The Spring of the Ram

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Within the rambling house, the room they showed him to was one of a wing, occupied, it appeared, by Katelina van Borselen and her Scottish relatives. The little receiving room was empty but for a stout woman in a white cap, sitting sewing by open shutters. The glazed upper window painted an acne of colour over her face. When she got up and curtseyed, he deduced that she was prepared for him, but hardly excited. As the steward had done, she repeated that her lord was detained, but her lady would see him directly. From her accent she was neither Scottish nor Flemish, but French-born. He took the seat she offered and watched her settle back in her own. Small talk was easy in a house recently blessed with an heir. He asked about Henry.

  The baby! Her eyes changed at once and the sewing crumpled as she leaned forward. “Such a stout fellow, monsieur! Strong as three horses, and hardly a cry, unless his wetnurse oversleeps! But for serving my lady, I could hardly bear to be here, and miss seeing him grow!”

  “A happy child,” Gregorio said.

  “Happy and handsome. His mother’s face, his father’s hair, curling like silver. And an angel-kiss on one cheek. I tell you, he is a little god. His father worships him. Would have him on a horse before he could suck, and a sword and a lance in his fists. There’s a knight for you: never mind your Burgundian sheepskins!”

  “His mother must miss him sorely,” Gregorio said.

  He only wished to elicit, if possible, how long they were staying. To his surprise, the woman didn’t answer at once. Then she said, “As to that, great ladies are busy, monseigneur. There are nurses enough for the little one. She sees him when she can.”

  “Indeed.” He said gently, “Was it a difficult birth?”

  She nodded slowly, stretching the cloth on her lap. “A big child, and my lady was twenty. They blame the child sometimes. Or it frightens them, being so new to handle. And again, there are those whose greatest fear is that the little one won’t grow to love them. You’d wonder children ever got reared, till you remember Nature always has her way in the end, and a child finds its way to most hearts.”

  “Of course it does,” Gregorio said. He felt queasy. Nicholas, poor disowned bastard. You haven’t missed much, not being claimed by this Scottish house. He said, “And how is my lady taking to Scotland?”

  “My lady is taking to Scotland very well,” said a light, polished voice from an inner doorway. Smiling a little, the speaker was walking towards him. “You come from Meester Adorne? Perhaps you don’t know that I have spent one sixth of my life in that country. I was maid of honour to the Scottish queen, Duke Philip’s niece. What is your name?” She spoke Flemish.

  “Gregorio,” he said. So this was Katelina van Borselen.

  She was not beautiful, except for her body, which had a fullness of breast perhaps owed to the child, although she could not be feeding it. A confection of floating white cambric concealed most of her hair, which showed brown at the temples. Her brows, heavily marked, were a characteristic of the Borselen family: the fact that she had not plucked them showed a certain independence, borne out by the set of her mouth. Her neck was slender, and she held herself well. A comely young woman. Once roused, he suspected that she might come near to something quite striking.

  She said, “Well, Gregorio, I am sorry to say that my lord is detained, but I expect him quite soon. Will you wait, or is there a message you may trust me with?”

  “I should prefer to wait,” said Gregorio. “Perhaps there is an office? It is a matter of business.” The presence of Simon’s wife was not part of the plan.

  “Then he will take you to our chamber,” she said. “And meantime you will sit and tell me all the gossip of Bruges.”

  “He was asking about my little lord Henry,” said the woman.

  He watched the girl’s eyes. They looked flat and dense, as if painted, but they might have looked so before. She said, “Everyone has been so kind.”

  The woman said, “He was asking whom he favoured.”

  Had he asked that? He didn’t remember. The girl said, “Oh, doesn’t every first child look like his father?” She smiled. She had said it so often that the remark and the smile had lost meaning. She said, “But why should we deafen you with women’s talk? What is happening in Bruges? And Genoa? What is the latest news from Genoa and the East?”

  A door opened. The lady Katelina turned her head. “Simon? Here is a messenger from Anselm Adorne. He has private news for you. I am jealous.”

