Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  He dropped Felix’s reins and took his own and moved his horse away. He set it at the road and urged it into a trot and then a canter. He saw, as he went by the trees, the grooms standing staring, and then turning to gaze back at Felix. But Felix, as he expected, did not follow.

  It was still daylight when Claes rode through the Ghent portals of Bruges, several hours ahead of the rest of his party. He had planned, and still planned, that Felix should present the first report on Louvain to his mother. He was glad, therefore, to find the demoiselle de Charetty and her young daughters absent, even though Henninc began barking at him as soon as he began to lead his steaming horse towards the stables.

  The litany lasted all the way over the yard. The pump had broken down again. There was a leak in one of the vats. There had been a fight between three of the men in the shed and the rest had turned sullen. The man who had sold some of that property to the Widow the other day wanted it back and said he could prove the sale was illegal. A whole sack of woad balls had mould in it. The Widow had appointed a new lawyer. The Florentines and the Lucchese and even the Papal Legate’s secretary had been to see the Widow and arrange for the head Charetty courier – that was him – to leave soon for Italy, because their dispatch boxes were filling. There was a packet waiting for him from Milan, with that bald-headed doctor’s seal on it. At whatever hour Claes arrived, Anselm Adorne wanted to see him immediately.

  “What a welcome!” said Claes. He could see that Henninc thought he was complaining, but he wasn’t. He was filled with uncomplicated delight at the prospect of regulating everything. He hastened to hand over his horse and tore through the building, calling greetings and insults right and left, and scooping up as he went the packet from Tobie.

  He read it as he stripped to his doublet, and stopped in the middle to read it again. His expression, as he stood holding it for a moment, would have made Henninc furious. Then he tied a piece of cloth round his waist and bounded downstairs and out to mend the pump again. While he was doing that, four separate men came and told him their grievances until called back to their work by a trig young man with a nose like a scythe and a calf-length black gown, who thought he must be Claes.

  Claes admitted it, straightening and wiping his hands on his apron. He had tried to get the Widow to appoint someone to help Julius, and replace him when he was abroad with the army. There had been three candidates, all of good reputation. The Widow had therefore chosen one. He hoped it was the right one.

  The sharp-featured man, who looked to be in his late twenties, said, “I am Messer Gregorio. I have sent for someone to deal with the pump. I should prefer you to come straight to my office to make your report about Louvain. The demoiselle de Charetty will be back directly. She wished to hear it as soon as possible.”

  It was the right one. Son of a Lombard, friend of the demoiselle’s late father. Law at Padua. A few years as junior clerk with the Senate at Venice. Home to Asti, and then back to Flanders, where his father had been a pawnbroker in Furnes. Used, you would say, to dealing only with his superiors.

  Claes said. “Immediately, Messer Gregorio. Jonkheere Felix asked to be present, too, when the accounting is made to the demoiselle. He’ll be here in an hour.”

  The lawyer, who didn’t know Felix, paused. He said, “In that case, you may as well finish the pump. Be in the bureau when jonkheere Felix arrives.”

  Claes nodded his head. He waited until the lawyer was out of sight and then finished testing the pump, which was now working. He called someone to clear away for him, and vanished into the house, by another route, to get himself, clean, into his blue livery once again. Then he thrust Tobie’s packet in his purse, borrowed a mule from the stables, and trotted off to the Hôtel Jerusalem. He made two calls on the way.

  The moment she returned, Marian de Charetty was met by her new legal clerk Meester Gregorio with the news that her employee Claes had made a brief appearance, but had failed to report to his office as requested. And that the young master, her son Felix, was said to be on his way but had not yet arrived.

  Claes had returned without Felix. Something had happened. Felix had tried to dismiss Claes? Claes had accepted employment with someone else, and had only returned to collect his effects? No. At least he would wait and confront her.

  She had given her newest legal adviser the room with a table that Julius used. She thanked him and asked him to wait for her to call him. Then she went to her own office and learned, from Henninc, that the pump was mended but the disquiet in the yard was still going on. He made no reference to Gregorio, which meant he was still angry about that. The fact that the pump had been mended by Claes, and that everyone he had spoken to was, apparently, cheerful, meant, surely, that he wasn’t leaving. Which should please young Catherine, even if it didn’t please young Tilde. Marian de Charetty thumped down her ledgers and applied her mind to her business.

