Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  “Monsignore,” said Claes. Two lines had appeared on the untroubled brow.

  “Yes?” said the Greek.

  “I thought I would be out by mid-morning. They let you out after a beating.”

  “Are you complaining?” said Acciajuoli. “By offering money, your master the notary has spared you a second beating so soon after the first.” He paused. “Or did you have another assignation?”

  Behind the bars, the brow cleared. “That’s it,” said Claes. “And my friends have left. And if I know him, Meester Julius won’t let Felix come and see me. And – I don’t suppose, monsignore, I could trouble you to convey a message to Felix de Charetty?”

  Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli, of a race of Athenian princes, who had merely paused from curiosity on his way from Messer Adorne’s house to a pleasant rendezvous in a tavern, was moved to laugh. He said, “In Greek? I very much doubt if it would be possible. In any case, why should I?” He might have agreed, so clear was the boy’s smile.

  “Because you stopped,” said Claes.

  Messer de’ Acciajuoli paused. His feelings at that moment were of a sort that Julius would have recognised. He said eventually, “And what would be the message?”

  “Tell him not to do it,” said the apprentice simply.

  “Tell him not to do it,” repeated the Greek. “And what is he not to do?”

  “What he is doing,” said Claes. “He’ll know.”

  “Presumably he will,” said Messer de’ Acciajuoli. “But I am going to the market-place to join my good friend Anselm Adorne after his magistrates’ meeting. I have no idea where to find the shop of the Charetty.”

  “Monsignore, there is no difficulty,” said Claes. “Felix will be with Meester Julius in the Two Tablets – in the same tavern after the fine is paid. The magistrates meet upstairs to consider these cases. I hear that Turks are damned souls and drink nothing.”

  It was time to go. “Some of them drink,” the Greek said. “But I don’t know if you could consider them saved as a consequence. I can make you no promise, young fellow. If I see your young friend, I shall tell him.”

  The great smile returned. “Monsignore,” said Claes. “Tell me, if any day I may do you a favour.”

  The Greek laughed. Afterwards, he remembered laughing.

  If the angriest man in Bruges that day was the Scots nobleman Simon, the next was Julius, the Charetty notary.

  By noon, of course, the news of Claes’ folly was all round the town. Of the repercussions in Silver Straete, where Florence van Borselen heard an uncensored account with some disappointment, and his daughter a censored one with contemptuous laughter, Julius knew nothing.

  He learned, as everyone did, that the town had taken advice, quietly, of the officials involved, and was not proceeding against anybody. It was assumed that the injured Metteneye family would complain to the long-suffering Charetty family about the conduct of its apprentices, and restitution would be made. The owner of the scavengers’ boat had been content with the price of an alepot.

  The man Simon had lodged a formal complaint about the death of his dog, and Julius had just finished another unpleasant interview with Meester Adorne and two magistrates in which Claes’ liability had been defined in terms of large sums of money.

  If the final amount to be paid by the Charetty company to the Scots merchant was less than it might have been, they had the Scots bishop to thank. From his residence with the Carmelites, Bishop Kennedy had disclosed his disapproval of unseemly night brawling. My lord Simon had lost a fine dog, but he had himself at least partly to blame. Compensation was due, but not prodigal compensation. He trusted his good friends of Bruges to see to it.

  Breathing hard, Meester Julius crashed downstairs to the public room of the Two Tablets of Moses after that interview and threw himself on to the tavern bench occupied by Felix, who had collected round him a number of unreliable friends such as the Bonkle boy and Adorne’s nephew Anselm Sersanders and the Strozzi under-manager Lorenzo, who seemed to spend such a lot of time, looking discontented, away from his employer’s business.

  Someone said, “Aha! The party of dog-lovers. Julius, my little friend, your mistress is on her way to chastise you. Stick to ink and parchment and numbers, my dear. It takes men to control men.”

  It was the voice of one of the most tiresome Frenchmen in Bruges. Lionetto the condottiere was sitting at the next table with the bald-headed doctor Tobias and all his other friends round him. Tobias was drunk, and so was Lionetto. In Italy and in Geneva, Julius had seen enough of drunk mercenary captains to know at least how not to handle them. He said, “Do you want Claes? Take him.”

