Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  He waited. When she added nothing, he said, “You’ve been in Louvain a lot, then. It must have passed the time for Felix.”

  “Well, of course, he and the Dauphin met in Louvain,” said the Widow judicially. “But nothing, I can tell you, surpassed the splendour of that first summons to the court at Genappe. I thought Felix would swoon. You probably swooned, listening. I dare say he talked about it all night.”

  “He talked all night,” said Claes. “But I am sorry to tell you that I slept through half of it. Perhaps Felix will take me there some time. It depends what you want done about the courier service. If you let me run it for you, I couldn’t go back with Thomas and rejoin Astorre.”

  Marian de Charetty said, “I understood that you had already declined your post with captain Astorre and were presenting me with an ultimatum. Either you run the courier service for me, or without me. I should be interested to know how your propose to raise the money for it on your own.”

  Life consisted of starting to smile and stopping again. He said, “From the Medici. But of course you would have a permanent call on the profits. The scheme and the first expenses were yours.”

  She was thinking. She said, “You would do some of the riding yourself?”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “I’d need to stay a few weeks in Bruges to arrange it. I’d need to go back to Milan to confirm contracts. After that, I’d spend my time between the two places, very likely. If Bruges will receive me back from time to time. They probably would. It would be in their interests.”

  He knew how stubborn she was. She was brushing the quill of her pen back and forth over her lips. She put the pen down. She said, “The business needs money. Astorre and Julius have laboured to arrange a fine condotta. From all you say, I can imagine how much work this list of yours must represent. You did it for the company, and it would be a poor company that didn’t thank and reward you. Yes, I shall back you. Yes, you may run the service for the Charetty company, provided you keep me informed, from day to day and minute to minute, precisely what you are doing, my friend Claes.”

  She broke off. She said, “You’re not afraid? Even after today?”

  He didn’t try to hide his relief. It wasn’t only relief, it was happiness. He cracked his cheek open, beaming at her, and shoved a cloth at it and went on beaming at her through it. He said, “You won’t regret it. You really won’t. Never mind today. Today won’t come back. I’ve something funny to tell you.”

  Instead of smiling back, she was angry. “Something funny,” she said. “That I should like to hear. What about? The Turks? The war in Italy? Felix? Simon? Monseigneur de Ribérac? The explosion? – No, we must keep the explosion for another day, and a few other problems. What is your amusing story about?”

  Her voice grated. He suddenly saw how tired she was, and that she was angry with herself now, instead of with him. He clutched the cloth and bestowed on her the warmest, largest, most enveloping smile in his power.

  “Well, really,” he said. “Well, really, it has to do with an ostrich.”

  Chapter 17

  THAT AFTERNOON, the biggest entertainment in Bruges was the split face of the Charetty apprentice who had gone to be made a soldier. The household saw it first, as the big lad began clattering about and hopping up and down stairs, collecting papers and other things he needed for all the errands he had to run, he said, before the Festival. Those who had seen him arrive the day before, or had talked to him in the yard, swore that his face was all right then. It wasn’t the work of some narrow-minded husband, because he’d slept in the house all last night. One or two merchants had come for their letters, and there had been a call from this fat French lord, but the Widow would have screamed to the magistrates if the fat lord had done it, or would be screaming to Claes, which she wasn’t, if Claes himself had upset her.

  Asked how it happened, Claes told a different story every time. Some of them were truly marvellous. None of them could be believed for a minute. He was a real joker, was Claes.

  He himself had thought of staying in, but there was too much to do, and Felix hadn’t come back, which meant he was still in the tavern. By the time another hour had gone by, his face had swollen, half closing one eye. He closed his satchel and took up his cloak and went off to make his calls. Everyone he met had a different witty provenance to suggest for his spectacular stripe, a whipping from the Widow being by far the most popular.

  He seemed to meet all his acquaintances at once that day in Bruges, but that was because he had no working routine to follow. It was uncanny, in this familiar place, to hear the command of the bells and not to obey them. Not to hoist the cloths out of the vat and stagger off at a run with his team, to get them pegged out before the noonday peal drove them to dinner. Not to herd with the others for meals and for prayers; to report to his yard master or to his employer; not to be safely one of a group. The group he was now in was not a safe one.