  Then Felix arrived. He appeared to be in rags because, he said, he had been swept off hunting by the Dauphin’s men. He began to tell her all about that. She suspected, since he didn’t mention Claes, that he had already discovered from Henninc that Claes was back and had not spoken to her. Before she could ask, the new lawyer Gregorio tapped on the door. She had asked him to be present, she remembered. He ought to know what the Louvain branch was doing.

  Meester Gregorio had hardly sat down before the door burst open on Felix’s young friend, John Bonkle. The demoiselle de Charetty stared at him. John Bonkle stopped on the threshold and blushed. He said, “Demoiselle. I’m sorry. They said Felix was here.”

  “As he is,” said Felix’s mother. “But rather busy, I’m afraid. Is it urgent?”

  “No. Yes,” said John Bonkle, who was not notable for keeping his head. “Felix, he’s asking for eight shillings parisis before this evening. I can’t pay that, you bastard.”

  Felix’s large, shallow eyes, turning to his mother, showed white.

  John Bonkle went pale. “That is – I beg your pardon. Just a manner of speaking, demoiselle. But I can’t pay it, Felix.”

  “Pay what? Why?” said Felix.

  “Pay you. For him. For her,” said Bonkle. “You know.”

  “Pay me for what?” said Felix. He then went slowly scarlet.

  John Bonkle said, “I’m sorry, demoiselle … But Claes says I’ve to pay him eight shillings parisis before this evening or else.”

  “Or else what?” said Marian de Charetty gently.

  There was a silence.

  Marian de Charetty rose. She took a key from the bunch at her girdle and, bending, unlocked one of the chests by the wall. From it, she took a bag and set of scales, both of which she brought to the desk. She tipped the bag, and a pile of silver groats poured on to the green baize. She weighed them, discarded some, and found a fresh bag into which she put the coins she had weighed. The scales she placed temporarily on top of a pile of letters obligatory beside which stood a copy of the dyehouse rate card, the prices copied in carefully beside the row of coloured wool samples. It was all very business-like.

  “The scales were tested recently,” she said to John Bonkle. “I think you may trust them.” She spoke quite mildly, weighing the bag in her hand. “Do I give this to you, or to Felix, or to Claes?”

  “To me,” said Felix quickly.

  She looked at her first-born, now grown. She said, “Willingly. But you must, of course, tell me what it is for.”

  Silence. Then Felix said, with reluctance. “That is, it really belongs to John. I owe it to him. It’s John’s.”

  She looked at John. “Is it?”

  Clearly speechless, he nodded.

  “Then,” said Felix’s mother, “I am happy to give it you on Felix’s behalf. He can repay me gradually, and I shall ask very little interest. You are satisfied, John?”

  John nodded.

  “Then goodbye,” said Marian de Charetty. “Now, Felix. Tell me what is happening to the Louvain business. In detail. With all the figures you have brought back with you. Begin
from the beginning, and tell us everything.” She thought, knowing Claes, that Claes would at least have tried to prime him. But Claes clearly hadn’t.

  By the time Claes trotted into the yard the meeting was over, the office empty, Felix in his favourite tavern, Meester Gregorio returned to his austere pursuits in his office, and the demoiselle de Charetty was installed before her parlour fire, where Katelina van Borselen had once found her, poring over papers now, as she had been then. The first she knew of his return was her maid, asking if she would receive him. Which was clever, as it avoided antagonising her other, superior staff. She supposed she should not, strictly speaking, receive male employees alone in her parlour. Meester Gregorio, for example, didn’t know that Claes had been in her household since childhood. Or that, last year, she had sat by his sickbed. Or stood by while a powerful man scarred him for life.

  He was shown in. The large, unencumbered smile. The hair turned to seaweed because he was sweating-damp from the intensity of his day. She wrinkled her nose. The smile widened a little. “I ought to beg your pardon. But it’s the smell of money,” he said.

