Dorothy Dunnett - [House of Niccolo 01]

by Niccolo Rising

  The living premises remained there, and her office. But the expensive house in Spangnaerts Street became the administrative centre of the business. There she had a cabinet too, large enough for her to use for clients or friends if she wished. The most commodious room was given over to the secretariat. In it, Nicholas and Gregorio each possessed tables, and two further clerks were taken on, and a boy to run messages, as well as a housekeeper and a man for the heavy work, and to tend the small stable.

  In all that, she knew he was right. Even when the business was smaller, it had been a constant struggle to maintain even the barest of records, and she had hardly helped matters by insisting that Julius spend half his time assisting Felix. Astorre’s muster, the first for a year, had made matters worse. Contracts meant registers, and in duplicate at the very least. A man who fought for you must have his name recorded and the place where his home and kinsmen were, as well as his arms and armour and details of his horse down to its markings. The books for that were currently piled on shelves along with the ledgers for the dye business and the pawn business, and the duplicate books for Louvain, which would have to be checked and corrected. Nicholas had asked her, in one of the many brief, concentrated meetings which occurred in those days, if she would object to his sending for the broker Cristoffels, so that the future of Louvain could be discussed.

  In all that, Gregorio too had some say. The longer-term plans Nicholas didn’t confide in him, but took on his own shoulders entirely. Most of what he was doing Marian de Charetty thought she knew. He reported to her faithfully. But sometimes, as she saw the superscriptions on the letters he was sending to Geneva, to Milan, to Venice, to Florence, she found it hard to control her uneasiness. That particular venture was too big. He had reassured her. It was being done in his name, and if it failed only he and his other partners would suffer. But she was still concerned.

  She could imagine, too, that all was not plain sailing. Where he went to do business without her, men often asked his authority, either because they didn’t yet know his new standing, or to discomfit him. Once, a runner was sent to ask for her confirmation. She had been angry, but Nicholas had treated the whole business equably. He preferred that, he said, to the dealers who offered him smiles and false figures.

  From the English Governor she heard that Nicholas had been seeing Colard Mansion, and had wondered if he was employing his friend for the letters he couldn’t entrust to his scribes. It was only later, reading some sheets that he left her, that she realised that his own writing, once too swift for clarity, was changing to a hand equally fast but distinctly more legible.

  He had found time, extraordinarily, to do other things as well. The archery society of St Sebastian, which was not an exclusive one, had admitted him as a member, and he spent an hour there every day, shooting at the mark and becoming known to his fellow members. He was also visiting the small founder who had made up some of Astorre’s requirements of armour, and who had been a master at arms in his day. It was Felix who told her that Nicholas was apparently reviving his recent brief acquaintance with the military arts. To protect all the money he intended to make, Felix had suggested.

  The truce of the marriage-day had not lasted. Now, Felix threw her, from time to time, all the scraps of gossip he could glean about Nicholas. Short of walking out of the room, which she sometimes did, she couldn’t prevent him. So far, there was little she hadn’t known. Blessedly, in any case, Felix was out most of the time, practising. He had acquired the rest of his jousting equipment, far more splendid and far more costly than was sensible, but she had not objected, since Nicholas hadn’t. As the days passed and the time for the tournament neared, she tried not to think of it, even when at every meal Felix related, with glittering eyes, the names of the great ones who were to take part in it.

  With glittering eyes and frightened defiance. If he had been vulnerable before her marriage, he was twice as vulnerable now, in his bravado. She ached for him, wondering how he was managing, torn between despising her and defending her. Once, he had come back to the house with a bruised cheek, but had not explained it. And the wife of one of her clients had offered her an admiring account of how her dear son Felix had stood up for his mother the other day, when one of those ill-bred girls from Damme had forgotten her manners. The pawnbroker’s daughter, it had been. The daughter of Oudenin the pawnbroker.

  When at home, Felix spent his time with his sisters, or with Henninc and his deputies. He ignored Gregorio, assuming (rightly, she supposed) that he was in process of being won over to Nicholas. Nicholas himself he did not speak to, but he often watched him for lengthy periods. When he did, there was a look in his eye that reminded Marian oddly of Cornelis. A calculating look.