  As he suspected, Felix was still where he had left him. He joined him there, because it had to be done. It was not a good place: an inn serving no wine, but just beer for artisans, and the artisans resented rich young fellows like Felix occupying the benches all day, and taking the owner’s attention. By the time he got there, Felix and his circle had eaten and then had settled down to some defiant drinking. When Claes came in, the more alert of his friends noticed his slit face at once and, convulsed with laughter, vied with one another, naturally, in accounting for it. Felix, rousing himself, heard his mother’s name associated with some impolite fantasy and, jumping up, charged the speaker head down.

  Three of them in the end got him quietened, and ready to transfer his aggression to the bowling alley they currently favoured. On the way, Felix changed his mind and, skidding on frosted cobbles and frozen dirt-paths, led them unrelenting through a light blizzard of snow to the Burgh, where the lottery queue wound, cold and grumbling, along the wall of the Treasurer’s office and half round the church of St Donatien. A number of well-built men in town livery, patrolling in pairs, made sure that, however cold and however impatient the crowd, the queue remained orderly.

  Standing stock-still, the heir to the Charetty company studied it fiercely and then suddenly grinned. Felix, it transpired, had been set upon during the last heavy snows and pelted outside his inn by a group of journeyman drinkers. There they were. Waiting for lottery tickets in their employers’ time. And caught helpless at that, unless they wanted to give up their places.

  “Felix,” said Anselm Sersanders.

  “Felix,” said Bonkle.

  Felix, stooping, paid no attention, although he did, hazily, wait until the nearest patrolman had turned before he started to throw. His aim was not very good and Claes, with relief, saw a distraction. He said, “There isn’t enough snow, yet. Come on. There’s Colard waving.”

  The makers and sellers of books were usually in the yard of St Donatien, but in bad weather they packed up their booths and went indoors. Colard’s little room was above the cloisters and imposed its own toll on visiting stomachs, being kept retching-hot by the fumes from his candles and brazier, not to mention the chemical reek of his inks.

  Today being a work-day, fumes and flames were streaming inward, thrust by air and snow from the unshuttered window from which he had waved to them. In the few minutes they had taken to climb the stairs he had reseated himself at his desk, his knee-stockings twined round its frame like old pennants. He had pushed his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, and his tousled hair was plush on one side where he had been writing too close to the candle.

  His tongue out, his face ruddy with health, he was completing a line of careful French script, his hairy wrist moving over the vellum while his eyes flickered up to the Latin work propped on his lectern.

  “The Penitence of Adam,” read Felix. “Here! Any pictures?”

  The translator’s lips opened at either end, leaving his tongue where it was, for some moments. Then he said, “Two words to finish. Wait. No. No pictures,” he added.

&
nbsp; “Aha! Liar! I’ve found one!” said Felix.

  “Put that down!”

  Ignoring this, Felix had laid hands on a miniature and was examining it with authority.

  He turned it this way and that. “Well, you’ve drawn a proper Adam,” said Felix. “But Eve! You’ll have to show that hand of hers in another place. Might not be Eve at all. Might be another Adam.”

  “He needs a model,” said Claes. “You remember. He has a short memory, Colard.”

  Colard swung round, his writing posture intact and his eyes lit with fury, one on either side of the beak of his quill. “Put that down. It isn’t my painting.”

  “I could get him a model,” suggested John Bonkle.

  “But it isn’t his painting,” Claes pointed out.

  “Then who did it?” said Anselm Sersanders.

  “No one you know. Anyway, he has a model,” said Colard, giving up. “She goes about with her hand there all the time. If he ever wants an Adam to match it, I’ll recommend one of you animals. I’ve got some beer, but if you don’t want it, just don’t do what I tell you.”

  It was a well-rehearsed routine. They helped him find the beer and the drinking-pots, climbing over boxes and crates and bundles of papers and poking between rocking piles of manuscripts on his shelves. Anselm, who had just had a birthday, sent out to a roast shop for two brace of pigeons with mustard, again a matter of custom; and they sat baiting Colard while he devoured a good deal more than fell due to him.

