Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  He saw to the departure of Katelina, and returned to find the Greek talking to Arnolfini, the Lucca silk merchant, whom he could not remember having invited. Messer de’ Acciajuoli had in his hands the children’s board game, and was idly settling the pieces. They both looked up as Anselm came in, and Arnolfini and he exchanged greetings.

  The Lucchese had called, it seemed, for no particular reason. “Except,” he said, “out of regard for your selfless service. You gave of your leisure, I am told, to spare the échevins this dangerous case of the sunken gun. We are all impressed.”

  The Greek spoke gently, his gaze on the board. “Heavy fines were imposed. But the Guilds are rich.”

  “Indeed,” said Arnolfini. “Rich and solvent. I hear that payment has been made already. Before even the sentence was delivered. Who invented this very odd game?”

  “I cannot remember,” said Anselm Adorne; and was not surprised to see the Greek look up, smiling.

  Chapter 3

  THE SKY WAS blue when Katelina van Borselen left Adorne’s house with her maid, and the wind barely stirred her cut-velvet cloak. She had been home in Flanders for two days.

  The town house her father had taken in Silver Straete lay on the other side of the town. The painted canal boat of Anselm Adorne waited for her at the foot of the gardens, with three servants to care for her. She had them row her home the long way, past the convent of the Carmelites, and St Giles’ church, and the great pile of the Augustines, and the handsome church of St James, from which could be seen the towers of the Princenhof, to which the Duke of Burgundy’s bath had just been dragged with such trouble. She would not think of that, or the considering gaze of the notary Julius. She made them row her almost as far as the Friday market.

  They said Venice had bridges too, but Bruges must have a hundred: in stone with almond-eyed saints and dulled gilding; in wood, with treacled timbers and bosses of greenery. The roads were thronged but the river, split and skeined and channelled everywhere, was the highway where boats passed gunwale to gunwale, hooded, laden, crammed with bags and boxes and beasts and baskets and people: with nuns and officials, merchant-burghers and aliens, churchmen, consuls and innkeepers, and masters of ships laid up at Sluys, who skimmed past in their skiffs on the stretches, sloping their masts to slide under the glittering arches.

  And on either side passed the crooked banks of tiled houses, drunkenly cobbled with crazy windows and flower-pot balconies and roofs fluted like pastry-crust. Their feet, their watergates, their warehouse doors were set in the canal. Their boat-steps led up to small secret gardens whose roses still tumbled over the wall, and swayed to the draught of a passing boat, and posted their mingled scents after it.

  The van Borselens were Zeelanders, but Katelina understood how it felt to be a Bruges townsman.

  Edinburgh was grey stone and grey, silvered wood and every roadway was vertical. Bruges was flat. Bruges was speckled warm brick, its roads cloistered with towered mansions and palaces and tall houses, laddered with windows, where the businessmen lived. Bruges was the multiple voice of working water; and the quality of brick-thrown echoes, and the hiss of trees and the flap of drying cloths in the flat-country wind, and the grunting, like frogs in a marsh, of quires of crucified clothes, left to vibrate in the fields of the tenters. Bruges was the cawing scream of the gulls, and the bell-calls.

  Bells rang from all the towers in Edinburgh, but a Bruges man was born to the beat of the womb and the belfry-hours. The work bell four times a day, when mothers rescued their young from the feet of the weavers. The watch bell. The great bell for war, or for princes, that you could hear from the poop-decks in Damme. The marriage bell. She would not think of that either. She had come back from Scotland in disgrace, having refused the lord whom her father had picked out for her. No one did that. A daughter’s duty was to marry as her family’s fortune directed, and her father had no sons. So now she had only two choices. The cloister, or a marriage to someone else of her father’s choosing. And she knew who the likeliest suitor would be.

  Simon, heir to Kilmirren had not so far declared himself. Back in Scotland, she had attended the Queen wherever the court might find itself, and that was not always in Edinburgh, where Simon’s uncle kept a town house, and where he did all his business. She knew all about Simon for several reasons. His sister Lucia had been maid of honour in her time to two Scots princesses, one married to France and the other to Katelina’s cousin Wolfaert.

