Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  There were braziers up at the other end too, on the rostrum cleared now for the town players – the trumpets and pipes and drums and timbals and fiddles – and the town singers, with the scarves of their hats spiralled round their valuable throats. The songs they sang were not the kind you would hear in a tavern, but when the drums and fiddles got going, the children would begin to dance up and down and then the older people, and a circle would start up somewhere for a country dance, and then break off, because it was early and everything was orderly yet.

  The scaffolding, of course, had been taken down, Witken the weaver having completed his two days of penance and Poppe having reached, officially, the end of his mortification by barrel, although he was still wearing it, drunk, in the boisterous care of his friends. Then the seamen began to bring the ropes into the square for the tightrope walk they always did, with hoops, up in the belfry; and some of them were drunk as well, although not, you had to hope, the ones who were going to fasten the rope or the ones who were going to dance on it. By that time, Claes’ young ladies were becoming extremely excited.

  By that time, also, a number of things had happened.

  Jan Adorne had left, for one thing. He was not, as a student, wife-hunting; but at fifteen he was undoubtedly on the track of something other than a group of small girls. The small girls, who did not regard themselves as such, resented this.

  The two Adorne daughters, as it happened, were well-behaved and at home with Claes. He talked to them and made them laugh, and invented things, and introduced them to funny people (if Father Bertouche didn’t stop him) and let them do interesting things that Mother would never allow, when Father Bertouche wasn’t looking. They liked his jokes and the feel of his broad, capable hands on their backs as he shepherded them through the crowd. They were, of course, too old to sit on his shoulder, but now and then he would put his two hands round Katelijne’s stripling waist and hoist her to get a clearer view.

  When that happened, Father Bertouche coughed, or tapped Claes on the shoulder. He coughed partly from disapproval but partly because he had a raging cold. He also had aching feet, and was pining, explicitly, for his comfortable quarters in the Hôtel Jerusalem. The chaplain, therefore was little help, particularly as the Charetty girls paid no attention to him: Catherine because she had gone insane with excitement, and Tilde because she was Claes’ chosen lady and insulated from the rest of mankind for the evening.

  This was Claes’ mistake. It arose, as his employer had suspected, from a very clear understanding of her elder daughter’s mind. To wound Tilde tonight by treating her as another child was unthinkable. He accordingly announced that, as the elder of Felix’s sisters, Tilde was to take the place of her mother this evening, and would be his official consort. At the time, it had seemed a reasonably good idea. Tilde had flushed with pleasure, and he had been careful to keep the other children amused while giving her, when he could, a mock-courtly attention that she could enjoy without taking it seriously. Then Catherine, spurred by the noise and the lights and the strangeness, began to run wild.

  When Felix exploded, Claes got him out of public view and then found a way for him to get rid of his energy. It was different with a young girl, who kept dragging her hand from the miserable chaplain’s and hurling herself into the thick of the crowd – a crowd which by this time was not quite so orderly, or so sober, and which was beginning to be pushed this way and that by another element – the young nobility, in their silks and their furs and their grotesque and marvellous masks, walking in groups to and from their chosen mansions with their servants and their musicians and in the mood to slap aside a careless child who cannoned into them – or to take her by the arm and lead her with them.

  Claes caught her twice and fetched her bodily back in a whirlwind of squealing and laughter. The second time, Tilde brought up her arm and slapped her sister open-handed on the side of the head so that Catherine screamed in earnest and glared at her, hand to cheek and tears in her eyes. The Adorne daughters stared at them both and the chaplain made a noise like a horse trotting in mud.

  “Hey!” said Claes, closing his warm hand round Tilde’s wrist and taking Catherine round the shoulders with his other arm. He shook Tilde’s wrist a little, and tilted up her clenched hand. “Look at that fist! You frighten me! How can I escort a lady who might beat me at any moment?”

  Catherine giggled. He turned to her. “And oh dear, look at Father Bertouche. He can’t look after everybody, can he, while I’m running after you? He’ll have to take everyone home, and we’ll miss the tightrope walkers, and the bonfire and the fireworks. And you haven’t even had your fortunes told yet.”

