Niccolo Rising (46 page)

This girl didn’t look as if she wanted to talk. She was already half-regretting what she’d done. It would be easy to make the situation quite impossible, so that she’d ask him to leave. A little loutish behaviour would do it. But then what would she do? Better to help her. He said, “Do you know, demoiselle, if Meester Simon is in Bruges?”

Her hand with the spoon stopped immediately. She said, “He was not responsible.” Then she flushed. She added curtly, “He is not in Bruges.”

She was not a serving-girl, and she’d caught the other thought in his mind. Now she would ask him to leave. He pushed the bowl aside and made firmly to rise. She said with sudden fierceness, “They meant to burn you to death.”

He restored his weight to the seat. He said carefully, “They failed, thanks to you, demoiselle. I know who they are, I think. They won’t do it again. You needn’t worry. Tell your sister it’s all right.”

He watched her. She couldn’t have been alone on the streets. He had to know if anyone else knew. He said, “Did your sister come for you?”

The question alarmed her. She pushed her bowl away distractedly and, getting up, walked round behind him to the fire. There, where it had escaped his notice, was a striped towel, warming. She leaned over and picked it up as he turned on the bench, watching her. The firelight glowed through the fall of her linen, and he realised that she had left her outer robe on the trestle. She turned, the towel in her hands unfolded. She didn’t answer his question at all. She said, “Did he cut open your cheek?”

He remained still. “Simon? No.”

“Not Simon. Simon’s father, Jordan de Ribérac.”

It was like being in the barrel again, such was the buffet. Yesterday, she hadn’t known how he came by his scar. Today, she was able to
connect it with Jordan de Ribérac. And to imply – as surely she had implied? – that they both knew that Jordan de Ribérac was responsible for what had happened tonight. Yet she hadn’t clamoured for help.

She was holding the towel bundled together before her, as if for comfort. He said, “You met him this evening? Monseigneur de Ribérac?”

“He offered me marriage,” she said.

Marriage!
He looked at her now with sheerest bafflement. The light from the fire flickered and gleamed over the expanse of his skin like the Northern Dancers.

She had spoken with bitterness. As if Jordan de Ribérac had offered her something else besides marriage. If he had, it would hardly have been in the street. So it was here, in the empty house. But how could Jordan de Riéerac get himself admitted to the house of an un-chaperoned girl? In one way. Claes loosened his hands. He said gently, “He was masked? And he told you he wanted to harm me?”

“Something like that,” she said wearily. “He said he had settled Simon’s feud with you. Of course he had. He thought he had got these men to kill you. Gelis and I can testify to it. I shall tell my mother and father. He’ll be punished.” She was twisting the towel in her hands. She wanted de Ribérac punished.

Claes said, “Perhaps he did pay men to get rid of me, but I wonder what proof there is? Did anyone else hear him threaten me?”

There was a stool by the fire, and she sat on it. Her hair was brown tinted red in the firelight, and crimped where it had been plaited. She said, “He was here. I was the only person he spoke to. He was my partner for the evening. I thought he was … someone else.”

He had guessed as much. He said, “And the two men who attacked me? We’d need witnesses, or someone who knew them, or someone who could connect them with Monseigneur. Without that, accusing him would only link your name with his in a way you wouldn’t like. He could twist what happened quite nastily.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know who the men were. Don’t you have any evidence against him?”

“Nothing that would be any good. Look,” said Claes. “There’s no need for you to do anything more about this. It’s my battle anyway, although I’m glad you made it yours for a bit. Otherwise I shouldn’t be alive. But now, forget about what happened to me. Tell your parents only that M. le vicomte deceived you and made an unwelcome proposal. He shouldn’t trouble you again.”

He watched her. There was relief in her face, as well as disappointment. He had said what she wanted him to say. There was also resolve. She said, “It hardly matters if M. le vicomte or anyone else makes advances to me now. They’ll marry me off to somebody soon. In case I haven’t told the whole story. It’s a pity really that nothing happened. It might as well have done.”

