The Spring of the Ram

by Dorothy Dunnett

  “You are calling me a thief?” said Simon slowly.

  Nicholas said, “I did suggest we ended the discussion. There is no need to go on. Ask your men to let us pass. It isn’t your fault that some of the things you were told were wrong. Other things are your fault, but I don’t want to go on with it.”

  “I think,” said Simon, “you called me a thief.”

  “He didn’t,” Catherine said. “We’ll send Julius. He’ll look at your papers. I want to go now.”

  It was still possible. Nicholas managed a smile. He said, “I think she’s saying what I’m saying. Enough. Ended. Honours even.” He was thinking, Honours! when the confrontation took its usual course. And suddenly Simon had his sword in his hand.

  And suddenly, too, it was too much. Nicholas raised his two bound fists and slammed them, with a bang, on the nearest table he could reach. “What do you want?” he said. “To win every argument? To have someone swear every wrong is a right? To provoke me? Silence your conscience? Prove I’ll never be what you are?” He stopped. “If you’re going to murder me with your sword, then do it. If not, free my hands and turn your men out. Three against one, and you’ll kill me. But they’ll talk.”

  Something of what he said made an impression. Perhaps because, for the first time, he had said it. Simon turned to the two men and nodded. One of them hesitated; then they both bowed and left. The door closed. Nicholas said, “Catherine too. Let her go.”

  “Why?” said Catherine. She looked from Simon’s face to his sword. It glistened.

  Simon said, “Untie his hands.” Her hair had fallen over her face and her fingers were trembling. She looked up at Nicholas for reassurance as she worked, and he smiled down at her, even as he felt her draw the dagger from under his jacket. He made a small move to try and stop her without betraying her, but it was enough to bring Simon to his side, his sword up. Catherine slipped between them and backed to the wall. Nicholas said, “May I also fight with my sword? Or if I lay it down there, do you think we might go back to talking about it?”

  “What is there to talk about?” Simon said. “The law is on my side. If you won’t pay your debts, you must suffer.”

  “Quite right. But first the law must prove I’m a debtor. So let us go to the law,” Nicholas said. “Catherine…?”

  Simon stood at the door. Catherine, who had moved, sank back to the wall. Nicholas said, “Please. We’re not talking about round ships or Doria. It would help to know what we are talking about. Is it me? Or is it my mother? Or just that by being here I remind you of it all? If I knew, I could work out how to stop it.”

  Simon had gone very pale. Nicholas was not sorry. It was his own fault that Catherine was still there. She merely looked anguished. Simon said, “That is why. You talk.”

  “And you are going to stop me,” said Nicholas blankly. He was not sure if the other man did mean that, or if he thought he did.

  Simon said, “Take off your coat.” And the moment he had dragged the sodden thing off and dropped it, Simon was coming at him, sword lifted.

  He had never used his own sword since it came to him. He had never fought Simon equally before, except with poles, which had nearly been the end of him; and in a crazy chase through water where he had finished being bayed down by hounds. He could handle a polestaff well now, and had had himself taught to swim perfectly. He wondered, drawing the new, shining blade, what other skills Simon would force him to master. Finding a method of resurrection, perhaps. His steel jerked as Simon touched it, testing his grip and his speed; and then again, from the other side. Astorre had taught him, of course. He had been sent, too, to the ducal master-at-arms in Milan; for you can’t control mercenaries or ride on dangerous journeys unless you know what you’re doing. At Trebizond…at Trebizond, they had duelled against one another in the fondaco to keep their hand in, and taken turns to share the troops’ exercises. And he had kept in training with hunting, and archery, and ball games. He thought of his beautiful horses, and felt regretful. He was reminded, again, of what this was taking from his first, long-planned moments with Marian and became suddenly overcome with angry impatience.