  At Easter she didn’t entertain: she had rarely done so, in any case, since Cornelis died. Invitations did, however, come. One was from the Adorne family to spend the day at the Hôtel Jerusalem. Tilde and Catherine went with their mother and Nicholas. Felix was otherwise engaged. They were treated quietly and kindly, and she was grateful.

  The house of Wolfaert van Borselen was another matter. For one thing, he was married to a Scottish princess – one of those six royal sisters who were meant to ally the king of Scots with half Europe – with France and Savoy, Brittany and the Tyrol and Zeeland.

  Marian de Charetty had met the princess and her husband, and knew they kept state in Veere, where their residence was, and were never less than formal in their tall gabled town house in Bruges, where she and Nicholas had been bidden to supper.

  When the day arrived, the demoiselle stood in her bedchamber, her robes spread about her, and considered what lay before them. She would expect to see their son Charles, who was eight. She would probably meet Louis, seigneur de Gruuthuse, whose wife was a van Borselen, and perhaps Guildolf, the Gruuthuse kinsman who was so far unmarried. Florence van Borselen and his wife would certainly be there, but not their daughter Katelina, now in Brittany. She remembered the incident at Damme involving the girl, which had ended in a beating for Nicholas.

  Felix, Julius and Claes. The trouble they caused.

  Her eyes were wet. She turned her mind resolutely to the problem of selection, which was not great. Her finest robe, her most elaborate headgear. Concealing her own hair, as always. She had no illusions about that. Nothing bridal; nothing juvenile; nothing different, to cheat the avid observers. That, alone in the evening, she unpinned and let her hair fall loose for her own pleasure, was none of their business.

  She had, at his own request, inspected Nicholas’ wardrobe. It was Felix, again, who had let fall, mockingly, that friend Nicholas was now patronising a tailor. Since what he wore had not changed, she could only assume that he had needed replenishments. Then she noticed that the doublets, the jackets, the hose, although still in the same subdued colours, were of better cut and respectable cloth, such as a manager of her household would wear. He had had made, in addition, one heavy robe, inexpensively trimmed. Seeing, as she had not, that an occasion like this might occur.

  She was curious enough to look at the ledgers, but the accounts for none of these things had been entered. It meant very little. He could make a profit and spend it in a morning, and she would never know. But she felt, without knowing why, that he had paid for it in some other way. She had not commented, lifting the robe and approving it. It was correct for the occasion, as he would be.

  The evening, as it turned out, was a grand pleasure, at the cost of some strain and a great deal of hard work. The house was full of wax lights and people, and above the noise of the people was the sound of trumpets. All the folk she expected were there, and many more. She spoke to the wife of Louis de Gruuthuse, who was quick-witted and friendly, and told her how intrigued her husband had been by young Nicholas and his interest in gunpowder.

  She met Guildolf de Gruuthuse, whom she liked, and who, at fifteen, was in many ways older than Felix.

  She met Katelina van Borselen’s father, who complimented her on her appearance and said he was
looking forward to hearing more of this energetic courier service young Nicholas had got under way. As she could see, Bruges was filling already with Scots come over for the Holy Blood Procession and the Fair, and he would be surprised if she didn’t find some new clients there, who would like to send letters to Italy.

  There were, she saw, quite a few Scots here as well, as was natural. Wylie. George Martin. The man they called Sandy Napier, to whom Nicholas was talking. Some of these, presumably, had been among Bishop Kennedy’s passengers last year at Damme. She wondered if any of them remembered the matter of the apprentice Claes and the gun, and what they would make of it all. Napier’s face, she saw, expressed nothing but animated interest.

