Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  Like the rest of the King’s motley army, the nuclear group of Astorre’s bowmen and cavalry had spent most of the winter inside Naples, apart from the occasional sortie to dog the very few movements of the enemy, who were led by Duke John of Calabria and the Orsini fellow, the Prince of Taranto.

  When they were inside the walls, they took their share in the various violent inter-company engagements, not to mention outright brawling, that kept them in training. From time to time they were counted by the powerful gentlemen who controlled the various armies fighting for King Ferrante. None of the byplay bothered Astorre, who simply got on with controlling his own little group, a matter in which he was extremely competent. But through the weeks Julius found himself longing for the arrival of Tobias, who was supposed to come south when Brother Gilles was cured, and who had not so far come south at all. In three months.

  Julius realised he missed Tobias. He missed Tobias because he was the only civilized person with whom he could discuss the Charetty family. The Widow and Felix. And the terrible, much-beaten Claes who ought to be here, keeping him company, and ready to listen to him. And, somehow, to improve himself. Late at night therefore, in the small captains’ room at the castle, Julius thumped down at last with Thomas and the two new men, Godscalc and Abrami, and said, “Well. Now tell me all the news.”

  And Thomas had said, “Well, I thought you’d be wondering. Three hundred florins a month over what’s been agreed. Now what do you say to that?” Julius stared at Thomas. “For the handgun men,” Thomas said. He frowned. “What did you think it was going to be? Nine hundred florins, the captain was promised in the condotta. Now we’ve added fifty trained men. I got the promise of the Duke’s secretary. Three hundred florins extra. Wait till the captain hears.”

  Carefully, Julius trained his mind in the direction of Thomas. He said, “Astorre will be delighted. And so will the Widow. Thomas, that’s good news. You negotiated it all with Meester Tobias?”

  Thomas was in an expansive mood, and in any case scorned to pass as someone who bothered with reading. He said, “With the help of Meester Godscalc. Meester Tobias wasn’t there.”

  Julius gazed at him. “He isn’t still in Piacenza? Or Florence? Is Brother Gilles still in Milan, Thomas?”

  Thomas grinned. “You should hear the tales of Brother Gilles. But no, he’s cured and sent on to Florence, so they say. And Meester Tobias did go to Piacenza, because he got us the handguns. But he took his time. He didn’t come back to Milan till the end of February, we were told.” He paused.

  “Well?” said Julius sharply.

  Thomas grinned again. “Well, he left again. For the Abruzzi.”

  Julius stared at him. In his mind’s eye he saw the west coast of Italy, from Rome all the way south to where he was now, in the castle of Naples, preparing to fight for King Ferrante. And in his mind’s eye he saw the opposite, eastern coast of Italy, and the corresponding stretch of coastal land called the Abruzzi. A stretch of land of great interest, since towards it, rumour said, was marching the army of Jacopo Piccinino, now paid by Duke John of Calabria, and intent on joining his force to Duke John’s in preparation for an all-out assault against Naples.

  Julius said, “Why would Tobias go to the Abruzzi?”

  Thomas’s grin appeared to be fixed. He said, “Oh, there’s no secret about that. He’s gone to join captain Lionetto. He’s gone back to Lionetto, the fellow he was with before he switched to captain Astorre. Wait till captain Astorre hears. There’ll be no holding him. They’ll have to tie him with chains, or he’ll be off to fight Count Piccinino and captain Lionetto and Meester Tobias single-handed.”

  All that night Julius, sleepless, thought about it. It should have come as no surprise. Ever since Bologna, he’d got used to being let down. He knew every man looked after himself, and you should expect nothing more. He hadn’t known Tobias well. He’d found him short tempered and impatient and often intolerant, but reasonably fair in his dealings and accurate in his judgements. He had come to rely on his company more than he realised. He should have known that money would talk, in the end.

  When Astorre came back with his small fighting group, it turned out that he already knew about Tobias. After a few casual obscenities, he dismissed the matter. The loss of the horse-master would have worried him more. Anyway, now they had this fellow Godscalc and he was an apothecary, wasn’t he? Used to salves and wounds? One medical man was the same as another.

