Niccolo Rising (11 page)

“Ah,” said Katelina van Borselen. “The bath attendants. I don’t know when I was last so amused. And this is the retriever. He looks different, dry.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Claes. He smiled, with perfect and transparent good will. “So do you, my lady. I think Meester Adorne means you to apologise to me.”

Adorne saw his wife’s face twitch and straighten. He was sorry, but not very sorry that he had failed to take the boy’s entire measure. He said, “Claes – that is your name?”

The boy had the open smile of the child, of the idiot, of the aged, of the cloister. He said, “Claes vander Poele, minen heere.”

The surname had been given him. He had none of his own. Anselm’s steward, who could nose out anything, had known all about Claes. The youth had come as a boy of ten to serve in the Charetty dyehouse. Before that, he had lived at Geneva, in the merchant household of Thibault and Jaak de Fleury, being Jaak’s niece’s bastard. He had never gone back to the de Fleury family, who seemed to have discharged their duty towards him when they paid his apprenticeship fees to the dyers. It was a common story. A servant of one household or the daughter of another made a mistake, and the mistake was reared thriftily, and appeared with blue nails in Flanders.

Minor gossip didn’t interest Adorne, but Bruges and its business life did. One day Felix de Charetty would belong to that community, and it was the duty of the community to see that he came to it without prejudice or unworthy companions. Anselm’s steward said this apprentice was sweet-natured and simple. Such things were easy to test. Anselm said, “You should understand then, Claes vander Poele, that a lady does not apologise to an apprentice.”

“Why, minen heere?” said the apprentice. “If I offended her, I should apologise to the lady.”

“Then apologise. You have offended me,” said the Borselen girl.

“Because my lady’s hair came down in the wind in front of my lord Simon. I know it. I am sorry, my lady,” said the apprentice.

Anselm Adorne was conscious of his wife’s twinkling face in the background, and of the sharp stare of the girl he was talking to. “And you brought me under your roof to suffer an encounter with
him
?” said Katelina van Borselen. “Scotland was more civilised.”

“Perhaps it will be better in Zeeland, my lady,” said the apprentice. “The winds may moderate. Or if my lady would like, I could bend her a framework that wouldn’t blow off. I make them for Felix’s mother.”

“Claes,” said Julius the notary. “With the permission of Meester Anselm, I am sure you could retire.”

The sunny smile turned on Adorne. “May I retire? May I first, minen heere, speak to your children? We know each other.”

Adorne knew that, from his wife. He had not finished yet with this particular rascal, but to allow matters to take this course might be interesting. He inclined his head.

It was not his oldest son Jan and his cousin the youth made for, he saw, but the little ones: Katelijne and Antoon and Lewijse. The lady Katelina watched him pass her with well-bred amazement, and then turned to talk politely to her host and hostess, waiting patiently from time to time if Meester Julius were invited to speak. Little bursts of laughter came from the children at the end of the room. They seemed to be playing a board game. Later, he saw the boy Claes displaying his hands, with some sort of pattern of thread held between them. Later still, he heard voices he could have sworn belonged to people he knew, such as Tommaso Portinari, and the Scottish Bishop and Meester Bladelin the Controller and the guild-dean of the fruiterers, who had two upper lips, may God give him comfort.

Then all the voices stopped, and he knew that Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli had, as if on cue, entered the hall. He was dressed as he had been yesterday on the quayside at Damme, with the draped hat and the silk brocade robe, created in Florence. He dominated the room. His combed black beard was Italianate, but the quality of his skin and the close-set dark eyes were Levantine. His lips, edged with red, revealed fine teeth. A Greek of Florentine origins: the guest from the Scots ship whom the apprentice Claes yesterday had sent flying. Whose leg Claes had audibly broken.

Beside him, Adorne saw the notary stiffen. The boy Felix, nostrils wide and mouth open, lost some colour. At the end of the hall Claes rose to his feet with painful slowness. Then he smiled. He said, “I wondered, monsignore, why I could get no news of your injuries. I have to make my apologies. I had no thought of harming you.”

He spoke in Geneva Italian, and was answered in Florentine.

“A bruised elbow,” said the bearded man dryly. “You were intent on other things. I hope you thought it worth it.”