  “Make the most of it!” said Felix gloomily. “Eels from Wednesday onwards.”

  “But the Carnival first!” said John Bonkle cheerfully. He was a cheerful lad. He said, “Come on then, Collinet. Who are you taking?” He then, belatedly, turned a deep crimson.

  “No, then, Jannekin,” said Felix maliciously. “Much more interesting. Who’s going with you? If it’s Mabelie, you’d better watch out. Claes here gave her a good time. High marks. You might lose her again.”

  “Shut up,” said John heatedly. Claes, glanced at hurriedly, proved to be grinning with no visible rancour, although it made beads of blood come out all over his cheek and he had to fish, swearing, for a kerchief. John said, “It’s up to Mabelie what she does. She won’t be with me. You know that’s not what the Carnival’s for.”

  “Father got you in the marriage market, has he?” said Felix. That, as everyone knew, was what the Carnival was really for. One of the few times the rich as well as the poor mingled on the streets of Bruges, and danced, and met, informally, with no commitment on either side, young women to whom they had not been introduced.

  Oh, there was no mingling of ranks. However well the masks fitted, the nobles were marked out – by their clothes, by their servants in livery. Gentlemen could expect the hospitality of the great houses, which offered music, refreshment and dancing. And any nobleman, dallying in the streets and meeting a lady of quality, could (so the custom ran) show her his name on a scroll and, if she agreed, make her his partner all evening for whatever sport she might choose, except that he was sworn not to speak.

  Those were the rules, and they worked well. Couples met in relative freedom and relative decorum, and good contracts often followed. The very young, however, were well-guarded. At thirteen or fourteen, a girl or a boy followed the impulse, and of such stuff were unfortunate marriages made.

  Colard Mansion said, “Well, John’s old enough. He ought to be married. So ought you. What’s your mother got planned?”

  Felix stared at him. “Do you do what your mother says? I don’t want to be stuck with another woman. Not till I’ve had some freedom. I’m taking Grielkine, what did you think?”

  Claes opened his mouth.

  “And you’re taking Tilde and Catherine,” said Felix crossly.

  “I am?” said Claes. “Who says so?”

  “I say so,” said Felix. “I don’t need to do everything my mother says. I wish she’d get married herself.”

  “Do you?” said John in surprise. “Who’s she going to the Carnival with?”

  “Oudenin, if he has his way,” Felix said. “But of course that’s no good. No. She wants to marry someone rich. Someone with a seigneurie, a bit of property, a title.”

  “Someone like Jordan de Ribérac?” said Claes.

  “Well yes, he’s rich, isn’t he?” Felix said. “And could keep his rotten son Simon from taking us to law every five minutes.”

  Anselm Sersanders said, “That’s nonsense, Felix. If you don’t like your mother running your life, you’re not likely to enjoy handing over all the company to a stepfather. After all, you’re the heir.”

  The curls had all come down again round the high cheekbones, and Felix’s eyes were heavy with beer. He said, “Keep me in hounds, keep me in drink, keep me in armour and anyone can have the God-blasted business.”

  “Armour?” said Claes.

  Felix laughed frothily. “Thought you’d learn to be a soldier under Astorre, didn’t you? Astorre!”

  John Bonkle looked from the one to the other. Sersanders, catching Claes’ look of polite puzzlement, undertook to explain. “Since you left, Felix has become an expert in jousting. Haven’t you, Felix? Except that the demoiselle won’t pay for all your equipment – not yet.”

  “That’s a detail,” said Felix. “Don’t need equipment to show what a man can do. Not quarter-staffs, eh, Claes? Swords maybe? Or blunt lances, if you can ride. Can you ride?”

  “You’ll have to ask Thomas,” said Claes. “He usually carries me part of the way, and then jumps off the horse as soon as it’s running properly on all four legs. Who’s been teaching you jousting?”

  Sersanders smiled and said, “If you can coax Felix to tell you that, then you’ll know more than we do. He’s found a master at Louvain. The only trouble is, it’s all a bit expensive, so that we all see his point. If the Carnival brings him a rich stepfather, he won’t much care who it is. Will you, Felix?”