  Gregorio turned. In the doorway stood the man he had seen twelve months before, admiring the fire that had consumed the house, the dyesheds, the yard, of Marian de Charetty in Bruges. The lord Simon who had secured a ship of his father’s and, placing Pagano Doria in charge, had sent him to Trebizond with Marian de Charetty’s twelve-year-old daughter. The lord Simon whose antipathy towards Nicholas, born of his first wife, was known throughout Flanders.

  Married when he was fifteen, Simon de St Pol must be in his mid-thirties at least. But such was the grain of the skin, the set of the blue eyes, the shining spring of the corn-yellow hair that he might have been the same age as his new wife Katelina. In dress he was exquisite also, from the tilted brimmed cap with its jewels to the quilted doublet that ended high above the long, well-turned hose.

  On the night of the fire, he and Gregorio had met face to face. Because of what had happened, one of them would never forget it. But until Gregorio saw the other’s expression, he did not realise that Simon, too, had remembered. Simon said, “This man is not from Anselm Adorne.”

  The girl’s face had changed also. She knew, it seemed, the tones of her husband’s voice. A look was enough to make the serving-woman curtsey and leave. Then the girl walked over and stood by her husband, facing Gregorio. She said, “Is this true? Who are you? My maid has gone for the steward.”

  Gregorio doubted it. He thought: she has gone through scenes before. She knows what happens when he loses his temper. He opened his mouth.

  Simon spoke first. He looked at his wife. “He talked to you. What was he saying?”

  There was a line between the marked brows. She said, “Nothing. He asked about Henry.”

  Simon began to laugh. He flung back his head, and gave way to peals of genuine laughter. When he straightened, his fair lashes were wet. He said, “He couldn’t resist it. How he must have longed to know. How he must have hoped to hear the right kind of news. Is it limbless, an idiot? Hard of hearing, ill-favoured, twisted? I trust, my sweet, you told our friend all he wanted to know? I hope you told him all about Henry?”

  The lady Katelina stood without moving. Her eyes, already wide on her husband, remained there. Her mouth had slackened, while the rest of her face, in a curious way, had drawn back. She said nothing. Simon said, “Don’t you know who this man is? He’s the ledger clerk from the Charetty. The fellow whose books I flung in the fire. He’s been sent by young master Claes, to find out what sort of heir you and I have.”

  By that time, she had probably fathomed it. He could see her throat move, and her skin was white and pink as strawberry cloth. She said, “Get out.”

  “No, come in!” Simon said. He walked forward, hand outstretched to grip Gregorio’s arm. “Sit down! Allow us to give you some wine! I want you to go back to Claes and tell him how you have drunk the health of the first of my sons. Of my many sons. If he were to coax me, I might name one of them Nicholas.” His face was radiant.

  The girl’s voice, on the contrary, stamped like a boot. She said, “Indeed, no. Get out.” She collected herself a little. “Simon, this is unlucky. What happens to Nicholas—Claes—has nothing to do with Henry. I will not have them linked. Get rid of him.”

  “I am not here to link them,” said Gregorio. “I am here to talk about a ship called the Ribérac.”

  He had expected a gleam of understanding, followed by ridicule and rebuttal. Instead, Simon of Kilmirren looked at his wife. “He knows!” he said. “I was longing for him to know. So you have told the great Nicholas that his career as a merchant has en
ded. We have sent a Doria to show him how it ought to be done.”

  The man had not only felt confident enough to admit it—but his wife also knew. The frenzy of anger had withdrawn from her face, as if charmed by the name of Doria. In its place was not only tranquillity but something almost like triumph. Gregorio said, “You told him to rape Marian de Charetty’s daughter as well?”

  The girl lifted her head. Simon said, “Her daughter?”

  “Catherine. The twelve-year-old. Without her mother’s knowledge he took her to Florence and married her there. Then he sailed with her for Trebizond. A valid marriage, of course, would place Catherine’s husband in control of half of the Charetty company on the demoiselle’s death.”

  He addressed it to the girl who, surely, was innocent of that part of the plan. Her face seemed to confirm it. Turned to her husband, it showed enquiry; disbelief; horror. Simon said, “I don’t believe you. Who would? The moment it happened, the demoiselle de Charetty would have run screaming to all the lawyers in Bruges.”