  “I want my fortune told,” said Catherine.

  “But I can’t trust you, can I?” said Claes. “So I’ll just have to see that you don’t run away again.” And holding her arm tightly in his, he unbuckled his belt, and adding it to her girdle, shackled her loosely to him.

  It was what she wanted. Tears gone, she took his arm and dragged him across to the astrologer’s. Beside him, Tilde walked stiffly. She said, “Mother would have slapped her.”

  She was no longer his undisputed partner. Catherine skipped on his other side. Claes said, “Of course you must slap, if everything else fails, and there is some danger. But it’s quite good to try other things first.”

  “Felix hits you,” said Tilde. She paused, and then went on before he could answer. “But of course, my mother doesn’t.”

  A roar went up. The tightrope walkers had appeared at the top of the belfry. The heads of Marie, Katelijne, Catherine, Father Bertouche and even of Mathilde turned involuntarily upwards. Claes blew, invisibly, a sigh of relief and amusement that made his cheek crack. A commanding voice, shrill as a whistle said, “Ah, there you are! Where have you been? You were told to look out for me! You haven’t been trying!”

  Herod, where are you? Packhorses crossed the Alps with less trouble. Dragging her expensive furs to his side was a short, stout party he had seen before … Ah, Gelis. The young van Borselen girl with whom he had skated, and who had tried to command his services for this evening. Pushing through to stand behind her, thank God, came a liveried manservant and a cloaked maid in a white coif. Beside him, Tilde’s head turned, and a moment later, the chaplain’s.

  The van Borselen sprig looked up at him sternly. You put a bag over their faces, that was all. A bag with a few oats at the bottom and they were perfectly happy. The van Borselen girl said, “I brought a cloak and a mask, in case you couldn’t afford them. Here.” The manservant, catching no one’s eye, transferred to his mistress a long roll of extremely good cloth, with a vast concoction of feathers settled on it. She held the armful to Claes.

  Claes said, “Demoiselle, you are welcome to join us. We were hoping you would. But there are too many of us for a masquerade. You know the demoiselles de Charetty? And of course, the demoiselles of Adorne. Father Bertouche …”

  Father Bertouche, his inflamed nose in his kerchief, gazed with animosity at the threatened increase in his flock. He said, “Certainly, we are not joining in any masquerade. Indeed, we were considering whether, at the end of this performance, we should not make our way home.”

  “I should like to go home,” said Tilde flatly. On Claes’ other side, Catherine’s face appeared, frowning. Beside the priest, the two Adorne girls were whispering. The older, Marie, flushing, murmured something.

  “What?” said Father Bertouche.

  The van Borselen girl looked at him with impatience. “She says her sister needs to go home,” she said. “Don’t you have a maidservant with you?”

  The chaplain removed the kerchief from his nose, and his upper lip glistened ochre in the lamplight. He looked stricken. Claes smiled. “It’s a common problem,” he said. “I don’t mind taking her, if she wants to be comfortable. I know a lot of girls here.”

  The Adorne child, poor thing, looked as stricken as the chaplain. She said, “I want to go home,” in a strangled voice.

 
“All right,” said Gelis van Borselen. “Take my maid. Matten, go with them. Help the demoiselle if she needs it. You needn’t bother to come back.”

  Christ. Claes said, “Then we’ll all go back to the Hôtel Jerusalem.”

  The fat girl stared at him. “I’m not leaving,” she said. “And I’ve sent my manservant home. I’ll stay by myself if you don’t want to keep your promises. You did promise.”

  With undesirable but understandable speed, the group about him was dissolving. Untying Catherine, finding some sort of words to say to Tilde and the retreating chaplain, Claes caught the essential phrase and was in time to plunge after the vanishing manservant and drag him back by the arm. He looked frightened.

  With reason. “I told him to go,” said the child. “Or he would hear about it from my father.”

  “And I,” said Claes firmly, “am telling him to stay, or your father will hear about this from me. Where did this cloak and mask come from?”

  “I borrowed them.” Her chin came up, improving the view slightly.

