Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  That was what Astorre was aiming at. He wasn’t born a soldier-prince. He hadn’t had the chances that made a Hawkwood or a Carmagnola. He didn’t expect to be courted by monarchs. But with Marian de Charetty’s backing, he could get himself noticed. The ducal leaders would ask his advice. He would become known, not just as he was, as a good man with a small company who could be relied on. He would be the man they thought of when they wanted a spearhead for a special siege, a special battle. Men would come to his banner, and there would be money to pay them. And finally, some prince might buy the company from the Widow and give them a permanent home. These sorts of men could be generous. He knew captains who had been given towns in lieu of pay, and then got to keep them. That was what Astorre wanted. That was what Lionetto wanted too. But Astorre was going to be first to get the men and the money and the backing and the conquests. For the first time, this year, it seemed possible. And Lionetto had better not get in his way, or he’d smash him.

  Of course, it wasn’t an easy life, on the big campaigns. No wives and no homes – or else several, like a sailor. But camp followers – yes, you had to have those. He would have to have those even with the smaller numbers he expected to join him from Flanders and Switzerland and Burgundy. Women to cook and wash and make homes of the tents and the huts and keep the men happy. There were times when he wished, himself, he were back in the days when he was just part of a lance, with his cronies about him, and not a care in the world but to think up a worse name for the old bastard up there who was leading them.

  Then he remembered how good it was, being first with no one to stop him. Good, at any rate when you weren’t crossing the Alps in a snowstorm with your slitted eyes streaming. They were on a single-track now, between towering snow-cliffs which were only the foothills to higher and steeper snow-mountains behind them. His horse didn’t like it. Astorre was pressing it on when he realised that Tobias the doctor was trying to attract his attention. Astorre slowed and looked back to where the doctor was pointing.

  Behind the bobbing snow-capped helms of his company, and the nodding shapes of the packhorses, was a long interval of untenanted white. Beyond that was a horse, standing riderless. And beyond that was a trough in the snow, partly filled by a low chequered form which stirred feebly.

  “Who?” said Astorre angrily. He would have to stop. Anyone left in this snow would perish. He halted, and the caravan crowded up and then came to a halt at his back. He scanned the faces behind him, noting all his officers, and the boy Claes and the negro Loppe. One of the soldiers, then, curse him.

  The doctor said, “He must be hurt. I’ll go back, if you can pass me. No. Look. There’s another party of horsemen behind him. They’ll pick him up for us.”

  The notary Julius had edged forward. “If they don’t slit his throat and take his armour.”

  “He hasn’t got any. It’s Brother Gilles. It’s captain Astorre’s monk that’s fallen off,” said Claes the apprentice. His face was raw but quite cheerful, and his hat was plumed with white snow like a Janissary’s. He added, “I think it’s the Lancastrians. The English party. They wouldn’t harm him. But I’ll make sure it’s them, shall I?” And kicking the horse, he turned its head to the nearest small ridge.

  Astorre did nothing to stop him. He was getting tired of Brother Gilles, who had performed some unspecified favour for one of Astorre’s many sisters and was now collecting his reward. Decency required, however, that the monk should be rescued – unless, of course, the odds were impossible. Astorre scanned the heavy grey sky, and swore quietly. The two college men exchanged clever glances. Claes, arrived up on a ledge, boldly stood in his stirrups and focused his watering eyes on the flags of the oncoming riders. Then his face cleared. “It’s all right. Worcester’s banner. It’s the Englishmen.”

  Everyone looked relieved. Tobie settled his reins and prepared to ride back to the monk. Astorre grunted. Only the fallen man, seeing no move to assist him, and himself at the mercy of strangers, raised an arm from the snow in distress. Then he opened his mouth. You could see it, a dot in his white face.

  Tobie and Julius saw it. Astorre stiffened. Later, Tobie realised that Claes, high above, had also paused for a moment. By then the blazons must have been perfectly clear, and the plumes, and the horse cloths.

  Claes paid no heed to the English. Instead, he trained his eyes on the monk and, with a sweep of his arms, cupped his hands to both ears in the universal gesture of one willing to listen. And so invited, Brother Gilles called to him.

