Niccolo Rising

by Dorothy Dunnett

  “Nowadays we send bills of credit,” said Portinari. His manner combined firmness and deference. “But yes, under proper guard, we would send silver if need be. You dispatch goods that way yourself, when the Flanders galleys come in with something that won’t wait till spring. They are late this year, my lord Bishop.”

  “They are near,” said the Duchess of Burgundy’s secretary. He removed from his nose the flower he had been smelling and, bending, tucked it behind the collar of Simon’s seated dog, which thumped its tail and galvanised the folded half of its body a couple of times by way of encouragement.

  Messer Vasquez straightened. “We shan’t have to wait long, I think. They say the auction was held up this year, and the galleys were late leaving Venice. I am told the silk will be good, and they carry exceptional spices. The Duke has been informed.”

  Tommaso turned quickly, so that Katelina could see his high cheekbones and long nose and the brightness of his eye under the fringe. He said, “Has monseigneur heard who is the commander?”

  Messer Vasquez did not mind sharing his news. “One of the Duodo, I hear. I understand it may be Messer Alvise, who used to sail from Venice to Trebizond. If so, Bruges may look for good entertainment. When the Turks attacked Constantinople, Alvise Duodo broke the boom and led most of the trapped fleet to freedom. A wealthy tribe the Duodo, and not wanting in style.”

  He smiled at Katelina. “Now is the city’s busiest time, demoiselle Katelina: when all the cellars are empty and waiting for the two precious cargoes. But as a child, you have seen the Flanders galleys arrive?”

  She was silent. Come Lent, the ecstasy of the Carnival. Come late summer, the wonder of the great galleys sailing in with their treasures from Venice. The two marvels of a child’s year which she had most missed in Scotland. For which she had yearned even more than the wide skies and the water and the warm, speckled brick.

  “Occasionally,” said Katelina. “Monseigneur, will you take a little more wine?”

  Simon remained to take supper with them, and was amusing. It would have suited her father more, Katelina thought, if he had fallen into discussion of what had been said that afternoon, or asked questions, or given his opinion of those who had spoken, and hinted at a little gossip from Scotland.

  But of course, Simon knew that. He was sure, then, of receiving her father’s blessing if he sought it (or perhaps he had it already?). And he had elected instead to impress her. She spent some time not being impressed. But he was remarkably easy in manner. He made her father’s chaplain smile, and bandied anecdotes with his secretary and drew out both her father and herself on the subject of the court at Veere, where Simon’s own sister Lucia had once served the Scots princess. Her father asked after this sister, who had married a Portuguese in the Duchess’s train and was now at home in the warmth of south Portugal. They had a son, it appeared, and Lucia was more than contented.

  “Content to be so far from home? Are you sure of that?” Katelina spoke from mischief, but Simon answered her with composure.

  “You missed home during your three years in Scotland. But marriage is a commitment. The six sisters of my king were flung all over Europe. You know that the princess at Veere is still happy. So are the others, all except two who were sent home to Scotland. Ask them if they enjoy being back in Scotland or not.”

  “Are they still alive?” said Katelina.

  “Come Katelina,” said her father. “That is hardly courteous. These ladies cleave to their lords, as they should, and willingly follow the mode of life which duty lays on them. Whether it is warm or cold, or hilly or flat does not signify.”

  “Or whether their husbands are warm or cold, or hilly or flat?” said Katelina. “It must signify, or the convents would all be empty.”

  The chaplain pursed his lips, looking at no one. Her father said, “Demoiselle, you have not learned delicacy, it would seem, in your travels abroad. This is not talk for the board. My lord Simon will excuse you.”

  She rose slowly. So did my lord Simon, and took her knuckled hand to lead her out from her chair. He said, “If, monseigneur, you would excuse your guest Simon also. There is a fine sunset in the garden which would cool us both, if one of your servants would attend us.”

