While he was speaking, he could see Nicholas compel himself to be still. Elbows on knees, he sat with his palms over his face. His hair, in wet coils and rings, dripped over his brow and neck and shoulders, where the blanket had shifted. He spoke at last. He said, “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
Julius paused. Then he said, “Then I don’t want to know. Start afresh. You can.”
Silence. Nicholas cleared the wet from his face with one hand, then brought up a corner of blanket and rubbed his face and hair slowly with it. He said, “I suppose I can.”
It was an agreement for the sake of form only. But at least it meant that he had a grip of himself again. Nicholas with his brain working was easier to deal with than Nicholas defenceless, when you had no idea how to help him.
Julius said, “Don’t do anything silly again. It isn’t worth it. It’s unfair to the demoiselle, too.”
“Yes. Of course you’re right,” said Nicholas slowly. He stopped rubbing his hair and found a smile, quite remarkably. “But I’ll pay for the damage, not the demoiselle. I only hope none of the dogs belonged to Simon.”
If that was how he wanted to construe the remark, Julius was willing to let him. Very soon, the boy arrived back panting with a set of dry clothes and Nicholas stripped and dried himself and dressed, fumbling only a little over the doublet fastenings. Then Julius gave him the wine the miller had brought, and he drank it all in one swallow and was immediately sick.
Julius said, “Come on. Back to Spangnaerts Street. It’s not every day you get your backside pricked by an ostrich.”
“You go,” said Nicholas. “Ill follow as soon as I can. I’ve got a call to make.”
Julius said, “Why? Where? I’ll take you, wherever it is.”
“No. I’ll manage,” said Nicholas. “It’s only to Silver Straete. Katelina van Borselen wants to see me.”
Chapter 42
TO NICHOLAS IT seemed fitting that on this, the worst day of his life, he had to pay for all his sins by meeting Katelina van Borselen.
After some argument Julius left him alone and, all too clearly confused and annoyed, went back to Spangnaerts Street. To report, no doubt, to Tobie and Gregorio. He would also have to say something, one supposed, to Marian, since the career of the plucked ostrich would be the talk of Flanders by now. Nicholas thought that Julius, not necessarily the most discreet of men, might have the sense to keep to himself what had happened after its capture. He knew very well that, but for Julius, he wouldn’t be here. Julius had done the same thing for him once before, in the water at Damme. He wished Julius would either keep him out of trouble or stop rescuing him.
Walking to Silver Straete was a trial. He felt stupidly weak, and no matter what back ways he chose, people kept hailing him. He hadn’t been able to decide beforehand what he was going to say to Katelina, and now, on the way there, he was given no time to think. He simply arrived at the gates, and the porter let him in.
It occurred to him, at the door, that he knew his way to the kitchen, and to her bedchamber. Even though her father was away, it was unlikely that she would interview him there. She would recognise him, at least, with his hair wet. Straight from the canal again. The whole history of their relationship had to do with water.
There was, this time, a manservant on duty. He was taken to a large parlour and shown in, and the door closed behind him. It was the room from which she had sent him that sober salutation, full of contentment, the morning after the Carnival. The morning he had run past with his goats, and bells on his doublet.
He turned his gaze from the window seat, which was empty, and found the rest of the room equally vacant. Then the tall chair by the hearth creaked a little.
No one rose from it. Of course, she was with child, and heavy. With his child. Nicholas walked forward instead, and stood before the chair, cap in hand.
The gross body filling the chair he had half imagined, and the tumble of velvet disguising it, and the animosity in the face above both. They were all there. Except that the face, the body, the hatred were those of a man, not a woman. Seated in the chair, sneering at him, was Jordan de Ribérac.
Already cold, Nicholas felt himself become perfectly bloodless. He stood idiotically, as if paralysed. Then sensation came flooding back, and he could feel all the colour return to his face.
