Niccolo Rising (55 page)

She looked at Claes, and tried to keep the weariness out of her voice. “You suggested all these things. I agreed to them. I arranged them all with you. I am flattered and grateful. You thought, rightly, that I should like to be rich, that I should like to see the business expand and prosper; that I should like to hand something great to Cornelis’ son and mine. You thought that I could direct it, and that Felix in time would run it for me.”

She paused, and tried, again, to keep her voice calm. “But, my dear, I cannot direct it. However willing they are, Cristoffels and Gregorio and Henninc, and even Astorre and Thomas and Julius there in Italy, are not clever enough to help me do it properly. And Felix I know, and you must now know, cannot do it, does not want to do it and never, I think, will do more than use this business for money, when he wishes eight shillings for – whatever he wanted eight shillings for.”

She looked him straight in the eyes. “I cannot run this company as it is. Your wonderful
coup
, your master-stroke which would make me a fortune, is quite beyond me. There is no possible way I can agree to it.”

Claes said, “I thought Felix would develop more quickly.” And as she stirred, exasperated, he added briefly, “All right. Yes, I know. He won’t come to it soon enough. But the stuff is in him. I’ve seen it. Don’t expect too little of him. That’s been part of the trouble.”

He had paused. She said, “That is what I want of you. Honest comment. About myself, too.”

Another pause. He was looking, frowning, into the fire. He said, “Yes. You’re good with a team that’s already running, but have no experience of breaking in a new one. Not your fault. Anyway, the business is too scattered. I was going to suggest that, as soon as Cristoffels had put things to rights at Louvain, you should sell the dyeing and purely pawnbroking part of the Louvain business, and bring the money-changing and lending side here to Bruges where you can manage it centrally. In six months your staff will be used to one another, and you to them.”

She said, “But we have just agreed, I can’t hold things together alone for six months. And even after that, perfect teams break up and require new appointments. I can’t face that, either. And even if the most perfect team in the world were present immediately, it couldn’t handle a scheme like the one you’re launching over alum.”

He was still considering. “No. I’d do that,” he said. “Travelling would be no disadvantage. But it would need a well-run company here in Bruges behind it: you’re right.”

She wondered if she was meant to make the suggestion. She said, “When you were being irresponsible, the City Fathers wanted rid of you. Having seen your work of the past seven weeks they would have no objection now, I think, if you wanted to stay.”

“No,” said Claes. “I seem to have managed to keep out of the Steen. But that’s not really the obstacle.”

She interrupted. “Your contracts? We could find another master courier, surely?”

He smiled, still without looking at her. “Not one who can deal with ciphers. I know too much already. The Medici won’t accept a change. Or the Dauphin. In any case, what I learn is an advantage to the company, not an obstacle. It’s even possible that I could arrange a long enough time between journeys to keep things straight here in Bruges until your perfect team can manage most things.” He made a movement of economical demonstration. “The
real
obstacle is that not even the lowest workers you employ would take orders from me, never mind Henninc and Meester Gregorio. Or even worse, Felix and Astorre and Tobie and Julius. You need someone like Gregorio, or the way Gregorio will be. Someone clever, with authority. I can’t aspire to manage a company. I can’t force myself on burghers and noblemen. I’m nineteen; I’m a base-born, chance-lettered workman. And people would talk.”

He looked up then, and smiled. She said next what she thought she would never say to him. It came quite simply, because it was quiet, and there was no strain in sitting speaking like this, before the fire. She said, “You can become a burgess by marriage.”

She knew him as well as anyone did. She knew that a natural comedian is a natural actor. She would never know, because he wouldn’t allow her to see, whether he had thought of that possibility, or had expected her to suggest it, or feared that she would suggest it. She didn’t flatter herself that he had ever wanted her to suggest it. So his eyes on her face told her only one thing: that he was searching to understand, in his turn, what she really wanted. She said, “Don’t be afraid. Real marriage would be something like incest, wouldn’t it? I’m speaking only of formalities.”

