Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  She was not disturbed. She let the evening go where it would lead her, knowing the pattern. At some point he would take her home – to the house empty but for the porters who, recognising her accredited escort, would allow them both in. She would lead him to her mother’s parlour and, to thank him for his escort, would offer him wine and ask him for the privilege of seeing his face. And he would unmask.

  Girls who had told her this much were rarely explicit about what followed. If a conquest had been made, the family of the suitor would pay a call on the family of the prospective bride and an arrangement would be come to.

  That was next day. What happened on the evening in question was, evidently, a matter of discretion. But it couldn’t, after all, be very much. The house might be empty, but it wasn’t going to stay empty all night. And under normal circumstances, it didn’t matter much anyway. You asked your approved cavalier to your home, and he came. That meant marriage. Simple, if you brought home the right man. Not so simple, if you didn’t.

  It made her tired, thinking about it. Her escort caught her when she stumbled the second time and said, “You must be weary. Shall I take you back to your house?” They were the first words he had spoken after the greeting, and she could not detect in them any accents at all of Courtrai. She said, “I think you’d better.” Then she said, “After you’ve taken the mask off.”

  They had stopped facing each other. She waited for him to obey. Instead, the mask with its unblinking owl’s eyes turned from one side to the other in explicit refusal. She stood for a while to see if he would give up, and when he didn’t, she turned and walked off frowning. After a moment he caught up and took her elbow again, for which she was grateful.

  At her gate, the duty porter recognised the mask, and being well-trained, merely wished them both a good evening and opened the gates without smiling. He went ahead to unlock the door which led into her hallway, and make sure that the lamps were all burning.

  She led the way to her mother’s parlour. She had drunk a great deal, but thinking of this moment, she had made sure that she was not in any discomfort, and he too, she was aware, had calmly absented himself from time to time. Another, if minor, sign of the adept. So now she could discover from whence all this expertise came.

  The fire had burned low. She went to repair it and he said, “Watch your cloak,” in the same level Flemish. She waited, allowing him to unclasp the garment from behind before she knelt: she felt his fingers brush the ruffled rope of her hair. Then, as she mended the fire, he crossed and laid her cloak on a stool.

  She expected, when she turned and rose, to find that he had done the same, but he had discarded nothing. She said, “Now you reap your reward for all your gallant service this evening. It is only, I’m afraid, another cup of good wine but at least you may sit, and let me give it to you.” She had reached the cupboard, smiling, but still he had not moved. She lifted two cups and a flask and began to bring them back to the settle before the fireside. She said, “I understand. There is an owl’s face under the owl’s face?”

  The cloak was blue in colour, and thick, and fell straight to the ground. He made no effort to remove it. She bent, a little impatient, and set the cups and the flask on a stool and was aware, as she did so, of a lock of released hair swinging close to her shoulder. She tilted her head to collect it, even as she realised what had happened. In removing her cloak, he had released all her hair from its pleat.

  She turned, lifting her eyes to question him. She found he was immediately behind her, and the owl mask inches away. He said, “And now the rest of the pretty laces.”

  She jerked away from his hands. She moved so sharply indeed, that she left her necklace still in his grip. “Oh no,” said Katelina. “That isn’t part of the bargain.”

  The owl stood where he was. You couldn’t tell if he were dismayed, or angry or merely patient. He said, “I haven’t made any bargains.” He began, without haste, to walk towards her.

  She was between a chair and the wall. She said, “You have. My mother’s arrangement. The scroll gives you leave for an evening, as my escort. Now you must be content. If you want more, you can call on her tomorrow.” She ran out of breath.

  He had stopped at the chair. He said, “If I want more? But it’s you, demoiselle, who wanted this, surely? You knew when you saw the scroll that I was not from the seigneurie of Courtrai. You knew when you brought me home that I was not one of the three suitors your mother had chosen. No one has made a bargain. No one has given me leave to be here, except you. And why, if not for this?”

  “It was not for this,” said Katelina.