What blood he could spare rose for a moment into the boy’s face and hesitated there, with his dimples. He said, “So long as monsignore forgives me.”

“Oh, I forgive you,” said the lord Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli. “So long as you do not repeat it. I had one replacement. My other limbs are in Boudonitza. Your friends look amazed. You had better explain to them.”

But the notary had it by now. He also had Italian, Adorne remembered, and possibly even some Greek. He had trained in Bologna. The notary said, “You have – it was wooden, monsignore?” Relief and embarrassment mottled his face.

“I have a wooden leg,” agreed the other. “Which makes it difficult to rise up when deprived of it. Which makes it agreeable also to sit, if my host will permit? Beside, perhaps, the lady Katelina whose presence alone made our late voyage supportable.” He sat. “And now, introduce me to your three youths.”

Anselm Adorne made the introductions. Then with equal solemnity, he introduced his one-legged guest, using Flemish.

He did not expect them to know the name of the princes of Athens. He introduced this descendant merely as Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli, now touring Christendom to raise gold to ransom his brother, captured when Constantinople fell to the Turks. He did not complicate matters by explaining further. Monsignore had done well in Scotland. The King had been touched and the Bishop had collected a good sum for monsignore’s brother. The other part of the Greek’s mission to Christendom had been less successful. Like everyone else in the East, he wanted a new Crusade to free Constantinople.

Just so. But the rulers of Christendom had troubles enough without going into all that.

A conversation began in Italian. At his side, Adorne was aware of Katelina van Borselen’s displeasure, and disregarded it. The boy Felix, excluded also, began to pick at his nails. The word “Greek” entered the talk.

The noble lord from Boudonitza was gazing at Felix. He said, in extremely slow Greek, “I am told by your friend that horses interest you.”

It had a surprising effect. The youth Felix turned crimson and he clasped his hands quickly together. Then he started to speak. Whoever taught Greek at Lou vain was not a supreme master, and the youth, it was certain, was not the world’s brightest linguist. But he was crazy, it seemed, about horses, and the stud of the Acciajuoli was famous. He stuttered and ganted and listened.

Katelina van Borselen said, “What are they talking about now?”

Anselm Adorne told her. From the corner of his eye he identified his
wife in a state of mild discomfort. He was not behaving, today, like a host.

“I am afraid,” said Katelina van Borselen, “that I can’t spare the time for a Greek lesson on horses. Margriet, may I trouble you? I promised to help my father receive some Scottish friends. The Bishop. My lord Simon.”

“You’d be better getting a Greek lesson on horses,” said the boy Claes.

Anselm looked at him. After a moment he said, “The Scots are allies of our Duke, boy. You have been brought into civil company. Don’t abuse it.”

The tone of their voices, perhaps, had caused the Greek to break off his laboured discussion with Felix. He had also recognised a name, and an expression. He spoke in Italian, unexpectedly, straight to Claes. “You do not like the handsome Simon, young varlet? You are jealous, perhaps? He is well dressed, and talks to beautiful demoiselles such as this lady? But he cannot speak Italian, or make children laugh, or be concerned for his friend as you are. Why dislike him?”

The youth Claes considered, his overbright gaze on the Greek. Then he said, “I don’t dislike anyone.”

Adorne said, “But you hurt them. You mock. You mimic. You offended the lady Katelina yesterday and today.”

The gaze turned on him. “But they offend me, and I don’t complain. People are what they are. Some are harder to pity than others. Felix would like to dress like my lord Simon, but he is seventeen, he will change. My lord Simon is not seventeen, but he acts like an oaf, and has the talents, you would say, of a girl; which must be a mortification to his father. But I think, Meester Adorne, that he does speak Italian, because he made a joke about you in that language. The lady Katelina will remember.”

It was Messer de’ Acciajuoli who took control before Adorne himself got his breath back.

“I think,” said the Greek, placing a manicured hand with care on the apprentice’s arm, “that the time has come for Claes to make for his home, if his beating is not to overcome him. Perhaps his friends would see he gets there. Honesty, Messer Adorne, is not a commodity that recommends itself everywhere. I am glad to have made its acquaintance however, and I would not have it penalised.”

“It has been penalised already,” said Adorne. “And you are right. We have been talking, these last five minutes, about the inclement weather. Meester Julius, you have leave.”