Jordan de Ribérac, back from the dead. Alive, alive. But well aware now, one supposed, of the name of the person who had ruined him. Whom he did not like, very evidently, to think of as his grandson. It was necessary, too, to consider very quickly what else the vicomte de Ribérac might know.
Seated there, the trader and financier, companion of kings, didn’t look like a man broken from Loches, or a refugee from the executioner’s axe. There was a gold chain of some weight round his shoulders, and the vast, pleated doublet under his gown was buttoned with jewels. He was wearing a large, cuffed hat of brocade with a collapsed crown, below which his broad cheeks shone, healthy with colour, and his cold, bright eyes glittered.
He said, “Well, Claes vander Poele, killer of men. Pray be seated. I am sorry, of course, to have brought you here in the name of my daughter-in-law, but I felt it wise, and so did she. Who knows what assassins you mightn’t have brought with you otherwise? Or what ingenious way you might have found to capture me? I am, as you might think, an embarrassing and therefore very discreet guest of Burgundy, and have no desire, just yet, to find myself back in France.”
Nicholas sat. He said, “You escaped, then.”
The small mouth smiled. “From Brittany, with the help of my daughter-in-law. That is, she had not yet married Simon, but she saw, I am sure, the advantages of keeping the French land in the family. I may be exiled now, but I am still alive. And when the Dauphin becomes king, Ribérac will, of course, be restored to me. An argument which outweighed, as it turned out, even the lady Katelina’s unreasonable distaste for my company. Simon, of course, doesn’t know how she helped me in Brittany. He would be most displeased with her if he did. His greeting this afternoon when I appeared alive before him was not filial.”
“He isn’t interested in Ribérac?” Nicholas said. He kept his voice as calm as the other’s, and sat perfectly still.
“He is more interested in Kilmirren. It has been, naturally, a great blow to him to discover that he has neither the land nor the title, and indeed is about to lose all the freedom he enjoyed under poor Alan in Scotland. I have to thank you, by the way, for disposing so ably of Alan,” said the fat man. “As an older brother, he was always a great inconvenience to me, and should have been got rid of years ago.”
Nicholas said, “It had nothing to do with me.”
“No, of course not,” said the fat man his grandfather. “What a large number of deaths you have had nothing to do with. Alan. Poor Esota de Fleury. The unfortunate M. Jaak. That sad young bumpkin Felix de Charetty. All your dear friends or relatives. As I heard it, even the famous Lionetto was happy to save your life with his sword, quite unaware that it was you who had ruined him. No wonder Simon fears for his life.”
“He needn’t,” said Nicholas.
“Oh, not directly, of course,” said de Ribérac. “I hear that you almost ran away from him at the Hôtel Gruuthuse this morning. Yet you invite his attention, don’t you? A little matter of stealing a whore of his. And a remark you made as you did it. Now she knows what it means, it has added a good deal, I’m afraid, to the violent antipathy in which the lady Katelina holds you.”
Now she knows what it means? Nicholas waited.
De Ribérac smiled. “You are really the most passive opponent I have ever met. I thank God there is no blood of mine in you to be ashamed of. Don’t you remember the comment you made? The conduct of an oaf and the talents of a girl and a mortification to your father. It cut deep at the time, poor Simon. After the dead weakling he got on your mother, he never found a girl he could quicken until Katelina. You know she is bearing? You are ousted, poor bastard.
“I’m glad,�
� continued Jordan de Ribérac. The surfaces of his face, reflecting back into each other, bespoke a vast and undisturbed serenity. “There was a time when I thought I should have to resort to her myself, but really, a man wearies of animal pastimes. I am glad Simon has achieved something at last.”
Nicholas said, “So you don’t want me to take care of him any more? I was looking forward to it.”
It was an arrow at venture, and it pierced the arrogant calm. Nicholas received a look so quick and so sharp that he felt it. De Ribérac said, “That is why you are here, M. l’assassin. To warn you to attempt nothing against me, or against Simon. Especially against Simon.”