  Gregorio said, “Would you like to see Pagano Doria’s letter to her, announcing it? I’ve made several copies. If I haven’t handed them to the authorities yet, it is only at the demoiselle’s request, for the sake of the girl. But it will, of course, be known in the end. That you paid Doria to pursue Nicholas to Trebizond and, one supposes, to kill him and usurp the business for you. The magistrates in Scotland and Flanders will be anxious, I’m sure, to see justice done.”

  “Does Doria’s letter say that?” said the Scotsman. His colour had risen, making his eyes an even more brilliant blue. He did not look in the least afraid. “If so, of course he is lying. And so are you, naturally, encouraged by your little master.”

  “If nothing happens to injure Nicholas then, of course, we might take it that Doria is lying. Unfortunately,” Gregorio said, “there is no doubt at all that the abduction of Catherine de Charetty is true.”

  “Nicholas knows of all this?” said the lady. Her face, turned towards him, was both pinched and intent.

  Gregorio said, “He knows that your husband sent Doria.”

  “And about the girl?” the lady Katelina said.

  “By now, no doubt he will have discovered. They should be in Trebizond together.”

  “Then the girl can come to no more harm. He is her stepfather. What did he say about Simon?” The horror, like the anger, had gone from her face. Instead, her attention had sharpened, like that of a dog waiting to dash.

  Gregorio said, “That he would deal with it, and we were not to be concerned. That his wife the demoiselle should not be troubled with it. Unfortunately, she discovered. That is why, as her lawyer, I am here.”

  Simon laughed suddenly in his face. “I can’t think why. Kill an apprentice! Usurp some widow’s failed business! Why should I trouble? We did nothing but finance a legal mission by an able man who will show soon enough who is best fitted to run an overseas consulate. When he returns with a fortune, he will run my Genoese office.”

  “And Catherine de Charetty?” Gregorio said.

  Some of Simon’s colour had gone, but he looked no less undisturbed. He lifted a silken shoulder. “Am I to blame if an agent of mine gets a girl into trouble? No doubt the girl was man-mad; brought up in the same house as Claes and her mother. I’ve nothing to say. You’re welcome to take me to court if you want to. I’ll find enough facts about Catherine de Charetty to make you wish you’d never come near me.”

  “No,” said Gregorio. “She was a twelve-year-old virgin. He married her the day of her first menstruation. I propose, then, to set the complaint before the Duke this evening.”

  Simon smiled. “You couldn’t even get near his secretary.”

  Gregorio said, “I could get near the Treasurer. Pierre Bladelin owes me a favour. Or perhaps I shall just wait in this house, and speak to Henry van Borselen. It is, surely, the office of the Golden Fleece to protect the young and the weak against those who exploit them? To chastise those who, instead of going to fight for the Faith, send others to waste ships, money and effort on a private vendetta?”

  “And Nicholas is fighting for the Faith?” Katelina said caustically.

  He turned. “He has taken a hundred armed men to serve the Emperor David.”

  “As Doria has taken a shipload of arms and armour,” Simon said. He was smiling. Gregorio disliked the look of the smile.

  Gregorio said, “We know, of course. But what will he do with them?”

  He caught Simon’s sharp glance and knew that, maybe for the first time, Simon had stopped to think. He hoped he was thinking about Pagano Doria. By marrying Catherine, Doria had made himself perhaps a little more powerful than Simon had envisaged. Unless he chose, there was no need for Doria to continue as anyone’s agent. Simon said, “Claes. He’s told you to do this, hasn’t he?”

  The change of voice should have warned him, even without the girl’s sudden movement. The lady Katelina said to her husband, “How could he, from Trebizond? If Doria has done something wrong, you can face him with it when he gets back. So can the demoiselle de Charetty. Meester Gregorio is a reasonable man. He will wait until then.”

  “He may not come back,” said Gregorio. “I shall wait, I think, for my lord Henry. Your son’s godfather, I take it? He should have more care than most for the reputation of his family.”

  He had hoped to obtain a position of strength from which to issue an ultimatum. He had misread Simon. The flash of a sword was the first thing he saw, before he heard the lady’s muffled scream. Gregorio jumped aside, fumbling for the hilt of his dagger as Simon came towards him, his whole blade unsheathed and gleaming. “I believe,” said Simon, “in protecting the reputation of my family in my own way. With honour. With my own body. Not in some clerkly battle with ink. Bolt the door.”