  There was a pause, then her father nodded, and signalled with his eyes to one of the younger serving-men, whose eyes were glistening with interest above the badge on his pourpoint. She thought of refusing to go, for she was in a rebellious mood. She had been a long time away from paternal authority, and her last suitor was still overclear in her mind. She walked out of the room and across the tiled passages still in two minds, and annoyed because he still held her hand, and because a pleasant scent of some sort came from his clothes, and his hair was a shade she had once prayed to the Virgin Mary to bestow upon her.

  When the servant opened the door to the garden she moved her trapped hand half out of his, and was alarmed to find it detained. But he kept it only long enough to raise it to his lips, and then gave it back to her keeping again, and followed her docilely into the garden. The servant dropped out of sight but not, she supposed, beyond hearing. She said, “Why are you in Flanders?”

  He had stopped walking. Back at the house, the shutters were rimmed with yellow lamplight except for the open, aromatic window of the kitchen, where a cat sat on the sill. In front of her the little trees, moving, masked the lamps in other houses being lit, one after the other as the evening light waned. The sky was full of pale marzipan colours, and so was the water in the fountain basin, and the glimmer that came from the well. Something pricked her through the gathered voile over her collarbones, and again at her temple. She said, “Gnats. We shall have to go back indoors.”

  The bench was beside them. He said, “I was going to answer your question. Am I not worth a gnat?”

  “No,” she said. “Tell me another time. Or drive them away. There are some leaves. Smoke would do it. Ederic?”

  By God, not out of earshot. Her father’s servant appeared. “Fetch a brand from the kitchen,” said Katelina. “And throw it on those leaves. You were saying?”

  Simon watched the servant disappear tranquilly enough, and led her to the bench, where he took off his jacket and spread it for her. “I was saying that, like everyone on the good Bishop’s fine ship St Salvator, I was in Bruges to sell part of the cargo, to invest the proceeds, to buy and to lay orders and, most of all, to enjoy the arrival of the Flanders galleys. You could have asked me all that on board.”

  The trees were darker. A strengthening light, advancing, told that Ederic was coming back. “I wonder why I didn’t?” she said. She sat down.

  He said, “Because you were afraid I might give you another answer. There is a time for everything.”

  “And this is the time?” she said. Ederic, stooping, was introducing the brand to the pile of damp leaves. The leaves hissed, and a little smoke showed, and a trace of movement from the first moths. Simon made to sit down. “If you stand,” said Katelina, “you could tend the flame while Ederic takes the brand back to the kitchen. It is not the time to burn down my father’s house anyway.”

  Blue smoke rose from the fire. Ederic looked at his mistress and left. Or at least, withdrew from sight. Simon surprisingly knelt by the fire, staining his hose, and, bending, blew into its darker regions. The darker regions retorted. “If you wish to see me blackened,” he said, “I have no objection. As to your question, the art of timekeeping is one that is peculiarly Flemish. When the hour arrives, I expect a Fleming to tell me.”

  “You seem to have waited a very long time to be told. Perhaps you may find yourself waiting as long again. Oh.”

  Simon said, “I am afraid, if you sit over there, that you will continue to be stung. Let me recommend this side of the fire, where the smoke will blow past you. Why did you refuse his lordship? He had a fortune, and he would have died very quickly.”

  “Would he?” said Katelina. She considered, and then rose with his jacket and, spreading it, dropped by th
e fire. He was right. The smoke was just enough to ward off the gnats, but it flowed in his direction, not hers. Already his fair skin was flecked with soot, changing its classical contours, and his eyes shone.

  “Of course he would, with you as his wife, demoiselle. Although I am told he prided himself on his embraces. You didn’t experience them?”

  He must know perfectly well that Ederic was within earshot. She said, “I cannot really remember. I find courting tedious.”

  He had removed his hat. His hair and eyes gleamed in the firelight. The sky was lurid; the garden was dark. Her gallant Scotsman bowed his head, examining the erratic course of his fire. “Look,” he said. “So damp and so miserable. But at a touch” – he bent and blew – “the right touch, of course … Warmth. Light. Comfort.”

  Katelina van Borselen, black from her brow to her bosom, looked back at him. And then round at him, because swiftly, he had slipped round beside her.