And so he knew exactly why he was there. She was nineteen and clever and capable; but in this matter, she was thinking like Gelis. As he might have said to Gelis, he said mildly, “Is the towel for me?”

She had forgotten it. Then she remembered and brought it forward and then, hesitating, placed it round his shoulders as she had probably once planned to do. Her hands lingered. They were trembling. He put up one of his own and drew her round and, still holding her fingers, seated her beside him, a space away on the trestle. The firelight struck through the stuff of her robe and told him something else. So, Claes, you need discipline for two. Let’s see how you master all this.

He said, “Demoiselle, the world is full of bridegrooms. Don’t be cruel to them because some of your suitors displease you.”

She said, “You don’t marry.”

That line of reasoning he didn’t propose to follow. He took another, speaking simply, to convince her. “Some day I shall. No one should expect too much, of course. But whoever my future wife is, she might regret having followed a whim.”

“I expect too much,” she said. “What I want doesn’t exist. So –”

So formality wouldn’t serve any longer, and what they were talking about would have to be made explicit. Which he regretted. Because she would end by loathing him. He gave her back her hand and, rising, stood, in his turn, bathed in firelight. “So you appoint me as surrogate. Thank you, but I’m not flattered,” said Claes. “And you’re wrong. There are many men who would make you happy.”

She, too, had dropped all pretence. “Show me how,” said Katelina van Borselen. “It’s my whim. It’s not your responsibility.”

He stood, looking down at her. “Of course it’s my responsibility. We’re of different stations. There might be consequences.”

“There will be no consequences,” she said. “Or I shouldn’t have brought you here in the first place. Are you afraid of something else? Or am I less than you’re used to? In which case, can you recommend me to a friend?”

She spoke, as she had at Damme, with extreme harshness. There were tears on her lashes. He said, “Oh dear God,” and kneeling, took both her hands again. He said, “Look. What you would lose, you would lose for ever.”

“Would you boast about it?” she said. And then, “No. I’m sorry. I’m sure I know you better than that.”

“You don’t know me at all,” he said in despair. She smelt of some sort of fine scent. He tried to keep his hands steady and force his brain to work. Suddenly she pulled one hand out of his and laid it on his bare shoulder and then drew it down, sliding over the muscles of his bruised back, down and down.

Can you recommend me to a friend?

He said, “I shall show you what it is like. As gradually as I can, so that you can stop me before it goes further. After that, I’ll try to stop if you
tell me to. If I don’t, you must use force. I don’t know how much you know about men.”

Her cheek was against his, and he could feel her smile briefly. He could feel her heart thudding. She spoke as if her throat hurt. “Gelis says that you’re the most passionate lover in Bruges, according to all the girls she’s been able to ask. And that you always tell them you can stop, but they never want you to.”

She was a child. And because two men had been cruel and her mother heartless, he was going to have to seduce her.

Or the other way about.

Or neither. He was going to lift her and take her up to her chamber and lay her, as her future lovers would do, on her bed. Then, as carefully as his abundant energy would let him, he meant to unclothe her, and caress her, and lead her as sweetly as might be through all the intricate overture of mutual love-making. Then – if she did not stop him – he meant to arrive with force where he was needed, so that all her life she would remember the new pleasure, and not the new pain.

Like most of his better plans it fell out as he wanted, except that he went to sleep afterwards, which he had not intended to do. But which, under the circumstances, was understandable.

He woke in bed, with a slumbering girl in his arms, and her long hair coiled over his body. Even in sleep, her face looked different; warm with colour, and peaceful and contented. There was a smile still somewhere on her mouth, and he smiled in return for, no doubt, the same reason. Then, brought to reality, he looked to the window. Still dark, thank God. The household, to be sure, would hardly return before dawn, and the parents well afterwards. All the same, he should have left long ago.

He knew, normally, exactly how long to make love. When to tease it up to its climax. How long to allow for the courtesies afterwards. But this, of course, was hardly routine. For one thing, he had the kitchen to clear up and his clothes, for example, to remove.