  Claes said, “Oudenin. I always said it. And Felix can marry his daughter. Colard, why did you wave to us?”

  “What?” said Colard, who had picked up a sheet of vellum and become lost in it. He laid it down.

  “You waved at us,” said Sersanders patiently.

  “I waved at you,” said Colard. “Message. Your uncle wants you. And Claes too, if he has any letters. He’s at Giovanni Arnolfini’s.”

  Claes said, “Colard. We’ve been here an hour. Two hours, maybe.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Colard. “But there isn’t all that much light left, it’s quite true. Perhaps you’d better go.”

  Sersanders said gravely, “Perhaps we’d better. Claes?”

  Claes said, “Yes. I’ll come. Felix?”

  “What?” said Felix, opening his eyes.

  “What was that about your two sisters tomorrow? Your mother asked you to take them to the Carnival, didn’t she?”

  “And I’m telling you to take them instead,” Felix said. He opened his eyes a little bit further. “You’re not going to pretend you can say no?”

  “Felix!” said Sersanders. “That isn’t fair. And your mother wouldn’t like it anyway. That is –”

  Felix said, “Then she’ll have to put up with it. There isn’t anyone else. Oudenin of course would be delighted, but he’s the last person, thank God, she’d apply to. There’s always Henninc; but even Claes, you will agree, is better than that. Despite the face. What brawl did you get into, anyway?”

  “I was attacked by the porcupine,” said Claes with brevity. “All right, I’ll take the girls on one condition. That you tell your mother you’ve asked me, and get her agreement. Otherwise I’m going down with the plague.”

  “You are the plague,” said Colard Mansion mildly. “Would you all mind getting out of my light?”

  They parted outside, Felix with Bonkle in tow making belatedly for the unfortunate bowling alley of his choice. Claes, with Anselm Sersanders, set off west to the market, and then north to the consular house of the Lucchese in which dwelt th
e rich merchant Arnolfini who was entertaining Sersander’s uncle, the elegant Anselm Adorne.

  It was not easy to hurry. The snow had stopped, and had turned to sepia mud under the swarming feet of the workmen delegated by the town and the Guilds to decorate the square, the hall, the belfry, the inner dock and all the houses around for which they had obligations, in preparation for the Shrove Tuesday Carnival on the morrow.

  Ladders, sparsely escorted, trudged from road to road and flailed round corners. Carts full of paper lanterns jostled for place with wheelbarrows full of candles. Collapsible booths, meant to nourish by daylight the crowds gathered to witness the drawing of the lottery tickets, and by night the thronging crowds attending the Carnival, arrived, were erected, and collapsed. Officials with news attempted to traverse the town, as was their duty, and proclaim it. Who was bankrupt. Who was dead and who was to marry and who needed a wet-nurse. Interesting news, if you could hear it.

  Men with flags hammered in nails for flags. Painters painted. Drays trawling kegs of wine and kegs of beer rumbled from tavern to tavern, drawn by horses like pumpkins, some already bearing a cocky plume over one eye. A file of bawling urchins followed a two-legged barrel which had once contained beer, but which now contained Poppe, a seller of unwashed Lenten ginger, parading the streets for his error.

  Anselm threw him a kindly snowball in passing, which washed off some of the egg on his forehead, and he and Claes stopped to bestow one or two more on Witken the weaver, standing tied to a pole and decked in his own deficient wool, to remind him that weaving in frost was unlawful.

  Both victims swore in response, without rancour. You dodged the law. You got caught. You put up with it. Next time it happened to Claikine, Poppe and Witken would take their cheerful revenge. With dung, maybe.

  The Lucca house was in the same street as the house of Pierre Bladelin; past the Bourse, with all the lottery placards, and near to the house of the Genoese merchants. At the door Sersanders, to his surprise, was turned away with an errand. His illustrious uncle asked him, of his goodness, to find and comfort his cousins Katelijne and Marie, who were skating with their brother nearby on the Minnewater, and to tell them that their father would be with them shortly.