  It was, if you thought about it, the way a man like Astorre would react. But to Julius’ eye, accustomed to interpret the tilt of the beard and the glint of the sewn eye, there seemed to be something else. He waited until he got him alone and said, “What’s troubling you then? A real attack on the horizon? A proper battle?”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” said Astorre. “Duke John’s got a big force out there, and a lot of strongholds with barons in them who don’t like Ferrante. We’re not strong enough to break out and wipe them up yet.”

  “Can we afford to wait?” Julius said. “There’s Piccinino marching down the east coast. And they say the King of France has troops massed in Lyons, waiting to cross and help his cousin Duke John.”

  “Maybe he has,” said Astorre. “And maybe he hasn’t. A man would say he has his hands full with England and Burgundy just now, without being free to throw armed men in the direction of Italy. And as for Count Piccinino – he’s got to get to the south of Abruzzi, and then cross Italy to get to his friends here. He’ll find that harder than he thinks, especially if the Milanese army comes chasing south after him. No. If it’s battle you’re waiting for, you’ll have to wait a while yet.”

  Julius said, “You’ve had some other news then?”

  “Oh yes,” said Astorre. “News I’ve had. Thomas, come and sit down. Meester Julius here wants my news, and he ought to have it. You too. Then you can decide whether or not you’re going to join Lionetto as well as that fellow Tobias. Now I know why he did it. By God, now I know.”

  Thomas was gazing at Astorre. Julius, every chamber of his brain empty, gazed at him also. Astorre said, “Claes.”

  Thomas said, “Claes?”

  Julius said, very slowly, “Claes has turned spy?”

  “Spy!” said Astorre. Heads swivelled. He replaced the roar with a volley. “Maybe he has. I’ll believe anything of the little brute now. Anything. Thomas, how do you fancy working for Claes? Toadying for drink-money? Thanking him for a new pair of boots?”

  Thomas began to turn a puzzled red. Julius also flushed, thinking furiously. Claes, the obedient courier; the most beaten, most cheerful servant in Bruges. Claes, who was clever with numbers, and who had perhaps taken his good advice at last. Julius said, “Has he begun to help with the business? Has the demoiselle brought him into the office?”

  “Into the office?” yelled Astorre. “Holy Mother Mary, the mad-woman’s married him!”

  Julius began to laugh. He laughed all through Thomas’s worried questions and Astorre’s consequent fiery exposition which catalogued every disaster awaiting them, from the insult to their dignity to the coming bankruptcy of the business which would turn them all into beggars unless they could face taking orders from a cocky young stud who had one skill, by God, which everyone knew about, by God, and which he had used, by God, to get where decent men couldn’t.

  Afterwards, Julius remembered recovering enough to point out that Tobias, at least, must have left Milan for reasons other than the demoiselle’s ill-chosen nuptials, which had not then taken place. But Astorre, shaking with rage, would have none of it. “If there’s been a marriage, it’s because there’ve been couplings enough for a scandal. That bastard Claes! Maybe Tobias put him up to it! Maybe Lionetto put him up to it! Maybe Lionetto’s the new Charetty captain, on his way south to wipe us all out and save the newly-weds paying our wages! I’ll kill him!”

  “Who?” had said Julius.

  “Them all!” had roared Astorre with perfect logic, retiring thereafter to drink himself to
the pitch of picking a fight with the biggest man he could find, and winning it.

  Julius spent two days calming him down and succeeded after a fashion, without eliminating, for the benefit of King Ferrante of Naples, the core of a simmering animosity that bid fair, as Thomas had once conjectured, to destroy the entire opposition single-handed.

  For himself, Julius felt neither anger nor envy but a growing pleasure, and a growing curiosity. For whatever reason, it had begun. And now, what would come of it?

  A week before the news of his marriage reached Julius, Nicholas set out for Milan. Behind him in Bruges he left a courageous woman and two weeping children. He also left Gregorio, with Cristoffels hourly expected. He had confidence in them both. Between them, they could begin, without him, the work of restoration. And within three or four days, Felix should have ended his stay at Genappe and be shortly restored to his mother.