  “I’m sure. And if you take them back in time, perhaps no one will say anything about it. So I shall make you an offer. Ten minutes here at the tightrope. Ten minutes dancing with some of my friends. Ten minutes for the fireworks and the bonfire. And then our friend here and I take you home to your sister.”

  Gelis said, “I’m not staying with Katelina. I’m staying at my lord of Veere’s house where Charles is. Do you want to know why?”

  She wasn’t a bad child. Ahead of him, unexpectedly, glimmered the promise, at the end of it all, of an hour or two to spend as he pleased. With whom he pleased.

  He listened, peaceably, to the item of information she was pressing upon him, and found it, indeed, nearly as interesting as she thought it was.

  Chapter 19

  AS CHILDREN WERE taken home, masqueraders began to fill the streets. Gradually, among the fustian, there appeared thick cloaks of furred velvet with glimpses of pearled sleeve and gold fringe and silk brocade underneath. And next to the felt caps and decent hoods and white bonnets there would brush past a griffon, a jester, an eagle. A unicorn would turn to look at a pretty ankle, or a ship in full sail pass by laughing, or a goat or a Charlemagne pause to toss a coin and pick up a sweetmeat.

  Katelina van Borselen was not yet among them. The cloak she was going to wear lay on the table by the great window in her parents’ house. Every now and then, she paused by the window to see if her mother’s three suitors were waiting yet. The house was empty but for its gatekeepers. They were there to protect it, for the other servants had leave to stay out, or were with her parents at the lord of Veere’s house. They were there to protect her as well, in case her escort failed to come, or proved undesirable. Or in case (as was not entirely unheard of) one cavalier disputed with another, and she was left waiting with none.

  Usually, however, there was no unpleasantness. The candidate proffered his scroll and was chosen or excused with courtesy. Unknown in his mask, he lost no face before a waiting rival. Unless, of course, he was confident enough to bring his liveried torch-bearers, his pages, his servants. As, glancing out, she saw presently that Guildolf de Gruuthuse had done.

  She had missed his arrival. He was already waiting under the eaves of the opposite houses. He was cloakless. From the neck up, there was nothing of him to be seen but the pelt, eyeholes and fangs of a magnificent leopard-head. From the neck down, the lamplight displayed a brief, fur-hemmed tunic and the negligent line of his hose, exposed from mid-thigh to the soles of his feet. One gloved hand rested at his hip. In the other, exposed to the light, was a masquerade scroll. And behind him, with the Gruuthuse cannon on every shoulder, were six liveried servants. One of them held a ribboned lute like a cat by the tail.

  He had just, she thought, taken up his stance, because the group he had come with were still in sight, calling and laughing. As she watched, others passed, and there were exchanges of some hilarity. This was normal. The moment she appeared, he would revert to the usage of chivalry. She ought to go down. She ought to make quite sure, first, that there were no other contenders (was it likely?). Katelina, with the greatest discretion, peered from the window.

  There was another contender. A man both taller and broader than Guildolf, waiting serenely, scroll in hand, beside her own gatepost. He was alone, with no servants or device to distinguish him. Of his shape she could see nothing either, for he was cloaked from his mask to his boots. And of the mask itself she could make little in the uncertain light. It seemed to be made up of feathers.

  She hesitated. Then she took up her cloak and descended the stairs of her father’s house slowly. She crossed the yard, and spoke to one of the porters, who opened the gates. She stepped through them.

  The big man with the cloak was, of course, nearest, but she must acknowledge them both. Katelina faced the distant leopard and dropped him a solicitous curtsey, but turned to deal first, as was natural, with the nameless suitor beside her. She dipped her skirts again, with marked refinement, and held out her hand for his paper.

  He knelt, presenting it. The headdress, catching the light, proved to be the mask of an owl. The name on the scroll was that of the suitor from Courtrai, which was odd, as she’d believed him a short man. On the other side of the road Guildolf de Gruuthuse had set out to join her, and was crossing the cobbles with elegance.

