Niccolo Rising (64 page)

She rose, curtseying. Henninc melted back to the panelling. The Receiver-General bowed. Felix said, “Mother! The Count has asked … Der Roland brings an invitation to me from Monseigneur de Charolais. A personal invitation. To a grand hunt. A special hunt at Genappe on Sunday. I have to leave now. Right away.”

“Such an honour!” said Marian de Charetty. She seated her guest, signed to Henninc for wine, and sat herself, flushed and smiling and breathless. The picture of a bourgeois mother overwhelmed by the favour shown to her bourgeois son.

The picture of a mother thanking God that her son need find no excuse, now, to face enemy lances at the White Bear jousting on Sunday. For when the heir to your liege lord commanded, no excuse was acceptable. Thanking God, she thought, and someone else.

When Nicholas came back much later, Felix had already gone. The yard was full of the news. Nicholas sat and let the dye workers tell him. They were disappointed, mostly. It was fine, of course, that the great
lords should see, at last, the worth of the good Charetty family. But where now was the special pleasure and pride of standing there in the crowd at the jousting and saying, There! There’s the young master!

Someone who used to share his cabbage with him said, “Why not take his place, Claes? There’s the armour.”

“Now, there’s an idea,” Nicholas said. “I’d win every bout. I’d be Forestier. I’ll show you. Come on, why don’t we all go in for it?”

When his mistress looked out of her window to find the reason for all the shrieking and laughter, they had rigged up a rope line for the barrier and were charging one another in pickaback pairs, with kettles for helms and stirring-sticks for their lances. They broke a rod, and Henninc’s voice roared over the yard, berating them. Then one of the charging figures took off his helmet, and Henninc, faced with his mistress’s husband, fell silent.

Nicholas jumped to the ground. “I’ll pay for the stick. No. I was wrong to take them off their work. We were just glad about the honour to jonkheere Felix.”

Grinning, they were clearing up quickly and scattering. They would work late, if need be, to make up for it. She saw their spirits were high and that Henninc, who knew his people, had the sense to recognise it. He smiled too, if stiffly, and said, “It’s a pity about the jousting but an honour too, as you say, friend Nicholas.”

Then Nicholas came quickly up the stairs and tapped on her door and opened it. “Reward?” he said. She wrinkled her nose. “I know,” he said. “It’s the smell of relief, this time. I thought my deep-laid plot had gone wrong.”

“But you had contingency plans,” she said.

“Oh, yes. Three dog handlers and Gregorio’s mistress. That is, I hadn’t asked Gregorio yet.” He smiled lavishly at her. “Do I deserve some special, strong wine? Felix has gone, then?”

Her chin trembled while she was smiling at him. She stiffened it. She said, “Will they treat him well?”

He said, “Of course they will. It’s the Dauphin he’ll see, really. Probably for the last time. But they’re well bred. They won’t stint.” He paused. “The drawback is that you’ll be gone when he gets back. Did you tell him?”

“About the tour of triumph? Yes.” Her back to him, she poured wine in generous measure.

“When he thinks about it, he’ll be pleased. He’ll be master until you come back. And he won’t have to see me leave, either.”

She gave him his wine and stood for a moment, holding her own. “I don’t know. He’s not very complicated. I think he feels a little like Tilde. They both like to see you here slaving for them.”

He
was
relieved. The ridiculous dimples, missing for a day or two, had returned. He said, “If I don’t know when to keep my place, then I might as well pay for it here, rather than tread primrose paths in the
distance? He ought to see the primrose paths. Especially this time. He should have lent me his armour for Geneva. I’ve had an idea.”

She went and sat down. “Now I can bear it. Yes?”

He said, “Why don’t we leave on Sunday, during the joust? The roads would be clear. Unless you still want to be present?”

She shuddered. “No.”

“Well?”

She said, “There would be no one to help. Everyone will be watching. You won’t even get a bodyguard to come away, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Even as he began persuasively to answer her, she knew that he had it planned already. Another contingency. He had cancelled the bodyguard. He had found another, and an escort for herself from the former master-at-arms who ran the metal foundry. Her personal servants were willing to come, and the cook from Spangnaerts Street: Gregorio would find a replacement. The packing could all be done tomorrow.

