Niccolo Rising (38 page)

“No,” said Claes. “What action could I take that would do any good? And it isn’t for you to take any. I wouldn’t let you. He won’t come back. He has a feud with his son, and he tried to involve us. He knows now where we all stand.” He paused. He made to smile, and stopped very quickly. He said, “Put it behind you. I shall. He’s just an unpleasant man with an unpleasant son and too much power. I know what went wrong. You didn’t ask him if he was thirsty.”

But she was not prepared to be hurried. She said, “And the threats? They didn’t sound like nothing to me. What have you been doing?”

Claes said, “You can judge for yourself. Let me get clean and come back, and I’ll tell you.”

“Everything?” she said. She had risen and gone to her cabinet. She turned, flask in hand. She said, “You need some of this, first. What was it in Felix’s tavern? Beer?”

“It would have been,” he said. “Except that my employer summoned me just as the rim touched my lips.” He began to say, “Your son has very bad timing,” and then did not say it.

She said, “This is the strongest wine I have. Don’t tell Henninc I have begun to drink it. It has been that kind of winter.” She paused and added, “For everybody, I think. And Felix has done very well.”

He emptied the full cup she gave him in a single long swallow, and let her refill it. He took it with him to the sleeping room that he shared, which was empty, and stood in silence for a moment before the piece of mirror, before he went to find water. The demoiselle had offered to help, but he was used to all this. More or less.

He was quick. He cleaned the deep ragged cut and changed his shirt and scrubbed the marks on his doublet and hose, holding fresh cloths to his face as the bleeding stopped and started. He had put ointment on the wound, and alum. It was the correct styptic, of course. It was also a small, personal gesture of defiance.

After all that, he went back to the demoiselle’s office, and found that there was a tray of assorted meats on the table, and more wine. She was dressed from chin to floor in one of her usual gowns, but not the same one, and of a softer material. She was rather pale, and extremely efficient. He was not very hungry, but was glad to drink again. She said, “You deserve to be speechless, but perhaps after your report, rather than before it. Is it painful to talk?”

“Not about this,” said Claes with confidence.

It wasn’t true. His face ached and bled and he kept dabbing at it. But the need to talk kept his mind occupied. He had already laid on her desk the reports from Astorre; the details of the Milanese contract and the Naples posting, the lists of men and horses, supplies and equipment copied neatly for her by Julius. Now he sat in the high settle and spoke to it.

The demoiselle took her platter to her own table. While she ate, she
held her pen in the other hand and used it, noting and checking his figures.

He still drank intermittently, but not enough to make him careless. The items went by one by one. The negro Loppe had been safely delivered to the Duke, and there was a letter about him. The Medici goods, including the horses, had arrived in good order. Julius was with Astorre. The doctor had remained in Milan to deal with an accident to Brother Gilles. A very slight accident.

She queried that, and received a brief account which said nothing of avalanches or Gaston du Lyon. She did not query the equally brief account of the business transactions, such as they were, which had taken place at the house of Jaak de Fleury. He mentioned having bought some cheap armour on the way north in case Astorre needed to refit or add men to the company. She asked questions, and he gave her answers, but went no further than that. Not just yet.

Then he turned to his own work, and spoke carefully. He had delivered the bills and the letters, and had found a sure market for a good courier service. They would require relays of men, and extra horses, but he had orders already to cover the outlay. He named clients in Milan. They included Pigello Portinari and the Florentine friends of Pierfrancesco Medici. He had promises from the Strozzi and the Genoese and the Venetians and even the Curia. And the Duke’s secretary had been impressed, and said that he might well place dispatches with him from time to time. It would require someone in Bruges to train the couriers and to supervise the relays. Perhaps someone in Milan also. It was for the demoiselle to say who. These were the receipts so far, and these the draft contracts.

She laid her pen down and began to look at the receipts, slowing down as she proceeded. She laid the last one on the table and looked up at Claes. She said, “These are very large sums.”

“Yes, demoiselle,” said Claes. He sustained her blue stare.

She said, “You know very well these are extraordinary payments for a courier service. In fact, they are not for a courier service, are they? This is what Jordan de Ribérac was talking about. These are fees for information already received, or bought in advance. Is that so?”

