Niccolo Rising (20 page)

“Let me suggest,” said the commander easily, “that more success might attend the efforts of just one man. Let the slave perform. It is his trade, diving.”

He was the commander, so those who grumbled, grumbled quietly. Instead of jumping, they struggled for viewpoints. Nearest the companionway were the captains Astorre and Lionetto.

The African brute was unshackled. He was instructed by dumb show
what he was to do, and then instructed again by an oarsman in broken Spanish. Then, as the devil still hesitated, they flung him over the side and pointed a few arrows at him, in case he thought of swimming all the way back to the Guinea coast.

When he came up to the surface from time to time after that, they flung whatever came to hand at his head and shoulders until he went down again. Nobody wanted to be there all day.

The commander watched with patience, having already chosen the moment when he would declare, with regret, that the search was void. It was therefore with astonishment not unmixed with annoyance that he saw the dull wool-head and broad shining features shoot up yet again from the water, accompanied this time by an upflung arm bearing the captain’s vulgar pink goblet, unbroken.

He could hear, from the two ridiculous men, the hiss of indrawn breath as they caught sight of the goblet: see the smile of the face of the owner and the rage of the man Lionetto.

The negro had reached the steps and was dragging himself upwards. At the top, stabbing the air, were the long arms of Lionetto and the short arms of Astorre, awaiting him. The African hesitated.

The Greek said something to the commander, and the commander spoke to the Spanish linguist.

“Tell the slave to keep the goblet from the two captains. Tell him to throw it to the other men of the – what? – the Charetty household. Where messer Nicholai indicates. The three men you see over there.”

The first Julius knew of this inspiration was the tilting backwards of all the heads in front of him, as if to watch the flight of some firework. In a perfunctory way, he looked up as well. Arching high in the air, there rushed towards him something gleaming and pink that looked very like the stupid standing-cup Astorre was carrying on about. Julius staggered, jabbed by Felix’s elbow as Felix started to jump, trying to catch the thing.

He was annoyed with Felix. It pleased him to see Felix teeter in turn as Claes calmly took his place, raised his large, secure hands and caught the goblet.

Julius could have sworn, afterwards, that he caught it.

It was hard to tell, therefore, how a second later it was not in Claes’ hands at all, but smashed into a shower of rose-coloured particles which glittered everywhere you looked: in bits of fur and folds of silk and majolica bowls and screws of sugar and people’s boot-tops and purse-bags and scabbards.

Or empty scabbards, in the case of Astorre and Lionetto, who were thrusting together towards the unfortunate Claes, a blade in the fist of each. Behind them on the rail, the nobleman Simon was smiling.

It was Lionetto, who had not paid for the goblet, who suddenly stopped, looked at his dagger, and then dropping it back in its sheath, threw back his head and started to laugh. “That silly boy and you
between you could strip me to my small clothes! That’s what you said! Astorre, my poor fool! You couldn’t even hold your own goblet, and he couldn’t even catch it! Strip me to my small clothes!”

“Ah,” said the Greek softly. “What a pity.”

“Is it?” said the commander. “I should not have given much for the boy’s chances. Now they are at one another’s throats again. Really, this is now a discourtesy. Master, you will be good enough to tell the captains that your commander regrets that time no longer permits him to offer them wine, and that he would be glad if they would settle their differences upon shore. Tell me when they have gone. Messer Nicholai?”

Holding the curtain back for the Greek to re-enter his cabin, he saw that Monsignore de’ Acciajuolo’s gaze was resting on the pleasantly-endowed young man from Scotland who had just shared their collation: the yellow-haired person called Simon. It occurred to Messer Duodo to wonder, idly, what the Athenian’s tastes might run to. He said, “I doubt if our Scottish friend intends to come back. It would seem that he regards himself as a friend of Lionetto.”

And as the Athenian, without replying, hesitated on deck, as if about to recall the Scot to the cabin – “Indeed, Messer Nicholai,” said the commander. “I think you and I have wasted time enough on this nonsense. We have that to discuss which, after all, requires no audience.” And the Greek turned, the curtain falling behind him.

For whatever was about to take place, he could do nothing about it.