  At supper, she found herself next to Jean de Ghistelles, Grand-Veneur of Flanders and married to Gruuthuse’s sister. Nicholas, whom one did not trace nowadays by explosions of marvellous laughter, was sitting quite far away, beyond Count Franck and next to a very young, very plump girl whom she recognised, after thought, as Florence van Borselen’s younger daughter. Gelis, who had so upset Tilde at the Carnival. Marian de Charetty smiled down the table. If Nicholas had been any less of an artist with children, she would have been sorry for him.

  Her sympathy, or that of anyone else, would not have been wasted. From the moment he saw the stony face of the fat child surveying him from the next place at table, Nicholas knew that there was very little between himself and disaster. But of course he had known, from the moment the demoiselle accepted the invitation, that this was likely. He had protected himself by meeting Florence van Borselen and his wife on business beforehand, to try their reaction to his precipitous union. The wife, he thought, would have been scathing about it in private, but in his presence she followed her husband’s lead, which was to treat it with disinterested courtesy.

  Felix, of course, had long since proclaimed the tale of his supper in Ghent. It was even possible to tell, if following closely, that Nicholas was one of the company. But there was nothing in that to upset anyone. There was, however, plenty to upset everyone on other scores. Such as the fact that, on the night of the Carnival, he had been saved from near-death by the Borselen sisters. A fact which had not come to light for a number of reasons.

  One of these, which Gelis might know, was that her sister Katelina had chosen to spend the early evening alone with de Ribérac. And that he had attempted, thus invited, to ravish her. The other, which Gelis certainly knew, was that he, Nicholas, and her sister had spent the later hours at her home alone together. Where he had not tried of intent do anything, but undoubtedly had realised all of Jordan de Ribérac’s aspirations.

  Cajolery wasn’t going to work. Neither was charm. Marian de Charetty’s new husband arranged his furred robe and addressed the fat child at his side in a voice which could have been overheard by nobody. He said, “Now be quiet and listen to me, or I’ll tell everyone about your sister and the seigneur de Ribérac.”

  She said, “He didn’t!” Her face was scarlet.

  “I’ll say he did,” said Nicholas. “And let’s get this over with. One, the demoiselle de Charetty is not going to have a baby. Right?”

  “But she will,” said Gelis van Borselen.

  “Two, it’s none of your affair, but this happens to be a business arrangement, so she won’t.”

  “She could,” said Gelis.

  “She won’t,” he said calmly.

  “So you’ve got to get rid of Felix,” she said. “At the joust next Sunday.”

  He had wondered if some cynical tongue might propagate that idea. He hadn’t looked for it here, at the supper table. He said, “He’ll be all right.”

  “You know he isn’t good enough. You tested him specially. Then you bought him all that armour.”

  Nicholas said, “So I have to stop him being hurt. Or people will blame me.”

  “So you’ve disinherited him?” said the fat girl.

  She was demoniac. He said, “Why not ask to see the marriage contract? He isn’t disinherited. He and his mother still have all the profits of the business. If they both die tomorrow, I get nothing.”

  Her eyes were on the furred robe. “That’s nice,” she said.

  “I have the receipt in my purse,” Nicholas said. “Now stop poking into my affairs and remember that I can hurt your sister a lot more than you can hurt me.”

  “You have,” said Gelis.

  More food plates arrived and were settled before them. Skilled hands holding wine flasks reached over their shoulders. Nicholas said, “You’ve sent messages to her by pigeon, no doubt.”

  “I’ve written,” said Gelis. “She won’t have got it yet. She’s sent you a letter. I’ve read it.”

  “Presumably she knew you would,” he said. “Am I to read it or not?”

  She had been sitting on it. A much-folded bunch of pages, now shell-shaped with the seal thoroughly burst, was retrieved with a jerk and handed over. He put it in his purse. He said, “Tell me something.”

  “What?” said the child.

  “Do you consider that the demoiselle de Charetty has hurt your sister as well?”

  The face, restored to its pasty norm, stared at him. “What’s she got to do with it? You’re the one who did what you did,” said Gelis van Borselen.

  The situation became clear. “Ah,” said Nicholas. “I thought you were expecting me to marry her.”

  “Marry her!” said Katelina’s sister. She gave an unlovely laugh. “Ladies don’t marry apprentices.”