“In case I marry Katelina?” said Nicholas.
It brought his answer, at last. “Katelina!” said Jordan de Ribérac. “I thought I had told you. Didn’t I tell you she is your bitterest enemy, your most vicious opponent, the person who will not rest until you are punished? I never thought to see Simon confess his cuckoldry, that festering secret from his past. But of course, he was in his cups. Simon told her, this morning, who you are. The son of her husband, you might say, if you had been legitimate. The half-brother of her coming child. Oh, I tell you. If Simon thinks you are a devil, she thinks you are Satan himself. With what they are planning to do to you, and your wife, and your little company, I have nothing to fear.”
The clean-shaven chins quivered as the fat man chuckled. “I was to tell you that. She was insistent that I tell you that. Now she understands everything you have ever done.”
Nicholas said, “The demoiselle de Charetty has done nothing. Or the others in her company.”
The fat man said, “I believe you. Indeed, Katelina herself pities the lady. But for you, the demoiselle de Charetty would be safe.”
Nicholas said, “She will be safe.”
The fat man smiled. “Dead, she would be safe. But not once I’m in Kilmirren and Simon has to look for another arena. He should have married the Reid girl and gone to England like her brother. With all the double-dealing he’s been involved in at Calais, the Yorkists would welcome him. He could set up his business in Southampton, in London, in Burgundy. He might do it yet, with Katelina to spur him on. And all the merchants who don’t like losing trade to an elderly widow and her clog-wearing child lover might well feel like joining him. Jealousy wrecked my business, and jealousy will ruin yours.”
Nicholas said, “How could jealousy ruin you?”
“Antoinette de Maignélais,” the vicomte said. “You’ll never have heard of her. She thought, no doubt, that the King was paying me too much attention. She got wind of some connection I had with M. le Dauphin, and suddenly, the word had reached the King. But for the warning I got from the lady Katelina, I should have been taken. You could say that you, too, helped me escape.”
“In the same way, I expect, that I helped kill your brother,” said Nicholas.
“Oh, indirectly, of course,” said de Ribérac. “However else do you always act? Katelina knew she had to smuggle me out. She also knew there was a ship of mine in St Malo. The St Pol. I should be grateful, by the way, if you would refrain from using our family name. Claes vander Poele is already too close for comfort.”
“I shall remember,” said Nicholas. “And she arranged for you to board the ship and escape?”
“Because she happened to be there on business of yours,” said de Ribérac. “Something to do with an ostrich. Have I said something more witty than usual?”
“Yes,” said Nicholas. “You have completed my day. Is that all you wanted me for?”
His grandfather looked at him. “My dear fool,” he said. “What else should I ever want you for, except to tell you whom to kill and whom to leave alive? When you cease to be useful to me, I shall cease having you summoned.”
“I understand,” said Nicholas. He got up. “But next time, perhaps, you might have the courage to summon me in your own name.”
The fat man laughed aloud. “Don’t speak of courage as if you knew what it was. Certainly, I can tell you, you won’t receive another summons from Simon’s lady wife. Or if you do, you would be well advised not to answer it.”
Going home, he offended no doubt a great many people, because this time he saw and heard nothing until he was entering the house in Spangnaerts Street. Soon after that, he did notice Julius, who asked him how he was and then went away. He must have reported to the others because neither Tobie nor Gregorio came near him, although he became aware of a number of broadly smiling faces about the house and the yard. With a jolt, he remembered the ostrich.
His own room, which he had kept, was empty. He stood there for a while, thinking, and then, because there were things to be settled, he went to Marian’s cabinet. She was there with Bellobras, whom she dismissed. He had braced himself for explanations but she seemed to know everything, presumably because Julius, after all, had not been reticent. Everything, that is, except about his last interview.
She said, “Never mind about the ostrich. Gregorio and Henninc have gone to put it all right, and even Tommaso is reconciled. I’ve told him to tell Duke Francesco that it’s sick, and keep it for eight months till its feathers grow.”