He had known, uneasily, that he was going to have to explain that. He said, “Every state pays for information, and every courier opens papers. We might as well get the profit as another.”

She said, “I would have believed you if M. de Ribérac hadn’t made a point of it. He mentioned the Acciajuoli and Gaston du Lyon. Neither name is here.”

Claes said, “Because they’re indirect clients. I met Gaston du Lyon, and he may recommend us to the Dauphin. The Acciajuoli are the Florentine friends of Pierfrancesco Medici. The Medici are clients, and I hope they’ll direct the Bruges branch to use us. I saw Angelo Tani this morning.”

The diversion didn’t work. She said, “I’m waiting for you to tell me why de Ribérac made a point of mentioning them. I take it the Acciajuoli are relatives of the man you hurt at Damme?”

His cheek was beginning to thicken. He said, “The ones I saw come from Florence. The other branch of the family stayed in Greece and became dukes of Athens and princes of Corinth, until the Turks came. Since then, of course, they’ve all been captured or exiled.” He glanced at her. She raised her eyebrows, and kept them raised. “– Or trading under licence with the Turks,” he said reluctantly. “That’s what the vicomte was hinting.”

She said, “Trading in what?”

He said, “Anything. Silk, of course. They’re importing already from Lucca, and the Medici are within a sneeze of negotiating as well. Of course, as Christians they’re not supposed to.”

He saw her trying to read his face, and then look away from it. She said, “Well? Why are you interested in the Greeks, and the Greeks in you? We don’t sell silk. They dye their own cloths in Constantinople.”

Claes said, “It would be useful if the Pope launches his crusade. To have a connection, I mean.”

She stared at him. She said, “You don’t want me to know. But if something goes wrong, I shall be ruined as well as you. You heard de Ribérac.”

“There’s nothing to know,” he said.

She said, “And the other things he was talking about? The letters you carry? I never knew a man more able than you to unsew a letter or copy a seal or decipher a code. Thank God, at least the Medici are safe. They change their code every month and use Hebrew into the bargain.”

There was a silence, during which he turned over meat with his knife-point. He failed to think of something to say, and paid the price for the failure.

“Loppe!” exclaimed Marian de Charetty. “Loppe was owned by a Jew? And you are spying, of course. Probably for and against everyone. And the Medici are going to find out. And you are going to hang a rich man. Or would, if I let this go on. It is not to go on. You are to go back, cancel this contract, and join Astorre in Naples. Do you hear me?”

He said, “How can you stop me?”

“I can disown you,” she said.

“Then you’ll receive your profits from me as a present. Disown me, of course, if you’re truly afraid. But you needn’t do it yet. And demoiselle,” said Claes. “You can’t really believe I could put you in danger?”

She was sitting bolt upright, staring at him. She said, “Claes, double-dealing is mortally dangerous. Double-dealing where there is an enemy about like de Ribérac is stupid. These people your clients are jealous and powerful. He mentioned the Dauphin. If the Dauphin
enrols you and has reason to doubt your loyalty, then we may as well shut the business and go into exile.”

Claes said, “I know all that. Those kinds of risks can be avoided. As far as the Dauphin is concerned, I’d never expect to deceive him. For a prince, he’s far too astute.”

There was a pause he didn’t understand. The demoiselle picked a piece of meat herself and toyed with it. “Felix would agree with you,” she said. “The house has rung with the Dauphin’s praises for a month. Or with praise of his hounds. It’s the same thing.”

He waited. When she added nothing, he said, “You’ve been in Louvain a lot, then. It must have passed the time for Felix.”

“Well, of course, he and the Dauphin met in Louvain,” said the Widow judicially. “But nothing, I can tell you, surpassed the splendour of that first summons to the court at Genappe. I thought Felix would swoon. You probably swooned, listening. I dare say he talked about it all night.”

“He talked all night,” said Claes. “But I am sorry to tell you that I slept through half of it. Perhaps Felix will take me there some time. It depends what you want done about the courier service. If you let me run it for you, I couldn’t go back with Thomas and rejoin Astorre.”