  “For the wit of my conversation? But I have passed the whole evening in silence. For the rapport between us? But we have never yet been alone with each other. Why then have you brought me here, if not to sharpen my hunger and satisfy yours? Sweet demoiselle, all the world knows you for a virgin and suspects you for an unwilling virgin. Why remain one any longer?”

  It was not only going wrong, it was going wholly wrong. Even his voice was different. Katelina said, “It may be hard to believe, but rape was not what I had in mind.” She paused. “Marriage, perhaps.” Had he locked the door?

  The mask produced a low laugh. “You were ready to entertain a proposal of marriage with the man you thought I was! Rubbish, my dear demoiselle. I expect to marry you, but only after I have introduced you to the very particular delights of the condition. Then I think, without too much persuasion, you will be quite content to be my wife. I am,” said the owl, “a man, I am told, of exceptional powers. I am willing, since my son cannot please you, to put them all at your disposal.”

  “Your son?” said Katelina.

  The great cloak, as she spoke, was being thrown back. The courtier’s hands which had served her so skilfully rose to the amusing owl mask. The fingers, which had led her from dance to dance, which had taken that strong, considering grip of her clothing, gripped instead each side of the mask and lifted it carefully off. Underneath were the benign, mammoth features of Jordan de Ribérac.

  He said, “Or do you dislike Simon so much? I sometimes wonder. But he, of course, is far too offended to make you an offer and, in any case, has a little feud of his own to settle first. Or thinks he has. He will find, I think, when he comes back that it has been settled for him. The churl still has two eyes, but he will remember me every time he looks in the mirror. I detest peasants and people who consort with peasants,” said the vicomte de Riéerac. “You will notice this, when you come to France. I could not breed on you otherwise.”

  Claes. It was this man who had marked Claes. And what else was he saying? She put both hands on the chair before her. She said, “You want children to oust –”

  He interrupted, smiling gently. “A single son: what a hostage to fortune! A wealthy man needs more than one heir.”

  She said, “You have a wife.”

  Jordan de Ribérac smiled. “There are many ways,” he said, “of getting rid of a wife. Whereas a child-bearing woman is beloved of man and of God, as we will prove, you and I, if God wills it. The door is locked and the porters are bribed, demoiselle Katelina. I shall undress, and you, if you will be so kind, will place a little more wood on the fire. There is a draught on this floor. I can feel it already.”

  The door to the main house was locked. But the door in the opposite corner was not, and led to steps, and a yard, and a postern she knew how to get through.

  She moved to the fire as if to mend it. He was undressing. He unclasped his overgown and began to drag his thick arms from the quilting. She waited no longer. She leaped for the small doorway, and took the stairs two at a time, hoisting gown, sleeves and underskirt out of her way as she went.

  She heard him swear, and then start to follow. His footsteps drummed on the uppermost stairs as she plunged down the last steps and into the garden. Trees, tubs, the ill-fated fountain stood in her way. Beds of snow closed over her feet. She lost the postern door; found it; found the bolts had stuck in the cold. She
hammered at them, hearing de Ribérac’s footsteps behind her.

  The first bolt gave way; and then the second. She wrenched the door open and rushed into Steen Straete, brilliant with light, thronged with merrymakers. Those nearest turned and smiled, and she dropped her skirts suddenly. She was safe. There was no need to call for help. She had only to cross the square to reach the Hôtel de Veere where her parents were, and Gelis. She thought de Ribérac had been lying when he had claimed to have paid off her porters, but that could wait until tomorrow. There was no need to go back to the Silver Straete house tonight.

  She moved into the crown of the street, among the singing, laughing crowd of gentle and commonfolk, and turned and looked back. Jordan de Ribérac had emerged from the postern and was standing, hatless and cloakless, looking after her. He made no effort at pursuit but stood staring at her over the intervening heads. Then his great bulk moved, and followed by its shadow made its way, with deliberation, in the opposite direction.

  He had offered her marriage and rape both, in her own house. After she had passed an evening with him. After she had invited him, warmly.