  In fact, three days after the departure of Nicholas, the young broker Cristoffels arrived in Bruges from Louvain. He knew nothing of the fire, and expected to find the Widow and her new consort already gone to Dijon and Geneva. Stunned by the news of the dyeshop, Cristoffels did not at once respond to the Widow’s pointed enquiries about her son Felix. Then, collecting himself, he reassured her at once. The jonkheere was well. His entertainment at Genappe had evidently been most agreeable. On leaving Genappe, he had called at Louvain to change horses before riding south with his servants. That is, ignorant of the fire and consequently of his mother’s changed plans, jonkheere Felix had taken the notion of riding after herself and Meester Nicholas. Of riding, that is to Dijon. And straight to Geneva, if he failed to encounter them there.

  At that point, Cristoffels had paused, mistrusting the look on the demoiselle’s face, and had glanced at Gregorio, who gave him no guidance. Then the demoiselle said, “I am glad to know where Felix is. I thought for a moment that it might be worth riding after him. But he will meet Nicholas soon enough, and learn how things are. I expect we shall see him next week.”

  Cristoffels had remained discreetly silent. He had described with accuracy what Felix had said, when planning to join his mother and his mother’s new husband. He hadn’t described the look on Felix’s face when he said it.

  Felix himself, riding towards Dijon, showed the same face to his servants who, as a result, refrained from their usual chatter and resigned themselves to the sort of grim journey you always got when the jonkheere was sulking.

  At Dijon, he didn’t stay long and came away without his mother and Claes. No. Nicholas, you now had to call him, or you’d get young Felix’s whip. In a state, the jonkheere was, and no wonder: all pride so that the old woman mustn’t be criticised, and crazy with anger, of course, over Claes. Nicholas. Holy God, how were you to remember to call him Nicholas when you’d won a girl’s garter off him at dice only two months ago?

  So he’d missed his mother at Dijon and they had to go all the way to Geneva. And it wouldn’t tax you to know why. The old woman was showing off her new bridegroom, and the jonkheere wanted to spoil it for her. Or that was the way it looked, if you knew young Felix. Not a bad little bastard. To tell the truth, you felt sorry for him now and then. When he wasn’t lashing out with his tongue and his whip, at any rate.

  It was mid-May, season of lambs and new-dyed greenery, of orchard blossom and fine, rushing rivers and deep forests full of bustling wild life. Riding south, Felix saw none of them. He slept at the inns his servants found for him, and put his hand in his purse for food and drink and bed and tolls and charity, and thought about his mother and Claes. Nicholas.

  He arrived at Geneva and started to look for the house, yard, warehouse and stables of Jaak de Fleury, whose niece had borne Claes to a servant.

  Felix had never met Jaak de Fleury or his wife Esota, for whom Claes had worked as a child. And whom Claes was coming to visit now, no doubt in all the finery the Charetty money could buy. Not Claes but Nicholas, married to the owner of the Charetty business and rich.

  For everything, of course, was quite different from what Felix had expected that day in his mother’s cabinet when, adult to adult, he had accepted the presence of Nicholas in the family circle. Nicholas wasn’t in the family circle. He was head of it. He wasn’t his mother’s friend; he was her master. Nicholas, Felix’s servant, who had so bewitched his mother that she had begged him, Felix, to stand aside and give Nicholas his chance in life! His chance to parade his cheap triumph in front of their kinsmen. This is the old woman my wife. That’s her boy Felix, but pay no attention to him. I’m running the business now.

  He’d heard through Cristoffels of this expedition of his mother’s. At first, the shock had been so great that Felix hadn’t known what to do. But now, if he wept at all, it was from anger. He tried to stop his thoughts before they got as far as that. A merchant never showed his feelings. That was how bargains were made. That was how you got the better of the man you were bargaining against.

  When the house was found, the porter didn’t want to let them in, and Felix had to go forward himself and use all his authority. Jaak de Fleury might think himself a great merchant and broker, but he took Charetty cloth and bought and sold just like the Charetty company. And Felix’s mother, for what it was worth, was his sister-in-law. Although Jaak de Fleury set no store by the kinship, it seemed, and there was certainly no desire on the part of Felix de Charetty to claim any sort of concessions.

