships based on more than coin.

  There were objects missing from the house that had not been taken today. Over the last four years, many things had been sold. Barely enough remained to give the impression of aristocratic status.

  The tapestry made all the difference. It was a hanging such as a king might own. Covered with vines and flowers and woven of red and gold silken threads, it glowed on its wall. Even its flaw, where a subtle change in colors indicated the weaving had been interrupted near the top, did not detract from its glory.

  He remembered Giselle telling him the story behind that interruption. Supposedly, the woman who made it had been given in marriage to a man she did not love, and thus had been separated for years from the man she wanted. Later, when the first husband died, she had returned to both the weaving and the lover of her youth.

  Giselle still stood in front of the tapestry, and her eyes still blazed. Now the anger was directed at only one person. Him.

  She let the sword fall. It clattered to the plank floor as she bore down on the table. One by one, she lifted the pledges and examined them. As the last fell from her hand, she shot him a look of scathing disdain.

  “Damn you, Andreas.”

  She could not believe her brother’s recklessness. She had known that he borrowed money, but he had never told her how precarious their situation was.

  She stared in fury at the pledges Andreas had brought.

  The loans had been made in the customary way. Reginald had sold items at one price and promised to buy them back at a higher one. If the surety was not rebought, it was forfeit.

  Andreas owned everything. The furniture. The house itself. Reginald had even pledged their father’s ring. One parchment indeed included her tapestry.

  “I thought you were his friend.” She grabbed some pledges and threw them at him. They floated through the air. “A friend does not do this. A friend does not lure a man onto the path to ruin.”

  “I lured him nowhere.”

  “You had him join you in that first scheme. You showed him the riches to be gained. You—”

  “He begged to be included in that trading venture, and he saw good profit. If he had not gotten greedy and assumed that he was shrewder than any other man, if he had known his limitations in such things and not decided to instigate his own plans—”

  “His ideas were good. Bad luck haunted him, that is all.”

  “There is always the chance of bad luck. Reginald never thought of the risks and was too quick to gamble everything. He had no head for trade. I told him that, Giselle, many times.”

  “Did you tell him that as he signed away this house to you? My father’s ring?”

  He just looked at her, completely unmoved.

  She forced some composure on her livid indignation. Reginald had left her in a dreadful place. She needed coin for his sake, and now she had discovered that she possessed almost nothing to sell in order to get it.

  “There is the property in Sussex at least,” she muttered, more to herself than Andreas.

  “He sold that. Years ago.”

  Her breath left her. She thought she would faint. That poor farm had been the only land left to them after their father was disseised for joining Simon de Montfort’s rebellion. It had been Reginald’s hold on the past, just as the tapestry had been hers.

  What had her brother been thinking?

  She knew the answer to that. He had explained it often enough. Just one big success was all it would take. One investment in one major trading venture and they would have the wealth and the means to reestablish themselves.

  Only the grand plans always hit snags. Bad weather, bad timing, bad goods—bad luck, as Reginald would later explain.

  She sank down on the bench beside the table. The only bench, since the other had been taken by the Templars. Discouragement spread from her heart to her whole being, making her unbearably weary.

  “So, you have come with your pledges, too, Andreas. Just like the other vultures. You are a shrewd merchant indeed to make these loans to my brother. It is all yours. I will arrange to vacate the house by evening.”

  “If my goal had been to see you homeless, I would have taken the property years ago. I do not require that you leave this house.”

  “I will not accept anyone’s charity. I will not be an object of pity.”

  “It is not charity to receive help from a friend.”

  She glanced at the pledges littering the floor. “I can see the sort of help that you give friends.”

  He bent down and collected the parchments. “I broke with your brother for good reason. That my friendship with you ended, too, was an unfortunate consequence. You came asking for my help yesterday, so there is no reason to refuse it today.”

  He sat beside her on the bench. He set the pledges aside in a neat stack. “As to these debts, we will find a way to settle them that does not leave you impoverished.”

  Her gaze snapped to the strong hand resting atop the pledges. Her spirit jolted out of its numbness. She instantly became very aware of his size and masculinity. His presence warmed her shoulder. It seemed as though she could feel his breath on her hair.

  “Have you come to buy the tapestry?”

  “I will not buy it, nor is it yours to sell. We will find another way.”

  She had no other way. She had nothing else of value to give him. Except, as she had said at their meeting yesterday, her virtue.

  She remembered his response to that. That must be the other way he alluded to.

  She stared at the table, mortified. Not only by the implications, but also by the fact that the notion did not entirely disgust her.

  That dismayed her. She could not look at him.

  “You used to offer me ale as soon as I entered this house, Giselle. Am I no longer worthy of your hospitality?”

  He spoke quietly, in the voice that she knew from their past. A strange excitement thickened her throat, and she had difficulty responding.

  “Those men drank the ale and ate what food was here. I have nothing to offer you.”

  She felt his attention on her, as if he studied her very closely. It made the odd spell he cast get heavier.

  “Then let us go to the tavern at the crossroads. We can discuss your situation while we have some food
and drink.”

  She agreed with relief. She wanted to have other people around, and the tavern would be crowded. Maybe if they sat across from each other at a table, instead of side-by-side like this, almost touching, she would not find herself so confused and alert, as if a hidden part of her was waiting for something to happen.

  The serving girl brought tumblers of ale and a stack of small meat pies. Giselle eyed the food with the greedy glint of someone who had not eaten her fill in a long time.

  Andreas subtly pushed the pies toward her. He turned his gaze on the noisy men at the next table so that she would not be embarrassed by having him notice her hunger.

  It knotted his heart to see that glint. She was his lady, and he did not like seeing her suffering such base needs.

  He would kill Reginald this time.

  He knew when the pies had dulled the worst of it. He turned his attention back to her just as she brushed her hands of crumbs.

  “You are enjoying your visit to London, Andreas? It has been profitable?”

  “Profitable enough.”

  “Your reserve always masked deeper thoughts, and I can see that has not changed. That was a Venetian merchant at your house yesterday, wasn’t it?”

  “I often trade with them.”

  She smiled slyly. “Do you plan a very special trade this time?”

  He did not respond to that.

  “Always quiet. Always discreet. That is you, Andreas. I remember you once telling me of your ideas about the Hanse and Venice. So, now you have built your family’s power enough to make it true. It sounded like a boy’s mad dream, but maybe I always knew that you would make it happen.”

  Her courteous banter irritated him. He did not want to talk about this. “Where is your brother?”

  Her face fell, and she hesitated before answering. “I do not know. He has left before. Normally, he tells me where he is going, but he did not this time. It has been ten days.”