  Of course, he had deceived her. The name he had shown her was not his own. He had not sought the approval of her parents. She must tell her parents, for she required their protection. But there was no need that anyone else should know. As it was, she saw in her mind’s eye her mother’s expression. The son of the seigneur of Courtrai, her mother knew also, was six inches shorter than Simon’s father.

  She found she was trembling, and walked more quickly, helped by the pull of the crowd. It must be time for the fireworks, and the bonfire. Somewhere here, very likely, would be the lord of Veere’s party with Charles and Gelis and a reassuring circle of servants. And there, sure enough, was Gelis herself in the distance. But Gelis alone, with only a white-faced manservant behind her. Gelis with her shrill voice upraised and her plump face wild with distress, pleading vehemently in a swirl of indifferent, frolicking carnivallers.

  Katelina picked up her skirts once again, and began to run towards her small sister. She called her name, and then opened her arms as the child fought with her elbows towards her. Without tears, without shrieks, Gelis said, “They won’t believe me. We saw it from the tower. Two men came up and took Claes away. And I think they killed him.”

  With the child Gelis and her servant on his hands, it had seemed to Claes that he was already involved in the strenuous conclusion of a particularly strenuous day. Life being what it was, he would not have been greatly amazed to be faced with still more complications. Danger he did not think of at all.

  Indeed, the time with the girl had been no hardship. He had found friends to circle-dance with them both and got her a place from which to watch the jugglers and found an acquaintance who would take them all up the tower of St Christopher’s chapel, ready to witness the fireworks. Once she had got what she wanted, she was easy to handle. They all were.

  After that, he was no longer in control of matters.

  He settled Gelis and her man in the tower. He ran down to find and thank his acquaintance. He turned to come back, and a surge of sightseers all but swept him off his feet. When it slackened, he found he had travelled halfway to the Waterhalle and moreover was propping up a couple of drunkards who would not let him go. And finally, one of the drunkards raised a groggy arm which must have had something other than a hand at the end of it, for when it descended on his head, Claes experienced only the first flash of pain, so sudden was the oblivion.

  He woke to the sound of harsh gasping, and realised it was his own, and that his chest was shuddering and groaning because there was almost no air. His other senses, slowly returning, advised him of a crashing pain in his split face and head, and then of the likelihood that he was not only blind but fully paralysed.

  Intelligence, as he struggled for air, dealt with this nonsense. He was not paralysed. His limbs were cramped because he was huddled in a very small space, and he could not see because it was dark. He unfolded numb fingers and found the walls of his prison, which were wooden.

  A coffin, presumably. Or intended to be. His mouth was open, wide as a fish. He could feel his lips stretched, his nostrils scoured and distended. There were pains in his neck and his chest. A wash of faintness bedevilled him, and receded. Wood. He could break out of wood, if it were thin enough. If it was not in fact a coffin. If it was not in fact a grave, with earth above and around it.

  Try.

  His knees were already up to his chest. He pulled them higher, and then hit out with both feet against the walls of his prison. Total, obdurate, absolute resistance. A thud that might as well have come from metal. Nothing. And another wave of faintness that told him he had no reserves left to try that again.

  If it was as thick as that everywhere. The lid, what about that? Wriggle. Breathe slowly. Lift one hand, then the other. Explore.

  Not just wood, but a familiar smell. Not a rectangle. Not the smell of corruption. A smell as frail as the spoonful of air that brought it to him, with a crazy, commonplace association. With girls. With taverns. With good times in the past. The smell of malmsey wine. He wasn’t in a coffin. He was in a keg.

  He wanted to laugh, but kept lapsing out of awareness. His brain said, “If …”

  He forgot what he was thinking about.

  He remembered. His brain said, “If it’s a keg …”

  It was important, so he hung on to it. He clenched his hands. He took long, shallow breaths full of alcohol fumes, and wanted to laugh again, and stopped himself. If it was a keg, there ought to be a bung.