Chapter 8

W
ITH DISMAY
, Julius watched authority leave, and Astorre and Lionetto freed to stride down to the wharf, and lock horns at last without hindrance. The loss of the commander’s invitation was barely remarked, so intent were both captains on battle. They took their stance face to face on the quay, pursued by three or four dozen spectators and surrounded each by their friends. Behind Astorre, somewhat bemused, gathered Julius, Felix and their henchman Claes, with his recovered apron rolled under his arm. Behind Astorre stood the group of men who had supported him, Julius remembered, in the tavern of the Two Tablets of Moses. They included the bald man, whom he placed, blearily, as the drunken doctor Tobias, who had looked after the cranemen when Claes had damaged their faces.

Claes. Oh, God: idiot Claes. What were they to do with him?

Then Julius saw that the group about Lionetto included the Scotsman Simon, and realised, chilled, what someone wanted to do with him. Julius pulled himself together, and grasped the arm of the Charetty mercenary Astorre. He said, “Captain. It’s over. We should get back to the Widow.”

Jeering, Lionetto caught the words. “Oh, yes. Run back to the Widow. Why fight, if you can earn your living between the widow’s cordial legs? Was that what you wanted the goblet for? A bedding gift? I’d not blame you. No more nights in the mud under canvas; no university throw-outs to give you orders, no …”

Scarlet-faced, Felix leaped at him. Julius lunged, but Claes was before him, as Simon was before Lionetto. The collision of the apprentice and the Scotsman was of the briefest. It was the third time they had met in a matter of weeks. It was the first time they had touched one another. It was an encounter of greater moment than any other. For as the Scotsman fell back, it could be seen that the side of his fine lemon doublet was spotted with blood.

Simon caught his breath. Then, one hand over the wound, he
stretched forward the other and drew from under the apprentice’s arm a rolled apron with a gleaming point, blotched with red, sticking from it. In silence, the Scotsman grasped the point and, unfurling the apron, held out for all to see a pair of finishing shears. Lionetto took and examined them.

Simon said, “This man has attacked me. I claim the right to punish him.”

Felix said, “You have no right. He is a servant. He was protecting me.” His face was scarlet.

Julius said, “My lord, it was an accident. The shears had come from the grinder’s, and Claes was carrying them rolled in his apron for safety. And, if you will forgive me, this is not your quarrel.”

“Indeed,” said Simon. His clear blue eyes, catching the sun, reminded Julius of his reputation with women. They said that shrew Katelina van Borselen had turned him down, and he had lain with every high-born woman in Bruges between then and now. He looked sinewy enough to have done it and, eyeing him, you could be sure that those chosen enjoyed it. Mesmerised, Julius stared at him.

Simon said, “It may not be my quarrel, but this is, I must assure you, my blood. Captain Lionetto, you and captain Astorre are great leaders, whose lives are precious to kings and republics. What excuse could Bruges give, if the world should lose such men over an idle quarrel? It was I who flung the goblet overboard. It was the lout here who broke it. Why not let me fight on your behalf, and the youth for the Charetty captain? As it is, honour demands that I should chastise him.”

He paused, looking around with a half-smile pulling his lips.

“And unless you think it unfitting, because of the difference in our degrees, I would assure you that I will not take a gentleman’s weapon against an apprentice. He may choose what he is used to. A stick, a baton, a pole – I will engage to match him with anything.”

There was a rumble of approval. Beside Julius, Astorre said, “That’s fair enough, considering the Scotsman has to fight with a hole in him.”

Julius said, “It was nothing. Look. It isn’t even bleeding now. Astorre, Claes doesn’t fight.”

“Everyone fights,” said the captain irritably. “He’s twice the width of this pretty fellow, and younger. Anyway, he dropped my goblet.”

So Astorre wasn’t going to help. And there was no one else to stop it. The noblemen and chief officers of the galleys had long since prudently absented themselves; the bowmen had no orders and therefore only the avid interest of any layman in a forthcoming fight. There were no officials remaining from Sluys or Damme or Bruges to see justice done, and only Julius to keep badgering Astorre, and Felix to harangue Lionetto in an unavailing effort to dissuade them.

For Lionetto and Astorre, being professional soldiers, had every wish
to kill, injure or otherwise dispose of a rival, but not in single combat, like schoolboys. For that, one became a laughing-stock. There were other, more adult ways of attaining that object.