  A child then herself, Katelina did not remember her. In any case, Lucia had very soon left, betrothed to her Portuguese nobleman. But gossip about Lucia’s brother, the handsome blond Simon, had entertained the Borselens for a long time after that. So Katelina knew that he had had a wild youth in France, and had been sent home in disgrace to his uncle, the head of the family. She had met Alan, lord of Kilmirren. A mean and slow-witted man, comfortable with the gun-masters who were his gossips and ambitious for nothing more than an easy life, he was not the man, clearly, to handle someone like Simon.

  It had been left to the family steward, she heard, to take Simon in hand. For five years, they said, he had resisted every effort to tame him, and had made what splash he could with his French dress and manners, on the small income his uncle allowed him. What had changed his mind one could only guess. The need for money, Katelina suspected. The steward died, and Simon took over. By the time Katelina came to Scotland, Simon was steward of his uncle’s lands in Kilmirren and Dunbar: a reasonably rich man with a flair, intermittently exercised, for ideas and management, who earned enough for his needs, and employed a factor for business that bored him.

  He enjoyed, she knew, a roving courtier’s rôle in Scotland and Flanders, but had been careful to shackle himself with no public offices. He had no wife, and they said he was a libertine. This appeared to be true. On the other hand, the uncle was childless, and Simon himself was an only son. One day, Kilmirren would be his, and he must therefore marry. She had known as much during her Scottish stay, but then she had been intended for someone else and had neither looked at Simon, nor he at her. During the ship journey south she had been too wretched, too apprehensive to want anyone’s company. Pride had come into it, too. To reject her father’s choice and to appear to hanker instead after the exquisite Simon would be less than dignified. Especially as the exquisite Simon might fail to offer her marriage.

  When, in the latter days of the sail she had allowed him to come near her, it was plain that he wished to attract her and, perhaps intrigued by her withdrawal, was to some degree attracted himself. By the time they landed at Sluys, she knew he had made up his mind to try for a conquest.

  She did not show that she was flattered. If he offered for her, her father would approve. So, presumably, would Simon’s uncle, and Simon’s estranged father, if he were ever asked. There was money and land and a minor seigneurial title. Of the several young men whose parents had shown an interest in her, he was the most eligible. Outside, that is, the lord she had refused. The lord she had refused had been forty years older, and vicious. Simon the nephew of Kilmirren was physically qualified to endear himself to any girl living. She was not widely travelled, but she at least had never met any man with his looks. Why then did women of all classes (they said) make him free of their beds, but never marry him? Why did he never marry them? Of one thing she was sure. Without marriage, he would never have her. Whether she wanted him with marriage was something she did not yet know.

  Katelina van Borselen entered her father’s house thoughtfully, and prepared to receive her father’s guests with composure.

  Felix de Charetty and Claes his shadow spent the afternoon lying on the grass by the Waterhuus, with those of their friends who had an excuse to escape work.

  Felix had no excuse, having been told quite distinctly by a tight-lipped Julius to get back to the dye-shop and stay there. But Julius had been waylaid by a group of men wishing to talk about rabbits, and Felix had made his escape, dragging Claes with him. Retribution would come when hi
s mother arrived from Lou vain, as she undoubtedly would. He was unconcerned. Felix had little interest in people who worked for a living, although sometimes his friends swore they saw old Cornelis over his shoulder, when he drove a sudden, sharp bargain over a trifle. One of the reasons he liked Claes was that he had no possessions.

  The group on the grass were talking a mixture of languages, because they were mostly the young of the trading community. Among them was Anselm Sersanders, Adorne’s nephew, and John Bonkle, the source of the worst of their English vocabulary, and one of the Cants. Also, Lorenzo Strozzi was there, feeling miserable. They did what they could to relieve his misery and, indeed, it became quite a strenuous afternoon. It was almost over when Strozzi happened to mention the gathering taking place in Florence van Borselen’s house, and the fact that he and Tommaso had been invited.

  Felix’s hair was uncurled again under the high blocked and brimmed hat he had been made to put on by Julius, and the bag-sleeves of his sober doublet were wet to the elbows, but his energy had not diminished. “Go!” he said. “Lorenzo, you must fetch Tommaso and go!”

  “Felix wants to know what Simon is wearing,” said Claes.

