Niccolo Rising (37 page)

No one spoke. The fat man’s eyes, fixed on him, continued to sparkle. Claes said, “You are well known, monseigneur.”

The fat man turned to the Widow. “Without a change of expression! You see? I commend your teaching, demoiselle. The youth is a model of composure. He answers, they tell me, to the good farmyard name of Claes.”

The bright eyes quizzed Marian de Charetty, and she returned the look with hostility. She was wearing, Claes saw, a gown stiffened like leather, and her hair was locked into some sort of container. Her colour, too high to have left her entirely, had confined itself to a bloom on
either cheek, above which her blue eyes glittered like lapis. She said, “Farmyard? Claes is merely a short form of Nicholas.”

“To allot him three syllables would, I think, be going too far,” said M. de Ribérac. “The Flemish form, after all, is proper for artisans.”

“It is true,” said the Widow, “that our artisans are worth more than another land’s aristocracy, but Claes is no longer one of them.”

She sat without moving, holding down but not hiding her anger. Claes stared at her, and then switched his gaze to the man. The older, dangerous man.

The fat man said, “Has he been made a burgess, then, since his last exploit? He has been chosen by some very strange people to run errands for them. So, boy. You run fast, do you?”

“If I have to,” said Claes.

“And carry letters for the Medici. And others. You open them, do you?” said the fat man.

Claes said, “I can’t, if they’re sewn with thread and then sealed.”

The chilly eyes stared at him and then, measuringly, at the hands that hung at his sides. “I think I believe you. And of course, even if you opened them, you couldn’t read, could you?”

The demoiselle’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t need the warning. He said, “I can read.” He added, his voice helpful, “I read the ones I can open, unless they use cipher.”

The fat man smiled. He said, “Now I am pleased with you. We are having an interesting conversation, are we not? You read the ones you can open, and the news that is not in code. And you pass that news on. Who to?”

“The people who pay me,” said Claes, showing surprise. “I earn money.”

“So I realise. And are you earning it for yourself, Claes, or for your employer here? For you still belong to her company, don’t you?”

Claes smiled at his employer. “Yes, of course. The demoiselle de Charetty employs me.”

“And so you take your wages, and bring her back all the profits. How kind of you. Do you imagine she and I are imbeciles?”

Pause. “No, monseigneur,” said Claes carefully.

The fat man moved. “Then why are you smiling?”

“Because,” said Claes, “I have had this conversation before. With Master Tobias the doctor. He wondered if I wanted to be rich, or powerful, or just get my own back on other people.”

“And what did you tell him?” said the fat man.

“What he wanted to hear,” Claes said. “But we fell out, just the same.”

Silence again. Then the fat man said, softly, “You spy. Don’t you?”

“I told you,” said Claes.

The fat man said, “Ah yes. But for yourself, not for the demoiselle
here. You spend a great deal of time with Agnolo Acciajuoli. Have you told anyone? What use can these meetings be to the Charetty company? You fall in – was it accidental? – with Monsieur Gaston du Lyon, the Dauphin’s chamberlain, on his way to Milan for – what was it? The jousting? And when he suddenly breaks off his jousting and makes his way to Savoy, you know that plan too? Don’t you? And sell it to whoever pays highest?”

“Well, I’d be an imbecile if I did that,” Claes pointed out earnestly. “Because if I offended the Duke of Milan, or the Medici, or the Dauphin, they wouldn’t pay me any longer, would they? You have to think of things like that, you know, in this business.”

A smile came and went, on the demoiselle’s face. Good.

The fat man said, “I see you are someone who thinks deeply. So, when you earn money, after such deep thought, for your employer – why do you then invest it in your own name? And not in Milan, but in Venice?”

Claes looked at his employer. Then he hung his head.

She said, carefully, “I think you had better answer.”

Claes said, “The Medici made the transfer.”

“From Milan to Venice. So my informant tells me. They clearly thought it worth their while to pay a certain price for your services?”

Claes studied his boots. “They thought it worthwhile because I had given them the wrong rates for Venice. In one of the letters I opened. It wasn’t in cipher.”

“You falsified a dispatch?” said the fat man.

Marian de Charetty’s face had lost colour again. She said, “You idiot, Claes. That’s the end of you.”