  She sat up in her tall-backed chair and looked at him. She said, “I would rather have the eight shillings parisis.”

  He had quick wits. “Ah,” he said. “John Bonkle? Who paid him? Not you?”

  “It appeared,” she said, “to be a debt on the Charetty household. Incurred by whom and for what was not quite clear. Except that you were trying to collect it. I have told Felix he can repay me when he can.”

  He threw back his head and laughed and laughed. He said, “Felix will never forgive me. We quarrelled on the way. I’ll put it right.”

  “I suppose you will,” she said. “I should tell you that I have no idea whatever of what happened at Louvain, except that Olivier has gone, and Felix has installed someone else. Was he ever there?”

  “Yes,” said Claes. “But it isn’t easy for him to pick up the threads. It’ll come. Would the demoiselle like me to tell her how I saw it?”

  “I should like someone to tell me something,” said Marian de Charetty. “I think you should sit over there, not too near. And then tell me also what you mean about the smell of money.”

  And so he came to tell her not only about Louvain, but about Tobie Beventini and his uncle and Quilico, and the Pope’s godson and Prosper Camulio de’ Medici, and the relatives in Milan and in Constantinople of Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli, the Greek with the wooden leg. From whose affairs the first germ of a vast idea had sprung.

  At the end, she sat absolutely still. She said, “And Tobias has located this mine?”

  “Yes,” said Claes. He was flushed and a little breathless, and his eyes shone. He said, “I didn’t think he’d do it. Or want to share with us. He got help from Messer Prosper. He’s an ambassador in Milanese service, but privately a friend of the Adorno.”

  “And a friend of Anselm Adorne’s?” she said. “Hence your success at the lottery. I thought you said this was a wholly Venetian monopoly?”

  “So far,” he said. A little of the elation had gone. She was not exhibiting rapture. He said, as if presenting a normal report, “None of the Genoese know where the mine is, except that it’s in the Papal States. All the evidence about location and volume and quality is being prepared and tested and notarised this spring for the Venetians alone. Then they’ll pay us.”

  “How?” she said.

  “In several ways. It has to be worked out. That’s why I have to go to Milan. Or one of the reasons.”

  “I see,” she said. She shifted her position in her chair, and swung her sleeves into two new, uncreased folds at her sides, and placed her hands one over the other on her lap. She said, “What you are talking about is appropriating a share of the profit from the world’s only supply of good alum?”

  He said formally, “For two years at the most. Perhaps less. But the profit is there to be made. And it would let you develop this business into something worth having.”

  “Yes. The business,” she said. “Perhaps we should descend to the mundane. Perhaps we should see how all this is going to leave the business. For example, you’ve heard about the mishaps in the yard?”

  The white flame of excitement had vanished, but his manner was still wholly natural. “Yes. They couldn’t find the man who usually keeps the pump in repair. The leaking vat ought to have been replaced. Small troubles. Your Meester Gregorio should be able to deal with them.”

  “And you heard,” she said, “about the quarrels in the shed, and Henninc’s bad temper. That was because of Meester Gregorio. He was one of your suggestions. I am sure he’s the best man for the job. He is not yet any use whatsoever with people. You heard about the property claim?”

  “I’ve settled that,” said Claes. “I called there on my way to Meester Adorne. They were wrong in their assumption. Meester Gregorio would have recognised that as well. He’ll settle down.”

  “That’s what I told myself,” said Marian de Charetty. “Indeed, when I saw trouble was likely, I had a talk with him, and with Henninc. I apparently used the wrong words. And what about Louvain?”

  He said, “Olivier was cheating, as I told you. Indeed, he was, I think, paid to cheat. That’s why I took Cristoffels. Of course, he hasn’t been given the appointment. You must see him and make up your mind. But he’s good, and he’s honest, and I’ve warned him against possible predators.”

  She said, “You’re talking, I take it, of Jordan de Ribérac? Last time we spoke, you were most reassuring about him.”

  His lips thickened, and thinned. “I don’t know who I’m talking about. But successful businesses do have rivals. It’s as well to be careful.”

  Marian de Charetty sat back and looked at him. She said, “And when do you go back to Italy? Next week?”