  “No,” said Katelina.

  Simon turned his head. Gregorio swung himself over the table behind him and landed halfway between Simon and the door just as Simon, setting hands on a chest, sent it sliding to crash against the door timbers. Then he straightened. “Now!” he said.

  “Honour?” said Gregorio. “Sword against dagger?”

  He thought Simon was past thinking, but then the other man smiled. Without turning his eyes he said, “Fetch the other one.”

  “No!” said the girl Katelina again.

  “Then he’ll have to fight with a dagger,” said Simon.

  She looked at him, and then ran to the door from which she had entered.

  For the moments she was gone Gregorio stood, feeling foolish as well as frightened. He said, “What will this solve, my lord? Men know I am here.”

  “And they will know how you died,” said Simon. “You came to kill me, on orders from Nicholas. Ah. There is the sword. You can fight, a little?”

  “Enough,” said Gregorio. Anger, filling him, suddenly burst past his guard. He said, “You conceited fool, what are you doing? Here’s a little girl ruined, her family sickened with sorrow. And instead of facing up to it like a man, you blame others. Nicholas is worth ten of you.”

  The sword came past his throat as he spoke the last words. He got his own blade hurriedly up, and it caught Simon’s the time it came for his belly, and the time it came for his heart. He stumbled over a chest, felt the steel sear through his forearm and parried, again, the point that came to his head. He crashed into the wall and, ducking, got himself out of a corner. He had called upon himself all Simon’s passionate anger, and there was no more time, now, for words.

  A bookish Lombard lawyer was no sort of match for a man trained in the martial arts: an expert jouster, a practised swordsman like Simon. Gregorio fought, because he did not want to die. He fought defensively, escaping where he could; parrying where he could. It seemed to go on longer than he thought possible. The girl, breathing noisily, was crouched like a hare by the windowseat. The main door was blocked. The room became littered with overturned stools and cushions and tables; the shards of a firescreen, the crumbs of a bowl. A brass pitch
er tolled to itself in a corner and then was kicked aside with a clang. He thought the noise alone would bring rescue but no one came; no one called. Gregorio thought he was fit, but Simon had spent all his life tending his bodily skills. And now, as he tired, Simon feinted and leaped, and although Gregorio caught the blade with his own, the impact drove him staggering back to the opposite wall.

  Further along, and still partly open, was the door to the inner room. The chamber beyond it was silent. Gregorio thought, as he went down on one knee, of trying to fight his way along to get through, and then wondered what good it would do. Enlarge the battlefield slightly. Make it possible, even, to run away with Simon spearing his back. He knew Margot was going to be extremely cross as it was, and he ought at least to leave her with some impression of the statement he was trying to make, and why he was trying to make it. Simon, meantime, was preparing to make his own final statement with both hands on the hilt of his blade.

  With a weakened left arm, he couldn’t parry that sort of stroke. Gregorio flung himself to one side and rolled, and half got to his feet, but knew very well it was useless. With masterly ease, Simon altered his grip, and the slant of his thrust. The point of his sword drove through Gregorio’s shoulder. He felt it as a hideous blow, followed by an upheaval as the sword was wrenched backwards, scarlet. Then he saw that Simon had raised it again, his eyes narrow, and had taken both hands for the dispatch. As was seemly. To put himself out of his misery.

  Chevaliers. Children, trained to stay children. Gregorio looked hazily up.

  The sword had not descended. He could see the furred hem of Simon’s tunic, and the handsome leatherwork of his girdle and baldric, and a lot of unpleasant red on the pleated bodice which must be his own blood. And Simon’s cleanshaven chin, lifted in challenge, and his eyes, which were no longer deadly and narrow but open and rather empty.

  A voice said, “Well, my dear; I think that is enough for today. Katelina, my son needs a wash, I believe, and a change of dress. And the room! The young at play. Endearing, but not really consistent with the dull world the rest of us have to survive in. And when the young are no longer young, not even endearing, I fear. Really, we shall never be allowed to come here again.”