Marian de Charetty said, “I understood that you had already declined your post with captain Astorre and were presenting me with an ultimatum. Either you run the courier service for me, or without me. I should be interested to know how your propose to raise the money for it on your own.”

Life consisted of starting to smile and stopping again. He said, “From the Medici. But of course you would have a permanent call on the profits. The scheme and the first expenses were yours.”

She was thinking. She said, “You would do some of the riding yourself?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I’d need to stay a few weeks in Bruges to arrange it. I’d need to go back to Milan to confirm contracts. After that, I’d spend my time between the two places, very likely. If Bruges will receive me back from time to time. They probably would. It would be in their interests.”

He knew how stubborn she was. She was brushing the quill of her pen back and forth over her lips. She put the pen down. She said, “The business needs money. Astorre and Julius have laboured to arrange a fine
condotta
. From all you say, I can imagine how much work this list of yours must represent. You did it for the company, and it would be a poor company that didn’t thank and reward you. Yes, I shall back you. Yes, you may run the service for the Charetty company, provided you keep me informed, from day to day and minute to minute, precisely what you are doing, my friend Claes.”

She broke off. She said, “You’re not afraid? Even after today?”

He didn’t try to hide his relief. It wasn’t only relief, it was happiness.
He cracked his cheek open, beaming at her, and shoved a cloth at it and went on beaming at her through it. He said, “You won’t regret it. You really won’t. Never mind today. Today won’t come back. I’ve something funny to tell you.”

Instead of smiling back, she was angry. “Something funny,” she said. “That I should like to hear. What about? The Turks? The war in Italy? Felix? Simon? Monseigneur de Ribérac? The explosion? – No, we must keep the explosion for another day, and a few other problems. What is your amusing story about?”

Her voice grated. He suddenly saw how tired she was, and that she was angry with herself now, instead of with him. He clutched the cloth and bestowed on her the warmest, largest, most enveloping smile in his power.

“Well, really,” he said. “Well, really, it has to do with an ostrich.”

Chapter 17

T
HAT AFTERNOON
, the biggest entertainment in Bruges was the split face of the Charetty apprentice who had gone to be made a soldier. The household saw it first, as the big lad began clattering about and hopping up and down stairs, collecting papers and other things he needed for all the errands he had to run, he said, before the Festival. Those who had seen him arrive the day before, or had talked to him in the yard, swore that his face was all right then. It wasn’t the work of some narrow-minded husband, because he’d slept in the house all last night. One or two merchants had come for their letters, and there had been a call from this fat French lord, but the Widow would have screamed to the magistrates if the fat lord had done it, or would be screaming to Claes, which she wasn’t, if Claes himself had upset her.

Asked how it happened, Claes told a different story every time. Some of them were truly marvellous. None of them could be believed for a minute. He was a real joker, was Claes.

He himself had thought of staying in, but there was too much to do, and Felix hadn’t come back, which meant he was still in the tavern. By the time another hour had gone by, his face had swollen, half closing one eye. He closed his satchel and took up his cloak and went off to make his calls. Everyone he met had a different witty provenance to suggest for his spectacular stripe, a whipping from the Widow being by far the most popular.

He seemed to meet all his acquaintances at once that day in Bruges, but that was because he had no working routine to follow. It was uncanny, in this familiar place, to hear the command of the bells and not to obey them. Not to hoist the cloths out of the vat and stagger off at a run with his team, to get them pegged out before the noonday peal drove them to dinner. Not to herd with the others for meals and for prayers; to report to his yard master or to his employer; not to be safely one of a group. The group he was now in was not a safe one.

As he suspected, Felix was still where he had left him. He joined him
there, because it had to be done. It was not a good place: an inn serving no wine, but just beer for artisans, and the artisans resented rich young fellows like Felix occupying the benches all day, and taking the owner’s attention. By the time he got there, Felix and his circle had eaten and then had settled down to some defiant drinking. When Claes came in, the more alert of his friends noticed his slit face at once and, convulsed with laughter, vied with one another, naturally, in accounting for it. Felix, rousing himself, heard his mother’s name associated with some impolite fantasy and, jumping up, charged the speaker head down.