  Lionetto gave a long laugh, which emerged in two phases with a central intermission. He was one of the few mercenaries Julius knew who looked not only low-born but proud of it. But that might have been the red hair, too coarse to curl, which brushed his shoulders, and the pock-mottled skin and ripe nose. He had a chain over his doublet with rubies in it. Or glass maybe. But the gold of the thick links was genuine.

  Recovering, Lionetto said, “Pay me and I’ll take him, if you’re afraid of the widow. Hey, Felix! Your mother’s coming, you know? Get your backside stripped off for the horsewhip! You too, Julius! Hey?”

  Beside him the doctor, grinning, let his elbow slip off the table and knocked over Lionetto’s full tankard. Lionetto, cursing, smacked the doctor over the head and then, leaning forward, ripped off one of the man’s stained black sleeves and mopped up his splattered hose with it. The doctor looked annoyed. Lionetto shouted.

  “Julius, my little man! Give me your naughty dog-killer and I’ll give you a sot of a physician in exchange for him! One pint of Gascon wine, and he’ll abort you quintuplets. That is, if you could ever get quintuplets between you. You’ve only got one man at the Charetty, and he’s your fornicating apprentice!” Lionetto frothed. “Claes’d have your mother under him if she wasn’t too old.”

  Felix missed it, thank God. There was only one sort of man who could handle Lionetto, and that was another condottiere. Wait, Julius thought, fuming. Just wait till Astorre gets to Bruges with the demoiselle. Then we’ll see about horsewhips. He saw Lionetto open his mouth and steeled himself to do something about it, and then didn’t have to. Everyone quietened. Everyone looked at the stairs. From above, solemn in their long gowns, the magistrates were descending to take their customary refreshment in the common room. Anselm Adorne was among them.

  And as they seated themselves, and talk began to resume, a second interruption caused it to wane again. The tavern door opened, and in walked the Greek with the wooden leg. The one who was begging gold to ransom his brother. Acciajuoli, that was the name.

  Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli looked around, smiled at Meester Adorne who was signalling to him, and crossed steadily to where Julius and his assorted juniors were sitting. He was looking at Felix.

  Lionetto’s attack, surprisingly, had not upset Felix. Felix was subdued today. Or rather, that flattered him. Felix was quietly sullen. Sullen to Julius, that is. To his friends he turned a different face. Coming downstairs, Julius knew he had heard the wheeze of suppressed laughter. Julius had just spent an hour making feeble excuses to magistrates. If you weren’t the company notary, last night’s escapade no doubt appeared side-splitting.

  The face Felix turned to the Greek was therefore half hostile and half expectant. This was a house-guest of Anselm Adorne. He was going to be censorious, and Felix was going to be impertinent. Julius could see it coming.

  The Greek said, “Messer Felix, I have a message from your friend Claes, who is in the Steen.”

  He spoke in very clear Greek. Julius, disciple of Bessarion, understood him. On his feet before Felix could speak, Julius said, “Monsignore … I thought he was released.”

  The Greek sighed. “Perhaps so,” he said. “It was early this morning. I should have delivered it then, but I was overtaken with affairs. Is it too late?”

  Belatedly, Felix stood up beside Julius. “T
oo late for what?” he said.

  “Felix,” said Julius. He turned to Messer de’ Acciajuoli. “Forgive us. Please tell us what Claes has said. It was generous of you to trouble.”

  “It was no trouble,” said the Greek kindly. “And a very shor message. He requires you, Messer Felix, not to do something.”

  “What?” said Julius.

  “What?” said Felix rather differently.

  The Greek smiled. “That is all. He said you would know what he meant. Forgive me.” And smiling again, he turned with care, and made towards the table of Anselm Adorne and the magistrates. Felix remained on his feet.

  “Felix?” said Julius.

  The Bonkle boy tugged Felix’s tunic and he sat down.

  “Felix?” said Julius again, really sharply.

  Under his breath, the Sersanders boy said, “I told you.”

  “Well,” said Felix angrily.

  The Sersanders boy said, “I told you Claes was in trouble enough.”

  Julius stared at him, and then at Felix, and then at John Bonkle, who wouldn’t meet his eye. He said, “Oh my God, what has he done now?”

  By then, other people could have told him.