So it suited each to perfection to seat himself, Astorre on the landward side and Lionetto by the wharf edge with their côteries, while a space between them was cleared of sacks and boxes, and two broken oars found, and made equal in length, to serve as quarterstaffs in the Picardy fashion.

It was not the sort of match worth a wager, but good enough to pass an afternoon, such as men in camp were well used to. Lionetto had no particular interest in the Scotsman, whom he thought too stuck up about his own looks, especially when, as now, he was stripped to hose and under-doublet and thin, fancy shirt, and made a finer figure, Lionetto was aware, than Lionetto himself.

However, there was no doubt he, Lionetto, had a better champion than that pig Astorre, whose man was this paint-spreading artisan with his toes sticking out of his leg-covers. The fellow was nothing but eyes. He reminded you of an owl in a tree, with five men with longbows beneath it.

Someone yelled, “Go to!” and they started, with no special ceremony. Their weapons were six feet long, and heavy. The Scotsman wore an amused smile.

He had cause. With no advantage of reach or of height, and with a build infinitely more slender, he had all the trained skills of the fighting-man which the labourer lacked. It was as it had been in the canal water. One performed like a thoroughbred, and one like a boor. Claes would open his powerful shoulders, but before the pole had swung through its arc, the other man would have slipped through his guard to buffet his thigh or crack the hard wood against shoulder or elbow.

These, indeed, were Simon’s first targets: the means by which Claes gripped and guided the pole. Those and the calloused blue hands, grasping it.

Perfectly fed, perfectly exercised, the nobleman Simon was fit as a lion. The muscles of his shoulders and back rose and sank beneath the fine cloth. His sleeves, loosely rolled, showed the developed forearms of a swordsman, and beneath the whipping cords of his hose, the contours of thigh and calf were firm and swelling and classical. His hose, soled in leather, gave him a footing on the uneven cobbles as he swayed and side-stepped and swung, double-handed: cracking the vibrating pole with precision against his opponent’s; but not quite hard enough to knock it out of the other’s broad fists.

He took his time. To Julius, who had held a sword, it was painfully apparent that every blow of the apprentice’s was being anticipated. At leisure, smiling, even talking cuttingly as he circled, the man Simon was watching the youth with practised eyes: noting the smallest change in
Claes’ breathing, his footwork, his shoulders, the flickering glance of his eyes.

Then Claes would thrust, or swing, and Simon’s club, cracking, would deflect the other and then, driving on, would hit where Simon designed. On the joints. Across the knuckles. Once, full in the chest so that the breath momentarily left the other man. Once, glancing off the side of the head so that Claes staggered back, frowning, and only, by some bemused instinct, managed to dodge the swift return blow which ought to have felled him.

He had a hard head. You had to give him that. When he straightened, he had his senses again, and this time, you saw that he had learned something. Instead of relying on schoolboy whacking, turn about like a game of palm-tennis, he too was trying to watch, to guess his opponent’s next move.

Sometimes he was successful. Twice Simon was careless, and Claes’ heavy pole struck him; once on the shoulder and once on the wrist, in a blow which made the nobleman draw in his breath and swing fast out of range, until the strength came back to his grip.

An experienced man would have given him no time for recovery, but Claes had neither the skill nor the energy. Instead, he stood and shook himself, reviewing his muscles, thought Julius, like a general reviewing his troops and recalling them to the standard. But all the time, his eyes were scanning Simon, and when Simon lunged, for the first time Claes was there before him, and their poles crashed together, and dropped, and disengaged.

But after that, Simon was careful, and whatever Claes might have learned, it was not enough to protect him from the buffets which reached him, over and over, out of the scuffling dust of their engagement. And Simon was still fresh. His face, when you saw it, was smiling, and between clenched teeth he was still, now and then, throwing out some tempting jibe.

Claes, on the other hand said nothing. The ebullient, talkative henchman, the clown who could imitate anybody, was shuffling now instead of dancing, and stumbling when he swerved. Where he had been struck on the knuckles, one hand had begun to swell and blacken, and there was scarcely a patch of unmarked skin on the blue-stained fluff of his arms, or above the torn hose at his thighs, or on the half-bare feet stubbed by the cobbles. As they watched, Simon contemptuously leaned forward, feinted, and driving the broken end of his pole down the wall of Claes’ chest, tore the youth’s sodden shirt to the waist, leaving behind a track of red gashes.