  His voice could not be compared to Loppe’s, but he was frightened. For the first time perhaps in his life he hit a true note at the top of his compass. Brother Gilles shrieked, “Help me!” And panicking, repeated it over and over.

  Astorre’s head was down like a bull, and his eyes, turned up to Claes, had red veins in them. Astorre said, “Make him stop. Quickly.”

  Claes, his hands removed from his ears, glanced down enquiringly. Astorre spoke again, his voice rumbling. “Make him stop. Sign to him to stop shouting. Or he’ll start a God-blasted –”

  “He has,” said Julius shakily.

  Tobie looked.

  The monk had stopped shouting. He was looking upwards. The English party, which had nearly reached him, was looking up also. On either side of the recumbent man, puffs of snow like thistledown wreathed the sides of the steep snowy walls, through which could be seen grey patches and fissures as chains and blocks of snow began sliding towards the track on which the monk lay. A blizzard of snow, rising upwards, told where the first lumps had fallen.

  The slope was short, and the momentum enough to knock a few men off their horses and give the rest an unpleasant moment or two, but no more than that. The haze cleared for a moment. Tobie saw that some of the English party, thrown off or dismounted, were pulling a smothered Brother Gilles out of his hollow. The rest had backed out of the line of fall and were waiting until the cascade had settled. It got quiet again. It got so quiet you could hear a sort of low drumming, very like a cavalry charge.

  It wasn’t a cavalry charge.

  Julius was still laughing when he saw the expression on Astorre’s face, and followed his gaze to the high peaks. There, too, the snow was steaming, and Assuring, and sending gently down to their miniature creek a rumbling sound which had nothing to do with a few hundredweights of snow shocked from a cliff-face, but everything to do with an Alpine avalanche that uprooted forests and overrode valleys and wiped men and horses clean from the mountains. Astorre said, “Ride!” and dug his spurs into a trembling horse which set off, lurching and staggering, along the path they had been taking when stopped. Julius, his horse pushed from behind, struggled, looking at Tobie.

  Tobie said, “Go on. I’ll follow.”

  Julius hesitated, and obeyed. Tobie dug in his spurs and forced his horse to the side of the track, against the oncoming, buffeting stream of his own frightened company. Above him, Claes was leaving his ledge. As his horse came stumbling down, Tobie confronted him. He had the words on his lips: “You and I are going back.” He had no need to say them. Claes had wrenched his horse round already and was urging it back to the smother of snow where the initial fall had filled up the pathway. Above, the noise of the high fall was louder. The puff of snow had become a cloud, travelling fast down the face of the mountain towards them. Through the haze ahead of them a group of riders became clear, plunging over the snow. Some were bare-headed, their pennants snapped, their shields missing. Their shadowless faces were haggard. The leader was dragging the monk’s horse. Brother Gilles, caked with snow, groaned and shook in the saddle. A broken leg dangled.

  Tobie said, “Who else needs help? I’m a doctor.” Claes was already dismounted.

  The English party were all there, and fit to ride, although a horse had been killed. The monk was thrust with rough care into Tobie’s wide grasp, while the horseless man took his place in Gilles’ saddle. The monk groaned, and Tobie gripped him one-handed. Speed. Speed was all that mattered. They had to
outrun an avalanche, riding tired horses – his with two men to carry. Claes, remounted, was by him. They set off, slipping and struggling, and the rolling drumbeat of the snowfall attacked them, repeating from every towering face. They weren’t going to escape. They couldn’t. He saw Claes take a deep breath, and wasn’t sorry for him.

  Claes said, “We have to reach the turn of the track over there. It’s past the line of the fall. And there’s an overhang.’ He spoke in English. A flash of angry impatience told what the English leader thought of the theory. Tobie said, “He may be right. If so, we can ease up. Or the horses will founder.”

  He caught the end of Claes’ glance and was not sure, himself, why he had displayed faith in him. Snow slapped him in the face: falling snow and thrown snow and impacted snow flung from the hooves all about him. Through the whiteness he saw the turn of the track, and a looming shadow behind, which was the overhang. Claes, straining beside him, suddenly tipped his head back and inhaled through his nose, the unaccustomed lines lifting. “Which isn’t to say,” said Tobie between his teeth, “that you don’t deserve the thrashing of your young life. And will get it.”