She watched him, and at the end said, “And when does Simon arrive?”

He grinned. He said, “Tomorrow. But I can’t get us away quite so early. And the roads would be packed.”

She said, “He’ll still be here when I come back. And perhaps de Ribérac.”

The benign smile was still there. “They may have threatened you, but I’m the object of their real esteem, remember. Anyway, they won’t come together. They dislike each other. And even if they do, I’ve told Gregorio what to do about it. While I’m away, he’ll move back to Julius’ office. In the evenings, you let no one in.”

“Really?” she said.

“Except by invitation, of course. There are primrose paths everywhere, or should be.”

His large smile defied her to take him seriously. She wondered, with humour, who was supposed to travel the aforesaid paths with her. Gregorio had his mistress. Metteneye was suited. All her clients had wives already. That left Oudenin, she supposed. Or possibly even Henninc. She reproved herself. He had taken thought for her safety, returning. Concern for what she did, once returned, was too much to expect.

Side by side with an extremely handsome young woman and followed by a double line of attendants, Simon of Kilmirren rode through the clamorous highways of Bruges on Saturday. Behind him, page, squire, grooms carried his shield and his weapons and led his fine horses. Liveried riders conducted the sumpter mules and bore the gold-tasselled pennants which had surged and flapped all the way from Calais.

Simon himself wore his jousting-armour and carried his helm, the
green plumes trailing over his arm. His face, with its fair skin and pure, finicking bones, expressed well-bred boredom. People turned to look. The gold of his uncovered hair and the silver dazzle of engraved plate beneath it were not what you saw every day, even among the great cavaliers. Especially among the great cavaliers, who often had gifted an eye or a set of good teeth to the god of mock battle.

When he had gone, the tumble of business resumed. Competitors, servants and horses, ladies and escorts, spectators from miles around Bruges – all that, every year, meant hard work, flourishing trade and, of course, money. Acclaim, too, for the influential city of Bruges, host to the flower of chivalry. Pride as well as self-interest inspired the carpenters hammering day and night to erect the lists and the tribunals in the market place, the painters completing the blazons and banners, the city officials hurrying everywhere with the officers of the White Bear itself, seeing to the dressing and clearing of the streets, the preparations for the feasts, the protocol for processions and ceremonies and presentations, the entertaining and ruling of the scattered company of elite challengers.

Tomorrow the jousters, each with his train, would wind in procession from the Abbey of Eckhout there, behind the house of Louis de Gruuthuse, to the lists in the market place. Tonight, Simon of Kilmirren was lodging, as usual, at the house of Jehan Metteneye, with his banner and hatchment and crest dressing the windowsill of his chamber, as was the custom.

He had got rid of Muriella and her ladies first, at the house of her hostess. He was quite pleased with her. She was rich: her brother was a Scotsman turned Englishman trading in the Staple at Calais. She was dark, in contrast to his fairness, and striking, in crimson and that extraordinary headdress like some sort of butterfly. Although none of that could compete, he was aware, with golden hair and green plumes and silver armour.

The brother, John Reid, had not been unattracted by the idea of a marriage contract, although it was clear that he would prefer to hand over the girl to a title. But, as Simon had happened to mention, his titled uncle in Scotland was old, and his titled father in France, although unfortunately set apart by affairs from his only son and heir, had a well-cultivated seigneurie. That, of course, was a double-edged weapon. His father’s fortune had probably been signed away already to some parcel of monks or a mistress, to deny it to his unpopular son. And although his father could not, probably, alienate his heir from his land, the French king certainly could, if he heard what Simon had been up to in Calais. Nevertheless, John Reid had been interested. Simon had been allowed to bring Muriella, properly chaperoned, as his lady of honour on the strength of it.

The presence of the chaperone didn’t disturb him at the moment. Tonight was the great formal feast at the Sign of the Moon in the market
place. Already the Forestier, last year’s champion, would be parading the town with his heralds, his pipes and his drummers, and calling on the grand ladies and well-born maidens whom the Brotherhood wished to come to the banquet.