  It was not a good idea, for it happened so seldom that he didn’t know how to deal with it. Simon moved lightly as a good swordsman should; lunged and withdrew; changed sweep and direction, knocked aside and drove with his point. He appeared angrily content, and only displeased that results were not at once apparent. He was forcing the pace, as he thought, when Nicholas effected a collision of blades that filled the air with blue fire and sparks and jarred both the swords and the swordsmen. Simon withdrew, his eyes open, and suddenly swerved to one side, to avoid an extremely sharp blade in his shoulder. He looked at it as he fended it off. Nicholas hoped he had observed the inscription, which was in Arabic. Simon said, “Where…?” and had his arm jarred again, and again. He responded by lifting his own sword like a scimitar, and bringing it down like a headsman.

  It was so fast that Nicholas caught it badly and late; but he caught it. Nicholas said, “The White Sheep,” and laughed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the face of Catherine, white in the shadows. He wondered what the time was, and if it were now really dark. He wondered why she had taken his knife, and what she thought she could do with it, with eight—no, seven men presumably somewhere in the house. He realised as he had always realised before that he couldn’t kill Simon, so that he had better get hold of himself and do something. He was not quite sure what; and meantime Simon saw the lapse of attention and nearly sheared through his ribs. Simon was in no doubt that he could kill Nicholas. But that might only be temper. Nicholas made a last effort, between gasps. He said, “Let Catherine go—to her mother. She’s waiting.” He saw Catherine move.

  “Is she?” said Simon, and laughed. His blade came down very quickly, and was parried and parried. He was fit: his breath was still coming easily.

  Catherine said, “Can I go?” and laid her hand on the door. If they let her through, she could get help. Someone surely would know the Medici house.

  Simon said, “If you like. You won’t find her.” His blade pierced. Listening to the tone of the other man’s voice, Nicholas felt nothing of it. He fought forward and back for a moment, his eyes moving from Simon to the uncertain girl holding the door. He bought time by increasing his speed, and then spent it on a brief question.

  “Where is she?”

  “Your wife? Your wife is dead and buried,” said Simon.

  Chapter 42

  THE GIRL CATHERINE cried out. No one else spoke. The fight came to a halt very slowly, as if someone had poured water over it, and Simon contented himself with a parry or two while he watched the other man’s face. Under the bruises, it was two-coloured, with the scar in the pale part. Compared with the girl’s, his reaction was remarkably sluggish. All the same, Simon kept up his guard, prepared for a new, awkward onslaught. The news he had just given Nicholas must be the best the fellow had ever heard. He blamed himself for his rashness in breaking it. It was bad policy, too. Fortified by his new power, Nicholas was liable to think he could do anything. Simon waited, but no attack followed. His point dropped, Nicholas was standing as if the fight had never happened.

  Nicholas said, “Marian?” In the silence, Simon could hear a sudden trampling of feet below stairs, and upraised voices, and the clashing of metal. He frowned. The girl at the door suddenly screamed and went on screaming. In front of him, the apprentice stood without movement, except for the tremor that follows violent exertion. Presently, he said, “Is this true?”

  Simon looked at him. He perceived, to his surprise, that he had nothing to reproach himself with. He lowered his sword. He said, “Of course it’s true!”

  Anger died, replaced by dawning amazement. By some fluke, he had made his point with something sharper than steel. The news was clearly calamitous. Why, didn’t matter. Simon, still looking, put up his sword. There was no need to go on with the fight. The fight had been won.

  Gregorio, fling
ing open the door, caught that moment. He halted, discerning only the men in the lamplight and straining to see their condition. Behind him, Astorre and his men thumped up the stairs, sword in hand. A girl in black flung herself at him from behind the door and he fended her off without looking. Although St Omer was a long time ago, he recognised Simon at once. You don’t forget a man who has put a sword through your shoulder—although Simon’s sword, he saw, was in its scabbard.

  Opposite him was a young, tired-looking man with blood on his doublet, and an unsheathed sword, point down and forgotten. Gregorio said in anger, “You have told him.” The girl beside him, crying, pulled at his arm. He glanced at her. The child Catherine, he supposed, who had caused all the trouble. He wouldn’t have known her. Behind him, he could hear her sister Tilde’s feet on the stairs. He thought, I can’t manage this. And then was glad that he was alone but for Astorre’s band and the girl. As soon as he heard of the fight at the bridge, he had slipped from Martelli’s house, and had found Astorre, and brought him here, the girl Tilde running after him. He had known it would be Simon who had planned it. He had guessed what he might do.