  “Tommaso won’t go for you and Claes,” said Lorenzo nastily. “You know how he hates the way Claes copies him flashing his rings.”

  “It may stop him from flashing his rings,” said Sersanders. “Anyway, Tommaso will go, if van Borselen invites him.”

  “Of course,” said Lorenzo. “Tommaso has only been invited because the manager of the Bruges branch of the Medici bank is away on business, and they have to make do with the assistant manager. I have only been invited because the head of the Bruges branch of the Strozzi company is also away, but at least the manager is my father’s cousin, so they may be sure I will know how to drink wine without spilling it. I am not going. I don’t need to go. They are Flemish pudding-makers.”

  “Say that again,” said Felix. He took his hat off.

  John and Anselm, on either side, changed position discreetly so that either could get hold of his dagger arm. Claes said, “Felix doesn’t like the young Borselen lady. He kicked her headdress into the water.”

  The glare in Felix’s eyes was replaced by a look of normal exasperation. His shoulders slackened. He said, “I told you. You shouldn’t have jumped in after it. But Lorenzo shouldn’t –”

  “Lorenzo’s brother is sick in Naples, and he is worried,” said Sersanders.

  “Lorenzo misses Spain,” said John Bonkle. “Imagine being sent to Spain at thirteen. All those black serving-girls and the climate. Felix, why not a branch of the Charetty in Spain? You would be agent, and we’d all come and help you. You could leave Julius behind with your mother.”

  Felix flushed. To compare the Charetty to a great house with branches all over Europe was a compliment. He said, “Oh, I would take Julius. He’s a good man.”

  “And me?” said Claes. His hair had got damp and had risen up, as it always did, into a dun-coloured floss. He was, with reason, lying on his face, as yet unaware that Felix had untied the waist-bows attaching his hose to his pourpoint.

  “You?” said Lorenzo. “You would have half Christian Spain and half Muslim Spain breeding before a month had gone by.”

  “I’ll stay in Bruges, then,” said Claes. “Lorenzo, why did Felix want you to go to the van Borselen’s?”

  They all looked at Felix.

  “He doesn’t dislike the girl after all: he fancies her,” John Bonkle said. “Go on. That’s why, isn’t it?”

  Felix grinned blandly. In fact, he wanted to know what Simon was wearing. And he found out, too, because Lorenzo, aware of having tried his friends’ patience, did walk round to the Strozzi residence in Ridder Straete and, having put on dry clothes, presented himself with Tommaso Portinari at the house of van Borselen and his daughter Katelina.

  In Silver Straete, men and their wives had called all afternoon to pay their respects to the lady Katelina, newly returned (unmarried) from Scotland. Her child sister Gelis watched them, counted them, and informed Katelina, sometimes hardly out of earshot, which of the ladies was pregnant, and by whom.

  The reception was held in the garden, a modest paved plot set about with handsome tubs and small trees and a fountain. There was also a cushioned stone bench, upon which Bishop Kennedy of Scotland had been placed, with his agent attending behind him.

  It was, of course, a gathering of those who held Scotland in favour, since Wolfaert van Borselen was married to the Scottish king’s sister. The prime topic, indeed, was the overturning of the Mons cannon Mad Martha, which was universally deplored, and not least by the French wine importers. No one hinted that, if the Scots bombarded England, England would find it hard to spare troops to invade France, which would please Bishop Kennedy and benefit the English king, Henry the Sixth. No one mentioned that a number of fugitive English who did not approve of King Henry were at that moment conspiring to cross into England and take the monarch into courteous custody, with the white rose as one of their emblems. No one mentioned the heir to France, the Dauphin, at all.

  They talked about Madeira sugar and pepper prices. They discussed salted salmon and answered Bishop Kennedy’s questions about exports of good slate and quarry-stone. They touched, politely and warily, on the sensitive subject of ship insurance. The conversation, studded with pitfalls, ambiguities and unexpected fragments of news, was of a rare fascination, so long as you were a merchant.

  Katelina saw her possible future husband Simon on the other side of the room, toying with his smart dog, and taking no part in these useful exchanges at all.