  He said, “And sometimes, the right touch is not comfortable at all. But how can I find out whether my courting is tedious unless we are both black as well? My black hands here and here, and my black lips where you would like them. Katelina?”

  His breath was scented. The silk on his arms and his body was warm. His lips, arrived at her mouth, tasted of wood ash.

  His black lips were on hers, and his pink tongue was inside her pink mouth, disturbing her. Her chin, when she jerked it away, was wet and sticky. She wiped it with trembling fingers.

  “Mother Mary,” she said. “They said you had the conduct of an oaf and the talents of a girl, to the shame of your father. Now I believe them.”

  One hand remained caught at her breast. The other lay slack at her neck. He became perfectly still. He said, “They? Your father?”

  She could not lie about her father. She twisted her shoulders, and his hands fell away. There was a space between them. His soiled face, intent on hers, glimmered in the firelight. Gnats, moths, flared, died, and dropped on their laps. She said, “Has no one told you that before?”

  “Who?” he said. “Who said that?”

  “No one you need be afraid of,” she said. “Except that I heard it. Except that it’s true.” Without him, her skin wavered between cold and hot, and she was still shivering.

  Very slowly, Simon of Kilmirren stood up, and the smears on his face were not comical. He said, “You father does not think so. Do I begin to see why you refused his lordship, and are unmarried at nineteen? You are malformed?”

  She stood also. “Yes,” she said. “If it means I have a dislike of fumbling attentions.”

  “You invited me here. I see. So all you want is a convent?” The anger in his voice was so well controlled that it hardly carried. His voice itself was low enough to escape any listener.

  “All I want is a gentleman,” said Katelina loudly.

  And found herself, somewhat naturally, alone in the garden.

  Chapter 4

  DRAWN FROM THE comforts of the van Borselen kitchen, the servants of the noble Simon had to scramble to put on their jackets, collect the hound and attend, torch in hand, as their master, without taking leave of his host, set off at a smart pace for the market place and the Bridge of the Crane, beyond which lay his lodging. The dog, which he ignored, skipped and barked, excited by his streaked face, his blackened shirt and his air of displeasure. His servants walked carefully.

  Curfew fell at nine o’clock, and all those in the streets were home-going. After that, the only lights would hang at the gates of the wealthy, or flash from passing boats, or glimmer from pious niches, illuminating little.

  The night-life of Bruges after nine o’clock was pursued with minimal light or none at all. Despite the patrols of the Burgomeester van de Courpse and his officers, there were taverns and bath-houses and certain other establishments which did not shut their doors at nine, but these were careful to show no outward lights.

  No lights were carried by the officers of the peace who stood, turn about through the night, at the foot of the belfry, nor by the men who watched with bell and horn from the top. The nine closed gates and the five miles of ramparts were not lit, since Bruges was at peace. Only, from the country outside, you might see a tint in the clouds here and there, where they hung over a palace or courtyard or friary. And from within, observe from the cracks between shutters and the broad underfoot traps of the cellars, which householders were still up, and busy.

  Later, animals would prowl rustling among the refuse that would be swept up so excellently by the scavengers in the morning. The dredging boats would move slowly from canal to river, scouring the silt and netting the day’s quota of bloated pets and rotting vegetation. Near the bridge (here, where my lord Simon walked on without sparing a greeting) the kranekinders were checking and greasing the Grue, the town crane, a task which could only be done at night, when business was over.

  Their lanterns flickered on the ground, illuminating the huge wooden framework raising its snout to the sky, with its pair of vast treadmill wheels roofed like farmhouses, and its mighty double hooks dangling. At its peak, from whatever whimsy, had been erected an effigy of the bird which gave it its name, and smaller cranes perched single-legged on the long sloping spine of its neck, freed by night from the jostling abuse of the seagulls. Familiar as the belfry to those who lived in and frequented Bruges, it drew no glance from the Scots servants of the fair Simon, steward of Kilmirren. Only one of the felt-capped men lying inside its wheels whistled between his teeth to the other and jerked his head, so that a drop of grease splashed on his cheek and made him curse amiably. Neither left his job, and indeed they had no need, for every man with night-business in Bruges came by the Crane sooner or later.