  “I know,” said Claes. “There. We’re safe.” They struggled round the sweep of the widening bend. Under the cliff was a hollow, big enough to contain them all as they stumbled in. By then, the thunder above and behind was like deafness. Tobie thought about the weight of snow making that noise, and the speed it was running at. The overhang wouldn’t save them. If the avalanche hit the overhang, it would split it clean from the face of the rock. But they had to risk it.

  It missed the overhang. They all heard, seconds later, the wall of snow strike the track where they had been, and the roar of stone and wood breaking as the shelf fragmented and slipped, taking splintered trees with it.

  From their place of safety, they sat their horses in silence, watching the spectacle of the fall. The edge of its path was just short of the overhang, where Claes had predicted. Either a piece of astrology, or a simple matter of calculation – or of local knowledge. Claes had been reared, after all, in Geneva. Tobie could hear him saying so at this moment to one of the English party, a swarthy young man who had crossed, perhaps to thank him. Tobie, his attention half on the monk, wondered what else they were saying. Then he lost interest, for a moment later there was a flurry of movement beyond them and Astorre appeared, with Julius and all the others, come back to make sure of their safety. They didn’t wait long. Now the shock was over, no one wanted to linger. They helped Tobie secure and settle his patient, and then they and the English party set off together.

  Tobie could see Astorre looking for Claes, but Claes was wisely invisible. The English leader explained to captain Astorre what he thought of imbeciles who screamed in the mountains and, to Tobie’s admiration, captain Astorre answered mildly. He could do little else. Publicly, the matter was over. And Brother Gilles was the only real sufferer.

  “He ought to ask,” Julius said, “what he thinks of imbeciles who encourage imbeciles to scream in the mountains. Did you see Claes?”

  “Of course I saw Claes,” said Tobie. “He was right in front of my nose. If you also want my interpretation, he was hoping for a nice little avalanche, and he got a big one. And a fright to go with it. He was as white as the snow for a bit, was our little friend Claes.”

  Julius was looking at him. Julius said, “I’ve seen him get more than he bargained for. I’ve seen him frightened. But I tell you something. Underneath all the fright, the bastard enjoys it. Or he’d stop. Wouldn’t he?”

  The tone was impatient, but under it there ran a thread of something almost like wistfulness. Tobie rode on, and left the question unanswered.

  Chapter 13

  LED BY THEIR captain Syrus de Astariis, known to the trade as Astorre, the spearhead of the Charetty company rode into the city of Milan eleven days after leaving Geneva. From far across the green Lombardy plain, travellers had a view of the red massive walls of the capital, and its spires and its towers. The duchy of Milan was one of the Five States of Italy, rival to Venice, secret ally to Naples, open friend of the Pope. The duchy of Milan stretched from Tuscany to the Alps and was at this moment beloved of Florence, which could not reach its northern markets without it. And Florence, at this moment, meant the Medici.

  Milan was not latticed with water like Bruges, or built on it like Venice. Milan was protected by two concentric circles of canalised river and ramparts of handsome red brick, pierced by six portals. Astorre proposed to enter through the Porta Vercellina. It was a provocative entrance, planned all the way through Aosta, Ivrea, Vercelli and Novara, where they had spent a whole night, Julius remarked, polishing gear like a wife on the eve of a bankruptcy sale.

  Julius himself did his share, however: presenting himself with his papers at dawn at the drawbridge, and employing the pure, persuasive Italian which belonged to his notarial years in Bologna. By midday he was back with a permit and a paper from the Duke’s secretary allowing them wood, wine and lodging in the Inn of the Hat and its annexes. An hour later they were riding through the Visconti portals, and past the hunting-grounds of the Castello Visconteo now being transformed, in a maze of cranes and shovelling men and red fork-tailed battlements, into the Castello Sforzesco.