He could not stop the children from running after Claes into the yard, or from touching him. He hoped the notary would have the sense to take this apprentice straight to the Charetty dyeshop and keep him there until things had settled. Or better still, send him back to Louvain, and the boy Felix with him. He wondered, since Margriet was bound to ask,
if it were true that the lad made Marian de Charetty’s headgear; and scooping up and studying the tangle of cotton the children had dropped at his feet, decided it probably was.

He saw to the departure of Katelina, and returned to find the Greek talking to Arnolfini, the Lucca silk merchant, whom he could not remember having invited. Messer de’ Acciajuoli had in his hands the children’s board game, and was idly settling the pieces. They both looked up as Anselm came in, and Arnolfini and he exchanged greetings.

The Lucchese had called, it seemed, for no particular reason. “Except,” he said, “out of regard for your selfless service. You gave of your leisure, I am told, to spare the échevins this dangerous case of the sunken gun. We are all impressed.”

The Greek spoke gently, his gaze on the board. “Heavy fines were imposed. But the Guilds are rich.”

“Indeed,” said Arnolfini. “Rich and solvent. I hear that payment has been made already. Before even the sentence was delivered. Who invented this very odd game?”

“I cannot remember,” said Anselm Adorne; and was not surprised to see the Greek look up, smiling.

Chapter 3

T
HE SKY WAS
blue when Katelina van Borselen left Adorne’s house with her maid, and the wind barely stirred her cut-velvet cloak. She had been home in Flanders for two days.

The town house her father had taken in Silver Straete lay on the other side of the town. The painted canal boat of Anselm Adorne waited for her at the foot of the gardens, with three servants to care for her. She had them row her home the long way, past the convent of the Carmelites, and St Giles’ church, and the great pile of the Augustines, and the handsome church of St James, from which could be seen the towers of the Princenhof, to which the Duke of Burgundy’s bath had just been dragged with such trouble. She would not think of that, or the considering gaze of the notary Julius. She made them row her almost as far as the Friday market.

They said Venice had bridges too, but Bruges must have a hundred: in stone with almond-eyed saints and dulled gilding; in wood, with treacled timbers and bosses of greenery. The roads were thronged but the river, split and skeined and channelled everywhere, was the highway where boats passed gunwale to gunwale, hooded, laden, crammed with bags and boxes and beasts and baskets and people: with nuns and officials, merchant-burghers and aliens, churchmen, consuls and innkeepers, and masters of ships laid up at Sluys, who skimmed past in their skiffs on the stretches, sloping their masts to slide under the glittering arches.

And on either side passed the crooked banks of tiled houses, drunkenly cobbled with crazy windows and flower-pot balconies and roofs fluted like pastry-crust. Their feet, their watergates, their warehouse doors were set in the canal. Their boat-steps led up to small secret gardens whose roses still tumbled over the wall, and swayed to the draught of a passing boat, and posted their mingled scents after it.

The van Borselens were Zeelanders, but Katelina understood how it felt to be a Bruges townsman.

Edinburgh was grey stone and grey, silvered wood and every roadway was vertical. Bruges was flat. Bruges was speckled warm brick, its roads cloistered with towered mansions and palaces and tall houses, laddered with windows, where the businessmen lived. Bruges was the multiple voice of working water; and the quality of brick-thrown echoes, and the hiss of trees and the flap of drying cloths in the flat-country wind, and the grunting, like frogs in a marsh, of quires of crucified clothes, left to vibrate in the fields of the tenters. Bruges was the cawing scream of the gulls, and the bell-calls.

Bells rang from all the towers in Edinburgh, but a Bruges man was born to the beat of the womb and the belfry-hours. The work bell four times a day, when mothers rescued their young from the feet of the weavers. The watch bell. The great bell for war, or for princes, that you could hear from the poop-decks in Damme. The marriage bell. She would not think of that either. She had come back from Scotland in disgrace, having refused the lord whom her father had picked out for her. No one did that. A daughter’s duty was to marry as her family’s fortune directed, and her father had no sons. So now she had only two choices. The cloister, or a marriage to someone else of her father’s choosing. And she knew who the likeliest suitor would be.