  So. There were no other claimants. She had to choose between the beast and the bird. Beside her the bird, who had risen, chuckled under his breath. Suitors were not supposed to speak. In mellow Flemish with an undertone somewhere of French, this one made a short statement. “Pick him if you like, but he plays the lute like a butcher, and squeezes his boils every morning at table. That’s the idea of the leopard. By the time he takes the mask off, you’ve got used to them. He’s keeping the rest of the skin for his bridal night.”

  She choked. Controlling herself made her eyes water. The handsome legs and the leopard-head arrived before her. The wealth of the Gruuthuses. Twenty years of child-bearing. Boils.

  Katelina van Borselen curtseyed again to Guildolf de Gruuthuse, but laid his scroll gently back in the hands which had offered it. “My lord, I am honoured, but you have been forestalled by another. God give you a happy evening and night, and may we drink together one day in friendship.”

  He was disconcerted in the extreme. It was, she saw, rather unlikely that he would drink with her or any member of her family again. She hoped that her mother, who had created this fiasco, could repair it with equal facility, and rather thought that she could. After all, it was her mother who had issued, as it were, three invitations. Someone was bound to be disappointed. The idea that three people might be disappointed was not, of course, something that her mother had contemplated.

  Katelina was not greatly concerned. In her view, what mattered was whether or not the evening was likely to proceed in such a manner that she, Katelina, would not be disappointed. She curtseyed deeply, and the Gruuthuse boy bowed and marched off, his entourage following raggedly, with all their mouths at different angles. The man carrying the lute made, behind his master’s back, a light-hearted manoeuvre with it that Katelina hoped she didn’t understand. A low booming sound from under her companion’s mask told her that he had noticed it too. She realised that she had chosen a vulgar man and was visited by a strong qualm.

  Perhaps he observed it. At any rate, he made her a bow of elaborate and expert dimensions, presented his arm, and laying his hand on top of hers, proceeded to lead her up the street in the wake of the richly dressed courtiers ahead of them.

  The first open courtyard they came to was the Controller’s. On Carnival night, their clothes, their masks, their jewels were the only passkey gentlefolk needed. They swept under the archway and into the lantern-lit garden where fire-baskets glowed through the wine they took in their glasses. High in a tower, flutes and fiddles and viols penetrated the chatter, and a small diligent drum paraphrased it.

  People moved, and circled, and we
nt. Once, there came winding under the trees an arcade of dancers, linked hands high, sleeves swaying below finials of monstrous and beautiful headgear. In the icy February night, the women’s headdresses bloomed like camellias or lily-spikes; or seemed fit for eating, like gourds and pastry-puffs and heaps of sugared sweet things, bound with angelica.

  Tonight, she had left behind the famous hennin, and her maidservant had pleated strands of her hair through a thin goldsmith’s caul, and made the rest into a thick ribboned braid, long enough to be pressed by her cut-velvet skirts when she seated herself. Tonight, her four-stranded gold necklace from Lyons lay upon bare skin instead of the eternal infill of gauze, and she had rings on most of her fingers.

  Her companion, she saw, had none; not even a signet. It confirmed what she guessed, although, observing the rules, he did not speak again. He knew what manners required. To begin with, she made few demands on him, but later, as they moved from Bladelin’s to the new-built courtyard of the Ghistelhof and from there to the house of Vasquez; from the palace of Jean de Gros to the Seven Towers or the hall of the Archers’ Guild; when they ventured into the great mansion of Gruuthuse without meeting a leopard, and finished in the gardens of the Princenhof itself, guests of the absent Count of Charolais – then, tentatively, she ventured to take part in the dances and found that she had no need for concern, because he was skilled in their figures and deft in their execution. When she wished refreshment, he served her punctiliously, and also such of her friends as they met.

  Sometimes, at a less formal encounter, he served them in other ways, making them gasp and laugh by the way he tossed and juggled their plates and made knives calmly appear or disappear. He was not vulgar, she found to her relief, but he was amusing. And he neither took off his cloak, nor did he touch her, except by the hand or the elbow. Only she noticed, while she was able to notice, that he so managed that she was offered a great deal to drink.