  Nicholas said, “So you’ll agree that if anyone is the sufferer in this situation, it’s the demoiselle who did marry me.”

  Gelis glanced down the table. “She’s a fool,” she said.

  “In that respect, perhaps, yes. In every other way, no. Do you plan to hurt her?”

  She was shrewd. “You’re safe,” she said. “I can’t do anything, can I, without harming Katelina’s good name, or your silly mistress? But you didn’t enjoy meeting me. You won’t enjoy the next letter from Brittany either, if you get one. And you’ll enjoy it still less when Felix gets killed at the joust, and you get the blame for it.” He drew breath, but she interrupted him. Her eyes were gleaming. “Oh, I know you say he’ll be all right,” she said. “But I can tell you he won’t. And I can tell you why, if you don’t know already. The Scots names have just come in. The names of the Scottish contenders. Including the best jouster they’ve got. Simon of Kilmirren.”

  “Now let me think,” Nicholas said. “I remember. Something about a dog.”

  “And a girl called Mabelie,” said Gelis spitefully.

  That night, in his room, Nicholas read the letter from Brittany.

  Katelina, he noted, trusted her sister no more than he did. Even to an over-informed pair of eyes, it contained no message at all that was personal. The journey had been reasonable. She thought the appointment would not be unamusing. She filled in some snippets of court gossip, including the information, which he already knew, that the Duchess’s son had acquired the King of France’s mistress who, the court thought, would have passed on the pox by September.

  September? He paused over the intrusion of the date, and then recalled that the Carnival had been on Shrove Tuesday so that, even to calculating small sisters, the reference had no hidden significance.

  The main item of news, and patent purpose of the letter, made him laugh quite a lot, which he had not expected to do. He put it away and promised himself a visit, somehow, tomorrow to Lorenzo Strozzi. The news about Simon he didn’t pass on to Felix’s mother. She would hear soon enough. Oddly, it was Gregorio who brought it up when Nicholas joined him in the new building after a morning which had started at dawn.

  With less than a week to his departure Nicholas had begun calling at last for his dispatches. On Jacques Doria, colleague of Adorne and coolly authoritative, who had given him a satchel for Genoa. On Angelo Tani and Tommaso, the one business-like and the other pointedly reserved, and both offended by his refusal to leave before Monday. On Arnolfini for let
ters for Lucca and Sforza, delivered with pallid amusement, but no comment. It was Arnolfini who had passed him the Dauphin’s promised gold, for services about to be rendered. He had bought his clothes with it, and a man. Or he hoped so.

  Now, in Spangnaerts Street, he walked through the new building to his large office, touching each busy clerk on the shoulder and greeting Gregorio at the other desk, as he dropped to a seat and pulled forward his papers. They worked until noon, when the bell went and the youths were given leave to go below and eat. Gregorio said, “I have to ask something.”

  Nicholas said, “Yes?” without lifting pen from paper.

  Gregorio said, “About the joust on Sunday. Gossip says that our Felix is going to have a hard time. Some Scotsman who regards himself as a personal enemy.”

  “Simon of Kilmirren. Yes.” Nicholas powdered what he had written, and looked up to meet a singularly hard black gaze. He said, “He’s one of the people I have to warn you to watch while I’m away. He’s more anxious to harm me than Felix, but he won’t manage either if I can help it. I’ve promised Felix’s mother that he won’t enter the joust, and he won’t.”

  Gregorio said dryly, “Then you’ll have to kidnap him. He won’t back out now.”

  “Oh, you never know,” said Nicholas. “And now I’ve something to ask you. You weren’t in your room all last night, or the night before?”

  The black gaze became even harder. Gregorio sat back in his chair. “You pay me by the night hours as well?”

  “Bruges,” said Nicholas, “is the living heart of good Flemish gossip. If you install a lady in such a way, it usually means a permanent arrangement. If you have a permanent arrangement in one direction, it occurs to me that you might intend a permanent arrangement in another. With the company that employs you, for example.”