“But you won’t tell.” Claes reassured her, reviving. “And it’ll make a fine profit.”

“I won’t tell,” said Marian de Charetty. “But have you forgotten who he is?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Claes.

“I’m glad you haven’t,” said the fat man. He lifted a hand. “Come here, clod.”

Claes stirred. Then obediently he moved along the side of the desk and presented himself.

Jordan de Ribérac looked at him. He said, “You made a childish attempt on the life of my son. You failed to kill him. But you will try again, won’t you? Once you have money and a little authority, and people no longer laugh at you and fling you in the Steen. That is why you are suddenly ambitious?”

“Your son?” said Claes. “How would I kill him better with money?”

The fat man’s eyes never ceased watching. “You fought him,” he said.

“He fought me,” said Claes. “You’ve paid no attention to him before, that I’ve heard of. Why suddenly champion him now? You won’t
change what’s wrong with him; it’s too late. You won’t change what’s wrong with me: you don’t even know what it is.”

“You underrate me,” said Jordan de Ribérac. “I could begin with your name.”

Marian de Charetty said, “He hasn’t harmed the Medici by anything that he’s done.”

The fat man looked at her. “Misreporting market rates to his advantage? Demoiselle, that is theft, and we all know how theft is punished. Does he know whose bastard he is?”

She flushed.

Claes said, “I know.”

“Yes,” said the fat man. “Whatever I think of my son, when someone lays a finger on a member of my family, I like to find out all I can about them. As I think I have shown you. So let us talk about bastardy. You know, you say. So you know about your poor, silly mother, who fornicated with servants?”

The crash from the table was the demoiselle’s fist. Claes looked at it, and her face. She was scarlet. She said, “M. le vicomte, you may leave.”

The fat man’s bright eyes surveyed her. “Why? The story is old news. None dispute it.
You
have no need to be disturbed, demoiselle. The boy is no blood of yours. His grandfather took your sister in second marriage. You are his great-aunt only by marriage, as the Geneva merchant Jaak de Fleury is his great-uncle. Did you enjoy visiting him, Claes?” said M. de Ribérac. “You did pass through Geneva?”

“I didn’t kill him either,” said Claes. “I disappointed his wife, but that’s another matter. I think you are disturbing the demoiselle.”

She didn’t look as if she thanked him for that. She was breathing quickly. She said, “The demoiselle is quite capable of having a gentleman escorted from her premises, if his language warrants it. Is that all your business, M. de Ribérac? To warn Claes not to injure your son? I have told you before, monseigneur, your son is a vindictive man.”

“You don’t like him,” said the fat man. He examined her.

She said, “He is handsome, and has many friends, I am sure. No, I don’t like him.”

“Neither does the lady Katelina van Borselen,” said the fat man. “You are right. He has been wrongly reared. And who is to put matters right but his father?” His mouth smiled and then, compressing its chins, became vertical. He gave a parody of a pout. “But I live in France, and whom can I trust to help me over here? Who will watch over Simon’s movements, report to me what he does, warn me if he becomes engaged in unseemly designs, or makes inappropriate attachments, or seems about to forget the family honour?”

He paused. He made a large gesture. “Who but a young informer already under threat of exposure? You, my dear Claes, will become, unknown to him, my son’s shadow. For the best of reasons, my personal spy. That is why I have come. To offer you an appointment.”

Claes took his time over answering. No one was going to interrupt him. He analysed the suggestion, like a puzzle. Half the pieces were missing. He said, “Because, monseigneur, you want me to kill him?”

The fat man smiled, but said nothing. Claes said, more slowly, “Or because, after this talk, it ensures that I shan’t kill him in case it would please you?”

The fat man’s smile broadened. He said, “So subtle! You will have me thinking of you as Nicholas. You will do it then?”

Behind the table, the demoiselle made a slight movement, and stopped herself. Claes ignored it. Claes stood in front of the fat man, and heard his heart beat through the soles of his boots. He said deliberately, “You forget your own manhood. Even an artisan is excused from dealing with animals.”