  Feel. His stiff hands brushed over the wine-roughened curves. No bung. Move. That was harder. That meant shift, and half-sleep, and wake up, and shift again. When he slept, his head and his chest stopped hurting him. Why had he moved?

  The reason eluded him. Trouble receded. He lay, gasping occasionally and pressing his hand on his chest. The back of his hand brushed against something. Against nothing. Against a hole.

  The bung. That was what he was looking for.

  He lifted his hand with enormous lethargy and pushed his fingers into the hole. Through the hole. Out through the other side of the barrel and into another body of wood. Not a bung. The side of another – another two barrels.

  He was in a keg with an open hole in the side. But the keg was upside down among others and the open hole covered. He couldn’t break out. If he wanted air, he had to roll the cask over. Even if he rolled it over, other barrels above him might block the hole just the same. The effort of rolling it over might use up all the air he had. If he fainted for good, he would suffocate.

  All right. If he was going to use air, why not shout with it? But how far would a shout carry from a pile of barrels? Were the barrels even in Bruges? Near passers-by? Near anyone? If he used the same energy to try to alter the way the keg was lying, the noise, perhaps, would be just as great?

  It wasn’t thinking; it was more in the nature of a long, disconnected dream. He reached that point. Then, carefully, he drew into his lungs all that was left of air in his prison. And lifting himself, flung himself bodily against the curved walls of the barrel, sideways, downwards, with all the strength he could gather.

  Wood boomed against wood. Inside his prison the noise echoed like Cambier’s cannon, exploding inside his ringing head. His teeth rattled with the jar of barrel meeting barrel and then rattled again as there was another echoing thud. His keg had struck its neighbour and had been hit by another.

  A third collision followed, shaking him from side to side like a bird in its shell. His knees and shoulders hammered against the oaken staves and his split cheek suddenly took the brunt: even as he gasped, he realised what it meant. The keg had turned partly over.

  Then he had no idea what was happening, because the keg was kicking and jolting in a succession of unbearable thuds like a tree being punished by axe-blows. His brain, deadened by pain and by airlessness, ceased to tell him anything. The movement, like a tree falling, became in
creasingly languid. The thuds, spaced out, became slower and heavier. The last, just above one of his shoulders, actually made itself felt through the demoiselle de Charetty’s blue cloth. The corner of another barrel had burst through his own, and come to rest on his shoulder.

  His new blue jacket. She would have it mended. It would do for someone else. Or Felix’s dogbasket. He went to sleep. Poor Tilde. He woke.

  He wasn’t gasping. His head ached, and his shoulder. And, come to think of it, every inch of his body. But he wasn’t gasping, because the keg that had splintered his own was letting in a strand of air. And light. And more air and light were playing on his midriff where (by dint, he assured himself, of ineffable pilotage) the open bunghole of the keg was now exposed.

  It had worked. He could breathe. Whatever stackyard he was in, his cask was exposed to the air. He could shout from it; recover strength to burst from it; roll it stupidly to freedom if he had to. All he had to do was get his breath, twist to apply his eye to the hole, identify his whereabouts, and proceed to rescue himself.

  His head throbbed with pain but he hardly noticed it. He had only one question for his guardian angel. St Nicholas. St Claikine. Don’t laugh. It’s the wine fumes. Don’t laugh, but tell me. Why is the light from the bung-hole bright red?

  Feet up, shoulder down, head down. Eye to the hole. Answer: it is bright red because out there, something is burning.

  A fire in a cooper’s, a brewer’s yard? Dangerous, my friend Nicholas. But there are watchmen, and horns and crowds and buckets of water … Crowds? But they’re all in the market place, enjoying the Carnival.

  I was in the market place. I was knocked on the head in the market place. There is no way that two men could have carried me through that crowd and got me as far as a brewers’ yard. They didn’t need to. There was a dray in the market place full of barrels. They had only to fling a keg over my head in the dark, like a butterfly net. And hammer on the lid as they carried it to the dray. And toss it aboard.