Muriella would be his partner at the feast, which would finish prudently early, so that he could escort her prudently home. After that, he had a well-tried welcome already awaiting him somewhere else, as he always did before a contest. Something easy, expert and quick. That way, you didn’t waste time before you began, or in trying to get away when you’d finished. He wished to do well tomorrow, after all, for his lady’s sake.

Then when the lady had watched him win in the lists, and had danced with him, and had shared his cup at the banquets before returning each night to her cold bed, she might begin to think of that short journey home in his company. She would admire his chivalry. She would dream, as ladies do, of perhaps testing it. And in some inn on the way she would find the means, he felt sure, to relieve him in some sweet, thoughtful way, of the minor impediment of the chaperone.

And then, if he still felt like it, he would ask the brother for her hand, and the dowry he had been three-quarters promised.

Meanwhile in Metteneye’s house, arranging for his servants, his horses, his gear, Simon was chastely polite to Jehan Metteneye’s wife, as arch and as pendulous as he remembered. The girl Mabelie had, of course, gone. The woman didn’t mention that, or the affair with the knave Claes. After he had left Bruges on the last occasion, travellers to Scotland had sought him out for quite a while, regaling him with the heartening news of his youthful friend’s promising recovery. And later, of how he had been encouraged to depart from Bruges, and had gone off to soldier in Italy. The end, he supposed, of a trouble-maker.

It was John of Kinloch, the Scots chaplain, who disillusioned him. Master John, in stained black, met him on the stairs and, instead of stepping aside, took occasion to compliment him on the splendid armour he had heard so much about, and the exquisite doublet he had now assumed with, he saw, a left sleeve fit for a king. He then remarked, without stirring, how interested Simon must be in the latest news of young Nicholas.

If the fellow was trying to find common ground, he was failing. Simon said, “Forgive me. I can’t think whom you mean.” He glanced down the stairs. Metteneye was approaching. Rescue.

“Oh,” said John of Kinloch. “You’d remember him as young Claes. Who would have thought, when his life was despaired of, that all this would happen?”

The quality of Kinloch’s smile was explained. Simon smiled in return, at the chaplain and at Jehan Metteneye, now starting up the stairs. He said, his tone one of civil amusement, “I heard he was in Italy. Then he’s made his fortune, has he? A commander?”

Both men laughed. Kinloch moved to one side and Metteneye took his place on the same step. Metteneye flicked Simon’s chest with a finger. “Now we’ve got you,” he said. “You’d never guess. No. Here in Bruges, the young rascal. He’s married the widow Charetty, and he’s managing the whole of her business!”

“
Married!
” said Simon. “Surely not.”

“Oh, quite legally,” said the chaplain. He was smiling more widely, God damn him. He’d got what he wanted. Simon stopped even attempting to disguise what he felt. The chaplain said, “Of course, they’re related, but there’s to be a dispensation. I wonder Bishop Coppini didn’t mention it when you were both in Calais. He took the wedding Mass. With Anselm Adorne’s chaplain.”

Coppini, the bastard. No, of course: he would know nothing about Mabelie, or the gun, or the dog. Or the shears. But Anselm Adorne did, and had supported the marriage. Marriage! And who else now found Claes entertaining, of the men he would meet during the tournament? Metteneye had spoken with tolerant amusement. Metteneye, who had tried to thrash Claes with the best of them.

They were both still gazing at him. Simon said, “In view of all the trouble he’s caused, you do surprise me. There must be twenty years between Claes and the poor woman. He’s running all the business, you say?”

“Aye,” said Metteneye. “And you wouldn’t believe what he’s done for it. Bought arms and artillery and formed a big company and sent it off to the Naples wars. Started a private courier service between Flanders and the Italian states. Expanded the dyeing and pawnbroking business. Bought property and added new management …”

“All with the widow’s money? I didn’t know she was worth as much,” said Simon.

“Oh, she had a fair bit,” said Metteneye. “But most of it’s being done on loans and promises. That’s the beauty of getting old Astorre’s company and the courier service started early. The Medici are backing him, and the others he’s contracted to. It’s in their interests to make him loans, you see.”

The chaplain stood, grinning. Other people were coming into the passage below. Simon said, “It seems he must have entranced the poor lady. I hope she doesn’t wake up one morning and find her husband and her business and her money all gone together.”