He drew a quick breath then, as if she had accused him of being incivil, and said, “I’m sorry. A matter like that … one doesn’t take lightly.”

She wondered what his eyes saw in hers. She kept her face, as far as she could, impersonal and friendly. She said, “I’ve only invited you to think about something. Perhaps you should come slightly nearer. It isn’t a subject for eavesdroppers.”

He smiled, understanding, she knew. She wanted to see him more clearly. She wanted to show her confidence in his interpretation of her. He knew she meant him to bring his stool and seat himself just so near, and no nearer. He did so, and settled himself, crossing his arms on his knees. In the firelight, the scar on his face wavered like the lash of a whip. He said, “I can give you an impersonal view of it, so far as I’m able. It would appal everyone who works for you. The best of your free employees would be inclined to leave. The worst would stay on, hoping to take advantage of the situation. Those who are in no position to leave would work with the utmost unwillingness for you as well as for me. Your daughters would be upset and frightened, at the least. And Felix would walk out of the house and either look for the sympathy of his friends or take himself abroad.”

“You draw a harsh picture,” she said. “Go on. What else would happen?”

He said, “You know, of course. The business people of the city would accept me, because they would have to, but their families would be a different matter. You would find your friends rather less hospitable than once they had been, and amazingly unable to visit you here. It would be obvious that your business would profit from the information I collect on my travels: I should be less in demand as a courier by the general merchants at least. As the business improved, rivalry would become much more cutting than normal. Competitors and suppliers who so far have treated you leniently would vie with one another to try and best us both. And as you would lose your friends, so I should lose mine.”

“Yes, of course,” she said; and rose, rather stiffly, from where she had been sitting for so long. “You have answered me completely. No one would gain. I shall sell, then.” He stood up so quickly that she suddenly realised what he must think. She said, “I mean, of course, once everything has been provided for and your future, too, has been secured.”

“Great God,” he said. “Did you think I suspected you of forcing me into something? You have provided for me since I was a child. I can make my own way now, if I have to. But what would please me most would be to serve you and the company at the same time.”

She looked at him. She said, “I’m sorry. But I can’t go on. I would rather sell while I still have some pride in it, and in myself.”

He said, “Will you sit again?” Then, when she stood, a little uncertain, he moved forward and led her back to her chair, and placed her in it, and this time sank to the floor not far away, his head on the same level as her knee, like Felix when he was younger, playing games
on the tiles. He said, “If you sell, what will you do with the money? Buy a grander house? Entertain dyers’ wives? Collect books? Give Felix all the horses and armour he asks for? Take up embroidery? All those people out there would be workless, unless their new master employed them. You would have no work, no interest, no place in the community but that of a wealthy widow. Is that what you want? You would die of it in a year.”

“What, then?” she said.

Claes said, “In six months I’ll have made you a team you can trust. I can always help you replace them. I shall spend all the time I can here. Name me your clerk, your assistant factor, your footservant, anything. You can do it.”

“Yes, of course I can,” she said. “I can tell Cristoffels what to do. Sell Louvain. Bring the broking business – did you say? – back to Bruges and expand it. Train Gregorio. Open the cellars in the new property. Watch out for Felix – if he survives the joust – and see that he doesn’t ruin the tavern. And play a part in the world trade in alum. All by myself. Of course I can do it.” She could hear her own voice grow hoarse with the pain in her throat. She stopped speaking.

Claes turned his back on her. She didn’t need to use her kerchief. Her cheeks were not wet, although her eyes dazzled a little, because of the light. Claes’ hair, rimmed by the fire, was dry now. When it was brushed, it would lie straight and flat, with strange bumps and kinks at the edges, as if it had been singed. When he was young, in the apprentice-loft, he had had to make himself neat for Mass like all the boys, and she had always liked to see him, marked out from the rest by his size, and the clown’s face with its dimples and the observant, good-humoured glance. She had brushed his hair for him when he lay, fevered after the wound. Tobias had treated him. It was one of the reasons she had asked the surgeon to work for her.