“If he can keep it for eight months,” Nicholas said. He sat down. “I seem to need keepers.”
She said, “Julius told you?” She had less than her usual colour, but her eyes were clear and steadfast and affectionate. It came to him that she was magnificently dressed and he remembered that she, too, had been invited on board the Venetian flagship.
He said, “He told me that they’re all ready to stay. In spite of everything.”
He had expected her to answer at once, but she didn’t. Then she said, “And, Nicholas, do you want to stay?”
At first, he wasn’t sure how to answer. Last night, after he knew she had been told all about Jaak de Fleury; after she had broken the news that Julius and the others knew his connection with Simon, they had talked, but carefully. And when, at the end of it, she had used, flushing, a woman’s excuse to sleep alone, he couldn’t have told whether or not it was genuine, but was glad she had used it. What degree of courtship, what fervour is proper when bestowing only tender affection, and not affirming or courting some new and ambiguous pledge? He hadn’t known, and had been afraid to put it to the test.
So now, he listened to the tone of her voice, and tried to read her face, and remembered, of course, what else Julius would have told her. He said, “It wasn’t Katelina van Borselen who was waiting for me at Silver Straete. It was a trick. It was Jordan. Jordan de Ribérac.”
Her face coloured as she felt, too, what he had felt. She said, “They didn’t kill him.”
“He escaped. Katelina van Borselen helped him. She hasn’t told Simon.”
He hadn’t been sure whether or not to tell her that. But her mind was on something else. She said, “But he knows you betrayed him?”
“Not even that,” Nicholas said. “He only wanted to warn me not to touch Simon. Since I began murdering all my family, he has had to concede me some small ability. He has an idea, too, that Simon and Katelina together may represent a threat to you and the company because of me. I think he’s right about that.” He stopped. Then he added, “I do want to stay.”
Marian de Charetty said, “I think you do. But we are, aren’t we, going on board the galley tonight?”
And he said, “Yes. But whatever happens, the choice is going to be yours. Whatever you want, I will do.”
“Yes. I know that,” she said.
They had, now, a household barge of their own, so that they could set off in style with all the other boats making for the harbour at Sluys, their oarsmen smart in Charetty blue and Loppe, finely dressed, looming behind them. He had wanted to come. Exactly one year before, Loppe had been chained on board a Flanders galley, and forced to dive at the captain’s command. He had served the Duke of Milan since then, and Felix. But if he returned to Sluys now it was not out of pride but – had he been asked – from a sense of foreboding.
Tobie trained on him, unsmiling, the basilisk scrutiny of Pavia. He said, “Prosper de Camulio has arrived. You may meet him.”
“Yes. I know,” said Nicholas. “Look. About the company. You’ve said you want to remain with it. But it’s perhaps going to be more than you bargained for. Simon is going to cause trouble. And de Ribérac … his father is free. I saw him this morning.”
He could see Julius thinking. Julius said, “Silver Straete!”
“Yes. That was Jordan. He just wanted to reaffirm that my … that the family is out for my blood. Ruining the Charetty company if necessary.”
Gregorio said, “It would take quite a lot to ruin the Charetty company. Although I say it myself.”
You wouldn’t think, looking at the black cap and the comedian’s nose, that Gregorio had the steel in him that he had. Nicholas gazed at him with the first, faint stirring of optimism. He said, “I think I feel the same. That is, I don’t mind fighting. The question is, where will it do the most good?”
“I can imagine,” said Tobie.
“I’m not asking for any more promises,” Nicholas said. He met Tobie’s pale eyes and tried to read them.
Tobie said, “I’m not making any. I suppose you know what you’re up against? Whatever happens, you’ll have to keep Adorne on your side. You’d have the Bishop and some of the Scots preferring Simon. And the Duke of Milan and his allies are friends with the Dauphin just now, but that mightn’t last.”
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