  He walked in, and Simon turned. He was smiling. “Ah, my importunate lawyer friend, come to succour your nursling. As you see, he’s unharmed. A scratch or two. Wasn’t he supposed to know his wife is deceased? I apologise. But it seemed somewhat relevant.”

  Behind them, Astorre walked about, banging back shutters. Simon put out the lamp and turned, composed, in the restored daylight. He said, “The girl owes me money. Her husband left debts.”

  “He wasn’t her husband,” Gregorio said. “They were never married. No one owes you anything. Catherine, go downstairs and wait. Nicholas, come away.”

  Nicholas spoke. “She has a dagger. Take it from her.”

  Astorre, who had been swearing continuously under his breath, moved to the girl and lifted her hand and took the knife from her. She tried belatedly to tighten her grasp and he said, “You’ll cut yourself.” His eyes met Gregorio’s over the top of her head. Astorre said, “Here’s your sister. Here’s Tilde, and two of my fellows to see you home.” To Gregorio he said, “I don’t mind killing him.”

  “I don’t mind killing him either,” Gregorio said. “But that wouldn’t help anyone.” He saw that Nicholas had moved, and was sheathing his sword in one movement, as Astorre did. Gregorio walked over beside him.

  “She is dead?” Nicholas said. “How?” He looked up, and Gregorio forced himself to return the look, answering.

  “She fell ill in Burgundy, north of Geneva. We were too late to see her alive, but we saw her. We buried her. Tasse was with her. The maid. We brought Tasse back with us.”

  “We?”

  “Tilde was travelling with me. She’s here.”

  Nicholas turned his head to the door. “Keep her from Catherine,” he said.

  “I couldn’t,” Gregorio said. Astorre was still here, and two of his men. The rest had gone back downstairs. Simon, seated on the corner of the writing table, was nursing one half of his parti-coloured hose, and still smiling. Astorre never took his eyes off him. Gregorio said, “Where are you hurt?”

  Nicholas said, “Only where I was kicked.” He laid a hand on Gregorio’s upper arm and drew him aside, his eyes on the door. Tilde stood there, facing her sister. Nicholas said, “Is she like Felix?”

  Of course, he could hardly know. Tilde and Catherine had lived separate lives from their servants; and after he married their mother he had missed the following year. Gregorio, her travelling companion, had cause to know that Mathilde de Charetty had both her dead brother’s nature and looks. Tilde was pallid and sombre and brown-haired, with a narrow face and intense eyes and a brow scored with fine lines in the centre. She was between fourteen and fifteen, and careworn. When reckoning numbers, the lines became thin and black, as if painted there. You could see them now, as she stood in the doorway. She said to her sister, “You killed her.”

  “Tilde,” said Nicholas. He walked forward.

  “Oh, you too,” she said. “Because of you, Catherine was sent off to Brussels. Couldn’t you have married her instead of my mother? You would have got half the money.”

  “He preferred to acquire all of it,” Simon said.

  They had forgotten he was there. Gregorio said, “Tilde, we’re going. Catherine, go with captain Astorre.”

  Tilde said, “He didn’t get any of it. Then or now. The marriage settlement divided the company between Catherine and me.”

  Simon slid off the bench. He said, “My God!” He stared at Nicholas, his blue eyes wide, and then exhaled, laughing. He said, “I did bring you bad news.”

  “My congratulations,” Nicholas said. He was halfway across to Tilde. He took her by the shoulders and said, “Not before other people. You are head of the company.”

  “And me,” Catherine said. She screamed. Tilde, struggling out of her stepfather’s grasp, had seized the bright red-brown hair of her sister and hit her, hard, on the face.

  “You killed her,” she said. “You couldn’t wait for a man. Well, you haven’t got one now, have you? You’re not even a widow. He never married you. That man over there paid your great Pagano to pretend that he wanted you. All they wanted was your share of the business. They thought we would be ashamed to tell everyone that you were just Doria’s whore. I’m not. I’d tell anyone.”