  At the lodging owned by Jehan Metteneye, one of the Kilmirren men had to pull the bell to have the courtyard door opened, and the lantern over the gate gave the porter an interesting view of my lord Simon’s appearance. The room he shared with Napier and Wylie and another couple of Scottish merchants was upstairs and usually empty at this hour, but naturally he met Bishop Kennedy’s factor George Martin outside the eating-room and Metteneye’s wife on the stairs, and fell over John of Kinloch, the Scots chaplain, coming out of the dormitory, having used the last of the washing-water. It was a good half hour before he was able to come downstairs decently groomed and eat his supper while he entertained the others with the more amusing parts of his adventures. John, the St Ninian’s chaplain, irritated him, and he forced himself to be especially charming to him.

  At the same time, he had no doubt at all how he was going to pass the rest of the night. He had already brought down, in a roll, the papers he required to study before his first purchasing mission. He asked and received from the demoiselle Metteneye permission to use the innkeeper’s office, with its lamp and its worktable, where Jehan kept his chests and his ledgers.

  She was fifty and her smile made him flinch, but he smiled back when she trimmed the lamp, and brought him a better stool, and asked if there was anything of which he had need. He said no, and then changed his mind. He asked whether Mabelie could bring him a flask of the wine she had put specially aside for him. It was a risk, but a small one. Jehan was unlikely to let his wife come running here twice.

  He unrolled his papers and opened the inkstand, but after the door closed, made no attempt to read or to write. As always, coming back to a town, he had run through his mind the tale of his past conquests and part conquests, and had arranged them, half in idle anticipation, half in amusement at himself, in descending order of attack.

  Mabelie this time stood at the head. He had found her in his last days at the Metteneyes, a virgin of splendid charms and piquant simplicity, from which status he had led her with quite unwonted enjoyment. She was a servant, of course: one of the myriads of poor cousins and children of cousins which provided the staff for every good burgher’s household. There would be no hurry therefore to find her a husband. He had hoped, when he came back this time, to find her still in the house. When he saw her w
ith her pail on the quay, still bright-eyed, still blushing, he had been quite touched.

  Last time, she had come to him here, and later he had bribed the two other maids to sleep elsewhere, while he came to her attic. Sometimes, such were the pleasures of Bruges that the dormitory stayed empty all night, and they could take their ease there. It was the only way he could pass such a night, without leaving the house. Women were not permitted in the inns and halls of the merchants.

  When a quarter of an hour had passed and Mabelie had not come, he became impatient, and opened the door. One of the menservants was passing, and he shut it again. Five minutes he tried again, and nearly knocked over the demoiselle Metteneye, advancing to knock with his wine. He produced a brilliant smile, and detaining her chatting, asked after Mabelie. The girl, she said, was a trial to her at times, as all girls were, but a hard worker for the most part, and earned her keep in times like these, when everyone wanted service and didn’t care whom they ran off their feet. She would be off perhaps making up beds for the new gentlemen who had come in that day. She couldn’t say. But my lord Simon would no doubt see her about, tonight or tomorrow.

  He tried again ten minutes later, and this time found a maid that he knew, whom he avoided as a rule because of the leer with which she accepted his bribes. She giggled and said that, of course, she would tell Mabelie that the gentleman was working late. But indeed, monseigneur, Mabelie was working late herself. Leer.

  She was a fool. There had been no mistaking the look he had given the wench on the quay, or that she had come there on purpose to see him. He let the girl go and, wine in hand, wandered idly all through the house, from the servants’ quarters to the kitchen, being charming to everyone, and growing angrier. A game of cards was in progress in the commonroom. He stood and watched, chatting and drinking. Other servants came and went, but not Mabelie. He would have to go out. He had almost decided when the courtyard bell jangled and jangled, so that the cardplaying stopped and heads turned.