  In the pleasant little garden of the van Borselens the fountain, playing gently while the family took the air, chatting, suddenly became possessed of Satan and thrust its jets hissing into the air, to fall drenching across my lord’s head and into my lady Katelina’s satin skirts.

  In the yard of the Jerusalem Church the well overflowed into the piles of newly-mixed mortar, spreading its white sticky porridge over and into the timber stacks, and the feet of the masons and carpenters who were adding the latest improvement to Anselm Adorne’s splendid church.

  In the egg-market, the casing shot off a water-pump and frightened a goat, which broke its tether and demolished three stalls of eggs until someone caught it.

  The waterpipe running under Winesack Street sprang a leak under uncommon pressure and the water, rising, found its way into two cellars and the bath-house, where it put out the boilers, injected the bathwater with a stream of noisome brown liquid and nearly choked the proprietor, the porter and the clients with a surfeit of steam.

  The barbers’ bloodpit, sharply diluted, overflowed. Joining the rivulet from a parting pump joint, the stream moved into the Grand Market and towards the wheels of the Great Crane. This, powered by two running men, each treading the curve of his wheel, was currently raising a net bearing two tuns of Spanish White, two chests of soap and a small cask of saffron.

  By bad luck the water reached the Crane from behind, striking the wheels at a time when they were spinning hard in the opposite direction. The effect was to halt the spin suddenly, pitching each running man severely forward to the hurt of his features. The twin hooks, almost wound to the height of the Crane, then unwound even more quickly, dropping the Spanish White, the soap and the saffron and breaking every container.

  Rivers of gold, rivers of white, rivers of scarlet and a scum of expensive bubbles made their way over the square and began to spread, pervasively, under the double doors of the Inn of the Two Tablets of Moses, while far across the town, at the Waterhuus, an exhausted horse drooped, a wheel of cock-eyed buckets jerked and creaked to a crawl and the level of the town cistern began, blessedly, to lower at last.

  They stemmed the flood under the inn door with brooms, and then swept a path outside so that the magistrates could emerge and survey the novel carnival aspect of the market-place. The magistrates were about to emerge when Claes slid hastily in, followed closely by a trail of yellow footprints.

  Halfway to Felix he slowed, becoming conscious perhaps of an area of peculiar silence.

  Half the inn’s clients, it appeared, were vastly amused, among them Lionetto and his companions. By contrast Julius, Felix and all Felix’s friends stood in a huddle, looking at Claes. Adorne and the magistrates were looking at him as well, and the Greek, standing quietly beside them.

  The owner of the Two Tablets, unsure what was happening, rushed to reassure. “As you asked, my lords, a constable has been sent to the Waterhuus. And a sergeant. And the town surgeon, to see to the cranemen.”

  The doctor Tobias, lifting his head with some trouble, said with drunken solemnity, “No need for that. I’m a surgeon.”

  He rose, arms outstretched, single sleeve dangling, and began to weave his way to the door, slapping his feet into fresh floods of colour. Rainbow bubbles rose from his heels. Arrested, he stamped, making more of them. He watched them rise. He turned and blew them, with a large and deliberate bounty towards the swaying Lionetto, upon whom they burst like fried eggs.

  Julius, swiftly calculating the cost of the silk doublet under the gold and (glass?) rubies, was not surprised to see dawning rage on the captain’s roughened face. The Greek said, “Ah, there is our friend Claes, come to chastise me. But indeed, I did deliver your message to Felix. He will tell you.”

  “Forgive me.” It was Anselm Adorne, intervening, in Italian. “Forgive me, Messer de’ Acciajuoli. You saw the boy this morning?”

  No unspoken message from Felix, no fierce counter-appeal from Julius, no beseeching gaze from the rest of the youths prevented Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli from saying what he wanted to say.

  “Through the prison window, of course. Unfortunate lad. He gave me a message for this young gentleman. What was it? Not to do it.”

  “Not to do what, Monsignore?” said Adorne gently.

  The Greek smiled. “That is his secret. Something, no doubt, they had planned together. Do you imagine it is safe to go out?”

  Anselm Adorne turned his fair head and divided his gaze between the pale face of Felix de Charetty and the artless one of Claes the apprentice. “Yes. Tell us,” he said. “Is it safe to go out?”