  But still, you let in the heir to the Charetty business without any arguing. Unless his mother and Nicholas were already inside. Unless Nicholas was behind the delay, or even the refusal …?

  No. Someone was coming. A tall man in a fine brocade gown with trailing sleeves over a high-necked doublet of figured silk, and a draped hat larger than his own and twice as expensive. There was a golden chain round his shoulders and a lot of discreet jewellery. His cheekbones shone, whorled like the masks on a misericorde. Only his eyes, large and dark and densely lashed, didn’t shine at all, despite the short smile which showed his fine teeth.

  “They tell me,” said Jaak de Fleury, “that a young kinsman has arrived at my door. I came immediately. I am most harassed with business. My desk is laden. I have visitors due in an hour and many letters to write, but for these words I stop. A young kinsman, wishing to speak to me. And you, I take it, are he?”

  Felix gazed, fascinated, at the good teeth. “Yes,” he said.

  The good teeth showed themselves in a second smile, behind which was a hint of weariness. “Yes,” echoed Jaak de Fleury. His voice was encouraging. He said, “You will, I hope, allow me to compliment you on your excellent hat. Indeed, it is uncommon to see such a rare confection in Geneva. And the distinguished cut of the jacket.”

  Behind Felix, one of his servants shifted. He felt hot. He wondered why the man was keeping him on his threshold discussing clothing. He said, “Thank you, monsieur. I’ve been hunting at Genappe.”

  The dark eyes sharpened. There was the breath of a pause. Then a smile of true spontaneity enlarged the small mouth. Jaak de Fleury said, “At Genappe! My young kinsman has been hunting with the Dauphin! Now here is reflected glory indeed for your poor relative in Geneva! And now tell me, what is your name, my boy?”

  Felix said, “I have already told your steward. I am Felix de Charetty from Bruges. I called expecting to find my mother here.”

  “Your mother!” said his overwhelmed kinsman. “Now here is a knot! You are Felix de Charetty – of course, there is a relationship somewhere by marriage. You are right. And you expected to find your mother in this house?”

  “She isn’t here?” Felix said. As well as hot, he was growing angry. The man might be rich and might be, on the face of it, friendly, but he was still standing inside the courtyard, one ringed hand laid on the open gate, and Felix de Charetty was still standing at the entrance, with his men and his mounts.

  “Never!” said M. de Fleury. “Nor sent word she was coming, poor lady. No doubt she needs help of some sort.”

  “Then,�
� said Felix, “you have made a mistake. She is in no need of help. She was merely travelling south with her … She was merely proposing to call on you.”

  “My dear young man,” said Jaak de Fleury. The tone he used was so changed that Felix, forgetting his pique, simply stared at him.

  “My dear young man, if you have spent some days at Genappe – is it possible that you have not heard from Bruges? That you did not call at Bruges before setting off south? That, in fact, you have not heard the terrible, terrible news?”

  “What?” said Felix. At either elbow his servants moved forward. All three stared like imbeciles at the prosperous figure before them.

  “My poor, poor boy,” said Jaak de Fleury. “The Charetty business no longer exists. It burned to ashes last month, on the eve of the White Bear tournament.”

  They got invited inside then. The servants and the horses and baggage disappeared. His heart thudding, Felix followed Jaak de Fleury up stairs and through passages, ramming into him when the merchant stopped to answer questions, and getting left behind when he lost himself thinking up more to ask.

  The dear lady his mother was alive, and his sisters. No one had been killed. The house, the yard, the stock had all gone. A tragedy. A tragedy when the lady was, by all accounts, already deeply in debt because of some incautious commitments. And M. de Fleury had heard rumours of another kind, although he did not propose to offend the lady’s son by relating them. About a marriage to a certain scullion. Although nonsense, these tales injured the reputation of a company, along with that of its officers. “But of course,” said Jaak de Fleury, entering a parlour at last and signing his bemused visitor to a settle, “there is no Charetty company now, alas. So rumours have no importance. Some wine?”

  Felix said, “I’ll have to get back.”