Palms on his chair, the man slowly rose. As tall as Claes and twice as broad, he levered upright his bulk, steady as the town crane, until he stood face to face with the youth. He went on, with a relic of grace, to lift one thick arm until it stretched, like a dancer’s, high over his head. The hand, heavily ringed, lay curled in the air, as if about to curvet in a greeting. Then M. de Ribérac swept it downwards. His palm remained cupped towards him. His outer hand, with its heavy quartz ring, burst its way carefully down Claes’ cheek, from his eye to his chin, holding its blood-infilled course till the end. Then he drew his wrist back and let it dangle. Below the ring, blood appeared on the floor.

Marian de Charetty, on her feet, had seized her handbell to ring it. Claes moved, his hand on her arm, and prevented her. The fat man, smiling at Claes, spoke to him as if nothing had happened.

“If we are trading insults,” said the fat man, “try that for another. I made you an offer. To refuse it with crudity was an error. You will observe, in the weeks ahead, other tokens of my interest in your affairs, and the affairs of your employer. You will notice, too, when I have groomed my son to my taste.”

“If he survives it,” said Claes. He let the demoiselle’s arm go. Blood, dripping from his jaw, was reddening his shirt and he lifted his fingers in a vague gesture to stem it.

The fat man looked at him, and then at the widow. He sighed. “Who knows what lies ahead of him, or of you?” he said. “You will remember today. Especially, of course, when you look in the mirror. It is not, my dear knave, the face of a Nicholas, is it?”

Marian de Charetty was standing, her hand still on the bell.

Jordan de Ribérac smiled. He said gently, “Demoiselle, you have not been wise. God give you good day.”

The door closed behind him. There followed the sound of his ponderous tread, moving away. Without asking leave, Claes sat down suddenly and bowed his head. Between his knees, his hands gripped each other, and blood splashed on them.

He was not often out of control. His body and brain had a good
partnership and the difficult moments, if any, were always in private. This one was not. His skin pricked and crawled and the frame of his bones held a wasps’ nest. He became aware that Marian de Charetty was beside him, and saying things in an abrupt voice.

“That was assault. Why did you stop me? I’ll call in the magistrates.”

When he paid no attention, her voice died away, but she was still there. Something touched his torn cheek. He put a warding hand up and found a cloth there. She relinquished it into his fingers and took a light grip of his shoulder. Then her other hand moved to the nape of his neck and spreading, blanketed it.

She held her palm there, warm and firm, as he had seen her do for her children. When he stirred, she moved it away. He saw her face bent over him. She looked half-smiling, half-agonised. She said, “My dear. What a homecoming.” Below the wired headdress, her brow had puckered, like roughened water.

My dear
. He tried to think about that, but it escaped him. The cloth was sodden but he kept it to his face. His other hand, palmed on his knee, wanted to massage and work like a fuller. He fell into speech. “Why should he do a thing like that?”

There was another stool in front of him. The grip left his shoulders and the demoiselle de Charetty went and sat on that, and looked at him. “Because he is an evil man,” she said. “We couldn’t warn you. He threatened us with what he could do to you.” She paused, and then said again, “If we could only have warned you.”

“I think I guessed,” he said. “He wanted to lie in wait. He hoped to learn something.” His brain began, sluggishly, to work again. He said, “The threats were nothing. But you shouldn’t have heard them, or the insults. I’m sorry. And you defended me.”

Before he finished, his mind had begun to stray back. She must have realised then that her first reply answered the wrong question. She said, “It was a trial. He expected you to refuse. Claes?”

She had begun to start from her chair. She stopped and, changing direction, took time to find a fresh napkin. She held it out. “In a moment, I’ll get you some water.”

There was blood all over his clothes. The fresh cloth to his face, he blotted idly here and there with the old one. He said, “If it was a trial, there doesn’t seem much doubt of the verdict.” The lightest touch of the dressing was painful. It wasn’t the same as the back lash he was used to. Scarred for life by a ring. By a man’s ring, at that. No one would believe it. Not Julius, anyway. Tobie, maybe.

He began, at last, to be able to handle the matter. He turned fully towards the demoiselle. He said, “Oh, no magistrates. There’s nothing very much that would help matters. Nothing even worth talking about. He forced his way in. You couldn’t stop him. It would have been silly to call in half the yard over that. I’m only sorry you had to put up with it.”

“There is the matter of your face,” said Marian de Charetty.