With care, he eased himself free of the girl and left the room silently for the kitchen. There the sand-glass told him he had four hours perhaps before daylight. All the same, he did not take time to dress, but went quickly about the business of tidying. In the end it looked, he thought, as it had when Katelina had led him in from the garden. The broth would hardly be missed. Or the towel, which was upstairs for a very good reason. He looked round, lifted his clothes, and hesitated. He could dress here and depart, as he would have done had he not slept. But then, he would have taken proper leave of her.

As it was, he didn’t quite know what to do. She seemed happy. She had been happy; of that at least he was sure. She had clung to him at the climax as if the gates of heaven were shutting. Afterwards, she had said
very little, but had lain stroking him, over and over as if he were a new possession. And he had fallen asleep.

But he was glad about that. He was not ignorant of the ways of well-born women in bed. Some made no secret of what they wanted, and were frank and comradely both in your arms and out of them. Some wanted servant-lovers to whip them in bed and crawl under their feet the rest of the time. This girl was neither of these. He wondered what he had done to her. Perhaps, having taken the first step, she would never marry, but take a succession of lovers. Until in time she ceased to take heed of the calendar, or of the courtesies, and trouble and ruin would come.

Perhaps it would turn out well. Perhaps, like an overanxious child she would now be content to wait for a proper marriage. Or even look forward to it. He smiled a little, thinking of the kind of men, young and old, her family would propose for her. Perhaps he ought to have restricted the performance a little. But she was a delicious girl, well made and courageous. What else she might be he didn’t know, any more than she could know him, whatever she claimed. They had hardly exchanged more than a few sentences in all their acquaintance. It was not his mind she or anyone else wanted him for. That he fully accepted.

He decided to go back and open her chamber door. She had only to pretend sleep if she wished him gone. If she were still asleep, he wouldn’t waken her. In any case, she knew she could rely on him to greet her, when next they met, as a servant should greet a lady.

The line of light under her door told him that she had risen and renewed the candle. And, perhaps, dressed. His clothes, held one-handed before him, would have to represent the decencies: he wanted to end the matter, one way or the other. He opened the door.

She had risen, and replaced the candle, and lifted the sheet from the floor, but she had not dressed. She looked up, half in bed and half out of it. He looked at the long line of shin and knee and thigh and all the places where his fingers and his lips had rested. And then the white skin of the arms, and the frail ribs and the small breasts, round as oranges. And her lips, which were open. She was smiling. She stood, and he could trace the small incoherence of her breathing. Then she walked towards him, her eyes on his hand, and the sheltering twist of his clothes. “These need to be folded,” she said. “And in any case, they are in the way.” And striking them from his hand to the floor, she took their place.

That time, there was no courting at all. The next time, a great deal. The third time, when the sky outside the window was lightening, a desperate onslaught which he tried in vain to calm and contain.

In the middle of it, a door slammed below. She fought him, forcing him to continue. The resulting explosion paralysed them both for long moments. Then they lay, their heartbeats shaking the bed. They couldn’t have moved, had the door opened.

It didn’t open. One pair of footsteps shuffling about, far below,
indicated a servant, intent on drawing water and setting fires for the returning mistress. Katelina, her nails skin-deep said, “Don’t go. There’s a way into the garden. Mother won’t come for hours.”

He lay still, his face buried. So much for self-control. He lifted his head from his arms and said, “Demoiselle.”

“
Demoiselle!
” said Katelina van Borselen.

He turned on his side and looked at her. Now she was white, unlike the blooming girl of the first seduction, and her skin was damp, her hair tangled, the hollows blue under her eyes.

He said, “What other name can I give you? I’ve taken something precious from you. I’ve given you, perhaps, what you wanted. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. But for more than one night – that would be greed on both sides.”

She had not thought before of the question of pride. He saw her think about it now. She said, “If you were … a lawyer … would you marry me?”

So disarming, so cruel. He took her hand, full of affection, and said, “Even if I were a lawyer, you would be too far above me.”

She closed her eyes, and opened them. She said, “They said you were clever. I think you are more clever than even they think. Surely you should have trained as a clerk? Why an artisan?”