  This time, he did nothing expressive with his face at all. He said, “Not until after the White Bear joust.”

  “In two weeks, then,” she said. “At that point I am left with a business in Louvain which is under some sort of threat and which is at the moment headed by a stranger whom I have not even met. I have a business in Bruges still suffering from past mismanagement and the lack of its usual notary, and now under another stranger who, brilliant though he may be, is causing my servants to attack one another. I have taken on property whose acquisition is causing legal problems, and have ventured into the courier business where secrets not only mean money, they mean physical danger. I am involved in large loans. My husband’s bodyguard, from a modest group hired to protect other merchants and earn their keep serving neighbouring princes, has now acquired men, arms and weapons and has become a unit in an international war, making me responsible for killings and open to claims against losses, including those caused by vendettas between rival commanders.”

  She looked at Claes, and tried to keep the weariness out of her voice. “You suggested all these things. I agreed to them. I arranged them all with you. I am flattered and grateful. You thought, rightly, that I should like to be rich, that I should like to see the business expand and prosper; that I should like to hand something great to Cornelis’ son and mine. You thought that I could direct it, and that Felix in time would run it for me.”

  She paused, and tried, again, to keep her voice calm. “But, my dear, I cannot direct it. However willing they are, Cristoffels and Gregorio and Henninc, and even Astorre and Thomas and Julius there in Italy, are not clever enough to help me do it properly. And Felix I know, and you must now know, cannot do it, does not want to do it and never, I think, will do more than use this business for money, when he wishes eight shillings for – whatever he wanted eight shillings for.”

  She looked him straight in the eyes. “I cannot run this company as it is. Your wonderful coup, your master-stroke which would make me a fortune, is quite beyond me. There is no possible way I can agree to it.”

  Claes said, “I thought Felix would develop more quickly.” And as she stirred, exasperated, he added briefly, “All right. Yes, I kn
ow. He won’t come to it soon enough. But the stuff is in him. I’ve seen it. Don’t expect too little of him. That’s been part of the trouble.”

  He had paused. She said, “That is what I want of you. Honest comment. About myself, too.”

  Another pause. He was looking, frowning, into the fire. He said, “Yes. You’re good with a team that’s already running, but have no experience of breaking in a new one. Not your fault. Anyway, the business is too scattered. I was going to suggest that, as soon as Cristoffels had put things to rights at Louvain, you should sell the dyeing and purely pawnbroking part of the Louvain business, and bring the money-changing and lending side here to Bruges where you can manage it centrally. In six months your staff will be used to one another, and you to them.”

  She said, “But we have just agreed, I can’t hold things together alone for six months. And even after that, perfect teams break up and require new appointments. I can’t face that, either. And even if the most perfect team in the world were present immediately, it couldn’t handle a scheme like the one you’re launching over alum.”

  He was still considering. “No. I’d do that,” he said. “Travelling would be no disadvantage. But it would need a well-run company here in Bruges behind it: you’re right.”

  She wondered if she was meant to make the suggestion. She said, “When you were being irresponsible, the City Fathers wanted rid of you. Having seen your work of the past seven weeks they would have no objection now, I think, if you wanted to stay.”

  “No,” said Claes. “I seem to have managed to keep out of the Steen. But that’s not really the obstacle.”

  She interrupted. “Your contracts? We could find another master courier, surely?”

  He smiled, still without looking at her. “Not one who can deal with ciphers. I know too much already. The Medici won’t accept a change. Or the Dauphin. In any case, what I learn is an advantage to the company, not an obstacle. It’s even possible that I could arrange a long enough time between journeys to keep things straight here in Bruges until your perfect team can manage most things.” He made a movement of economical demonstration. “The real obstacle is that not even the lowest workers you employ would take orders from me, never mind Henninc and Meester Gregorio. Or even worse, Felix and Astorre and Tobie and Julius. You need someone like Gregorio, or the way Gregorio will be. Someone clever, with authority. I can’t aspire to manage a company. I can’t force myself on burghers and noblemen. I’m nineteen; I’m a base-born, chance-lettered workman. And people would talk.”