Claes had always been free with girls. She knew that. Of the many unspoken factors in his great disclaimer, she assumed that had been one. She couldn’t pretend that it had not been an issue. As her youthful husband, he couldn’t have shamed her by intriguing in Bruges. Circumspectly elsewhere, she supposed. She couldn’t impose celibacy on him. She might live another twenty years yet. She would be forty this year.

She hadn’t said so, but all the repercussions he had described had, of course, occurred to her. To be despised by dyers’ wives didn’t worry her. She had no close friends. Of course, Tilde would have been distressed and Felix would have been a handful. Of course they might lose people like Julius and the new managers, who would feel their status impaired. But Claes himself, with his gifts, could reduce the impact, could talk people round, could deal with Tilde and probably even with Felix. And if people left, he would be here to find others. He had said that the merchant world would set itself to compete against
him. She had no doubt, if that happened, who would win. She wondered, as she had wondered over and over, how clever men had not seen what she had seen.

And remembered that some of them had. And that it was Claes himself who had, in the end, given them the opening. Which meant that he, too, was tiring of simple tasks and simple company and perhaps even of simple friends. If he had taken thought, he might have discovered that he would not really miss them. But then, of course, he had taken thought. Behind the impersonal objections were all the personal ones.

He was giving her time to recover, and she had recovered. She said, “I should have told you that I’m proud of you. You realise that the only failure in this has been mine. You brought me a service I didn’t deserve, and don’t have the ability to take advantage of. But you thought I did, and I’m flattered.”

He had been sitting watching the fire, his hands tight around his updrawn knees. The rip in his jacket, neatly mended, had begun to open again across his flat back. When he heard her voice, he eased round a little without changing his attitude. She thought that his face, queerly, looked older. He spoke as if he hadn’t heard her. He said, “You’ve had suitors.”

It was baldly put, she knew; for the answer to it had to be an admission. She wouldn’t think of his reasons. She said, “I want none of them.”

He said, rather slowly, “Of the two, marriage would be less troublesome in the end than selling the company.”

She found she was experiencing a shaky amusement. He saw it and said, with a glimmering smile. “For you, I mean. To begin with, it would be like asking the burgomaster and échevins to lie down with Felix’s porcupine. It would need care and forethought and attention and teamwork for a long time, through a lot of rebuffs and some unpleasantness. And I’d have to leave almost immediately, leaving you to deal with whatever developed. But if Gregorio is what I think he is, I could confide in him a bit of the alum scheme. That would commit him. And he would help you.’

Her expression must have been very disturbed, because he stopped there and said, “That is, if I may reopen the subject? I wasn’t sure if you had finally closed it. For instance, you didn’t give me a chance to produce my impersonal list of the advantages of managerial partnerships. I’ve always admired and respected and honoured you. That’s the main one on my side. Indeed, I don’t know if I need any others. What’s more, I have an excuse to see Bishop Coppini who, I am sure, could manage the essential dispensation, since there’s a relationship. That is, I am the illegitimate grandson of the first wife of your late sister’s husband. If I have it right?”

He was prepared to reverse his decision. Placing the relationship
before her was his way, however, of reminding her that this, too, was a factor to be considered, on top of the difference in age, and in status. Yet such uneven marriages did take place in great houses, where property must pass and heirs be got, regardless.

With a marriage contract, she would be buying not that, but his skills for her company. She had her heir, Felix, and her daughters. He had, perhaps, as many bastards, carelessly sown. That again, she did not expect ever to know. She realised that she was thinking of the situation as if it were real, as if he had firmly accepted what she had proposed to him, whereas he had not.

She rose from her chair. The moment she moved, he rolled and stood also, not so near, and not smiling. She said, “Can we have it plainly? This company needs a man at its head, and I have asked you to take that place by marrying me. This you think you can do?” She wondered if she looked as exhausted as she felt. He didn’t look tired; only quieter than usual. He didn’t come any nearer. He smelt of horse, and leather and sweat, but she didn’t wrinkle her nose.