  She wondered if he lacked an instinct for business. She wondered, since he glanced at her from time to time, whether he was impatient for other reasons. She noticed that Tommaso Portinari, the young Florentine from the bank of the Medici, was talking more than suited his elders. She noticed that his companion, the sulky young Strozzi boy, appeared more interested in Simon’s garments than in the good Scottish Bishop’s opinions.

  Simon, of course, was as always worth looking at, with his brief, cinch-belted tunic, his broad padded shoulders and the tall, roll-brimmed hat on the neat, razored bulk of his hair. His chin was smooth as blond wood, and looked unyielding. Once committed to something (look at the way he had spotted these stupid young men at Damme) he could be obstinate.

  But there were muscles, too, under the padding. In Scotland, he had jousted frequently, and successfully. It was how he made his superior conquests among the high-born widows and neglected wives watching. If he had bastards, she had never heard of them.

  She talked to everyone: Jacques Doria, Richard Wylie, Sandy Napier. Mick Losschaert had just got out himself from Constantinople, and knew the Greek Acciajuoli family. Bitter and yellow-skinned still with privation, he was not slow to disparage them. Jumped-up Florentines who had reached Greece through Naples, and founded a line of Athenian princes. There were still Acciajuoli in Florence. Medici men.

  He begged leave to doubt, said Mick Losschaert, whether Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli really expected the combined fleets of Christendom to sweep through the Middle Sea and destroy the Sultan Mehmet of Turkey. He rather thought, said Losschaert, that all Messer Nicholai Giorgio had in mind was to pay the ransom of his brother Bartolomeo, so that Bartolomeo could continue trading in silks with the Sultan. He wondered aloud where the money was, that had been collected for Acciajuoli in Scotland; and who was to have the pleasure of transferring it.

  A certain constraint fell on the company, and the Bishop’s breath whistled. Five feet eight inches in his sandals, he had the lean, folded face and balding head of a man much over his true age of fifty. On shipboard, Katelina had learned not to underestimate him. When he spoke, you saw the thrusting eyebrows and jaw of a lively, muscular man who was at least agile still in mind and debate.

  Now he shot a glance up at Losschaert from where he sat on his bench and said, “I miss my guess if my cousin James, King of Scotland asked his people for gol
d so that a silk merchant in Constantinople could resume his trade. Or those worthy men – you must have heard the names, they are famous – who came to Mantua from the East to beseech the Pope weeping for help?”

  “My lord Bishop, you misunderstand,” Losschaert said quickly. “I meant merely that there are many interests at stake in time of war as well as time of peace between the eastern world and the west. With single supplicants it is wise to be careful. Where the whole Christian church of the East asks for the friendship and succour of Rome, it is a different matter.”

  Tommaso Portinari, Katelina saw, had accepted a goblet of wine and joined the fringe of the discussion. The Bishop’s eyes moved to him. The Bishop said, “Well, if you have doubts about the money collected for Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli, I fancy you had better express them. The sum was entrusted to me to bring to Bruges, and I have placed it in the good hands of Messer Tommaso here. From Bruges, I understand, it will be transmitted to the Medici branch at Milan, who in turn will transfer it to Venice. From Venice, after due negotiation with the Turk, it will be taken in appropriate form to Constantinople, and there exchanged for Messer Nicholai’s brother. Am I right, mynheere Tommaso?”

  “It is so, my lord,” said Portinari. He wore melon sleeves and a low-crowned beaver hat and had rings on most of his fingers, which were white and fine. The rings were not very expensive: he was only under-manager. Tommaso Portinari had come to the bank as a twelve-year-old. Katelina had known him all her life, as had everyone else. Hence his need to impress.

  He said, “The bank is much engaged in arranging Christian ransoms, as Monseigneur knows. Our Rome branch does little else.” He spoke Italian’s Flemish tinged with other accents, of which English was one. Only that morning, Katelina realised, she had heard someone imitate him. She frowned, remembering.

  Tommaso, seizing his chance, was continuing. “Mynheere Losschaert is not, perhaps, aware of the trust the Curia place in my company. Naturally, for the remittance of money. My lord Bishop brings us fees accruing from new Church appointments, and we transmit these to Rome. But we are agents for other things also. I am at this moment sending three suits of tapestry overland to one of the Cardinals.”