  “And ruin the company?” Nicholas said again. “That’s not doing anything for your mother, is it? You’re the head, Tilde. And Catherine is your partner. You have to work with her, or sell out.”

  Tilde’s grasp slackened, and her hand fell. Nicholas let her go. Catherine put both hands to her scalp. She said, “I’d buy your share.” Gregorio moved; and stopped when Nicholas looked at him.

  Tilde said, “What with? You owe money.”

  Catherine said, “I don’t. Nicholas said so. Nicholas would help me. Nicholas and I could run the business.”

  Simon said, “Ah!”

  Gregorio said, “Nicholas.”

  It was too late. Tilde said furiously, “When I am dead. You and Nicholas, when I am dead.”

  “Then you have to work with your sister,” Nicholas said. “And I have something to tell you. She is a businesswoman. She is better then Doria was.”

  The pity of it overwhelmed Gregorio. But he was a lawyer; and he couldn’t let it go on. He said, “Nicholas: it doesn’t arise. The demoiselle changed her deposition.”

  Everyone looked at him. Astorre, with his sewn eye and his frown. Simon, with a continuing and growing delight. The sisters, side by side, mourning their dead mother in anger. And Nicholas, his face grey with what seemed to be weariness. Gregorio said, “When the demoiselle became very ill, she realised that she was going to leave Nicholas without provision, and two very young daughters controlling the company between them. She distrusted Pagano Doria, but hadn’t yet proved his marriage invalid. She therefore withdrew Catherine’s share of the Bruges business, leaving Catherine’s welfare to Nicholas.”

  Simon was no longer smiling. “Ah. What a pity,” he said. “Nicholas owns the Charetty company.”

  “No!” said Tilde. “It was my mother’s.”

  “Yes,” said Gregorio. “And now, Tilde, it is yours.”

  The girl stared. The younger one said, “She gets it all! What about me?”

  Nicholas said nothing.

  Tilde said slowly, “Catherine should have an inheritance. It isn’t right.”

  “I’m willing to pay for her,” Nicholas said.

  Tilde said, “Out of what? The business is mine.”

  Gregorio cleared his throat. “The Bruges business is yours. What lies in Venice belongs to Nicholas. The eastern venture is wholly his. The demoiselle stipulated that this should remain so. In recognition, however, of her original financial support, she suggested that Nicholas, if in profit, might see his way to paying a sum of not less than three per cent of his gains back into the Charetty at Bruges. This referred only to the first
voyage. Any subsequent profit would be his alone.”

  He addressed it all to Nicholas and ended smiling a little, reflecting what he saw, thankfully, in the other man’s face. “Three per cent!” Nicholas said.

  “Is it so much, considering what she did for you?” Simon said.

  Nicholas and Gregorio continued to look at one another. Nicholas said, “I will fight it, of course, in the courts.”

  Tilde was silent. It was Catherine who said, “You wouldn’t dare. Do you know what she’s done? She’s left you a fortune. Everything you came home with.”

  “Including you,” Nicholas said. “You spend too much. We’ll have to see about that. And of course, Tilde can’t manage the Charetty business on her own. I suppose I’ll have to lend her one of my managers.”

  Tilde said, “It is my business. I will manage it.” Her voice was low, and shook only a little.

  “You couldn’t,” said Catherine. “He’ll run it.” The girls stared at one another.

  Tilde said, “What did you do it for? If you hadn’t run after that man…”

  Gregorio cleared his throat again. He said, “You could still take Catherine as your partner. Pay her a wage, or a share of the business. If times were hard, Nicholas would still be bound to support her. But he wouldn’t have to have anything to do with the day-to-day running. You have men there who are doing it already. I would help.”

  “You’re on his side,” Tilde said.

  “I should avoid,” said my lord Simon, “employing anyone with affiliations to Nicholas. You would find your assets soon diminished. Your ships appropriated; your silver squandered; your goods mysteriously shrunken. On the other hand, you know enough of his business to give him a run for his money.”

  Tilde de Charetty turned. “I hear no very great news of your efficiency, Meester de St Pol,” she said. “Perhaps we might give you a run for your money as well. You made a loss this year, I see. Perhaps you will make a bigger one next time.”