  For the heiress of the Visconti had married Francesco Sforza, son of one of the greatest condottieri, God save us, that Italy had ever known. And Francesco Sforza, these nine years Duke of Milan, was the man to recognise a professional turn-out when he saw one. So the Company Charetty paced through the crowded Milanese streets, helms and shields and knee-armour glittering, and lances erect as the masts of a war-fleet. And other captains, equally lured from their hearths by the aroma of war, looked appraisingly through tavern windows as Astorre’s charger picked its way over the paving, the horse-cloth heavy with expensive embroidery; the harness glistening over its chest and netting its hips in intricate leathers.

  Captain Astorre had ostrich-plumes today in his helmet, and a fur collar which covered his quarter-ear, and rings on top of his gloves. Today, he had no wish to be part of a lance, rollicking round a barn fire and complaining about women and usurers. Perhaps he was less sure the following day when the head of the ducal Chancery summoned him to the Court of Arengo, the old Visconti palace beside the cathedral, to make known what services he and his company offered.

  A fighting man, after all, was at his best in the field and not stumbling over his sword in the presence of noblemen. Astorre supposed he could rely on the wits of the notary, whom he was taking with him. And he had a fine gift for the Duke in the African Loppe, who had been dressed up in red cloth quilted over his chest so that given only a pillow (said that chatterer Claes) you could go to bed in him. They’d got him two-coloured hose into the bargain, and a Sforza badge for his hat with the viper and eagle in gold thread, bought ready-made from a booth in Vercelli.

  On behalf of the Widow, Astorre expected to get his money back, in some form or another, as was customary. Loppe, who had already picked up some Italian, had expressed no views on his destination in Astorre’s hearing. Naturally. Nonetheless the captain was edgy as they set out for the palace, and snapped at Thomas when he tried to delay him with the news that some great signor wanted to see him.

  Thomas, left over from the English war in France, possessed peasant English, peasant French, hideous Flemish and almost no Italian. The “great signor” proved to be Pigello Portinari of the Medici Bank, arrived to collect his letters, his horses and his tenor. Julius, already mounted, said, “Tell him the captain and I have gone to the palace. We’ll call on him tomorrow. If he wants the letters, he can take them now if he signs for them. Claes knows where they are.”

  “I’ll get Master Tobie,” said Thomas.

  “No, you won’t,” said Astorre. Master Tobie was presently in a back room with a knife, a needle and a box of ointments, trying to put together Cosimo de’ Medici’s damaged tenor.

  “Claes gets the letters, Claes shows him the paper
to sign, and Claes carries them to the bank for Messer Pigello, if he wants.”

  Claes, captain Astorre refrained from saying, was a Flemish dyeshop apprentice and therefore prevented by status and language from the sort of indiscretion which Thomas without doubt would have perpetrated.

  Astorre got on his horse and joined Julius and the neat escort he had arranged for the short journey to the palace. There was mud on his armour, splashed up from the street-dirt. It got worse as they crossed the square with the half-done cathedral in it. Astorre thought they should have left the old church alone. All that was left of it was the front. The cathedral wallowed behind it like a hog with a truffle. They were going to start knocking down bits of the Arengo soon, so that the cathedral could grow. Then the Duke would have to move to the Castello. It was a piece of nonsense, spending money like water instead of where it was needed. States went bankrupt, building cathedrals.

  There was the archway to the palace. He remembered it, and the size of the courtyard. Galleries, and a loggia, and a lot of people asking brusque questions. Astorre began to run over numbers again in his head. The worst that could happen was that the Duke wouldn’t take him, or would offer a sum that would make them no profit.

  No, the worst that could happen was that the Duke would take Lionetto, and not Astorre. And if that happened, it could be remedied. By God it could. He would see to it.

  In the tavern behind him, nothing fell out as he had planned. Pigello Portinari, to whom Thomas took instant exception, did not wish to be served by a youth, or an Englishman who spoke like a yokel. Medici dispatches were not letters from country cousins. What his manager had written from Geneva, what his brother Tommaso had to tell him from Bruges, were matters on which much might depend. Were there no Italian-speaking gentlemen in the Charetty company? Claes, mutely pink, was dispatched for Tobie, who rose loweringly from Brother Gilles’ bedside and stalked into the chamber set aside for Astorre and his henchmen, Claes following willingly.