  Claes and Felix looked at one another, and Julius shut his eyes.

  The expression on the apprentice’s face was not without cloud. It was, perhaps, more that of one who meant to please, and hoped to be liked for it. “It should be,” said Claes. “If everything went according to plan, it should be, monsignore. Meester Julius, is it true that –”

  “My doublet is ruined,” said Lionetto. The doctor had gone.

  “Meester Julius –”

  “Do I understand,” said Lionetto, “that this lout is responsible for the mess that has ruined my doublet?” His admiration of Claes, it was clear, had undergone a transformation.

  No one answered. Anselm Adorne, eyebrows raised, looked at Julius. Felix looked at Claes, his lips parted. Claes, persevering, said, “Meester Julius. Is it true that the Lady is coming from Louvain, and captain Astorre with her?”

  “Yes,” said Julius shortly.

  “Oh,” said Claes. His saucer eyes rested on Julius.

  “Astorre!” hissed Lionetto. “Astorre!” he repeated, voice rising. “That block of criminal stupidity is coming here, to Bruges, while I am in town? Is he tired of life, Astorre? Or is he wooing the widow, Astorre? Retiring from the lost battles to take his ease in a dyeshop? Is that why he is here?”

  Anselm Adorne turned. “The widow of Charetty employs him, captain Lionetto. I fear your doublet is stained. Would it not be wise to have it attended to? The way is clear outside, I believe.”

  Julius said, “Minen heere, it is not known yet what caused this.”

  Adorne’s smile had faded. He said, “But it will be known fairly soon. I think, Meester Julius, you should take your pupil and your apprentice back to their residence, and stay there until your mistress arrives. She, I make no doubt, will have something to say to you. By that time so, perhaps, will we.”

  Felix said, “Meester Julius had nothing to do with it. Nothing. And Claes was in prison.” He had flushed.

  “It has been noted,” said Adorne. “It will be our endeavour, as always, to see justice done. It is a pity the need should arise quite so often.”

  But he was not looking at Julius at all, but at the Greek.

  Chapter 6

  WITHIN A
WEEK, the widow of Charetty arrived at the Ghent Gate of Bruges and passed over its bridge and through its prudent defences, thick as two castles, to settle the question of her erring son Felix. Her unmarried daughters, aged eleven and twelve, rode beside her. Behind her came five horse-drawn wagons, one smith, one carpenter, two clerks, three servants, a cook, and her bodyguard led by a professional soldier called Astorre, an abbreviation which had long since replaced his original name of Syrus de Astariis.

  With the Flanders galleys almost due, she would have to have come anyway. It was an annual journey, but not one she enjoyed. Louvain to Brussels; Brussels to Ghent; Ghent to Bruges the roads had been as crowded as the canals and worse to navigate, what with other peopled draw-oxen and broken-down carts and inn-keepers’ rumours of brigands lying in wait round the next hedge.

  Which was usually rubbish. Which needn’t, anyway, concern the Charetty company, which had its own bodyguard. More than that, its own band of mercenaries. So no one molested them and, at last, they had come to Bruges. For her entrance she wore a good cloak of rich mulberry and had an extravagance on her head, a voile contraption fronted with seed pearls. Astorre and all her servants behind her wore the Charetty blue, the special dye Cornelis had concocted which she preserved in his memory. Her horsecloth and those of her daughters were of gold wire and velvet, and their harness was silver. Bruges should know, when one of her burgess-widows rode into town. To erase the impression made by her son Felix.

  She had forgotten how noisy it was. First the creak, the groan, the thud of the windmills. Then the long portal-arches into the city which trapped the jingle and clatter of stamping horses and the squeak and thunder of cartwheels and the din of country voices.

  In the streets, the leaning houses smacked the same noises between them. In September, every workshop and every shutter was open. She heard the rasp of a saw, and the slap of the baker and the clang of his ovens. She heard the buzz of the grinding-stone and the chime and clash of the smith and voices raised in anger and voices raised in mirth, and dogs, and pigs, and the crow of a cockerel. She heard the gulls disputing above and the uniform creak of the house signs and she heard, most of all, the clacking of looms, resounding in street after street like a clog-dance.