Niccolo Rising (69 page)

Like all servants, he’d got over-confident. Felix, as it happened, thought that all these precautions might quite suitably be put into effect, and he turned to M. de Fleury and said so. Nicholas looked very surprised. He still looked surprised when M. de Fleury not only agreed, but took immediate action. A jerk of M. Jaak’s head, and his steward was standing in friendly fashion close beside Nicholas. M. Jaak left the room with his clerks to summon men and arrange for provisions and weapons and horses. The box was still on the table, so Felix remained. He endured, with abnormal patience, the patting hand of Esota de Fleury.

Nicholas stood still, with his guardian beside him. After an interval the clerk came back for the steward and the lady of Fleury. He carried with him a key for the parlour. The steward scowled at Nicholas and went out, but the lady was in no hurry. She waved the clerk off, and again, more angrily, when he hesitated. Felix was sorry for him. He was even slightly alarmed when, with his mistress’s leave, the clerk went out without her and, shutting the door, turned the key in it from the outside. He left the box, so Felix stayed, in the uncomfortable company of Esota de Fleury and the servant his stepfather.

Felix waited for Jaak de Fleury to come back. He seemed to be away a long time. Nicholas walked backwards and forwards and Felix watched him. He even saw Nicholas stroll to the window and nod to someone he knew in the courtyard as if there was nothing to worry about. Indeed, it was not until Nicholas walked back, kerchief in hand, to bend courteously over the demoiselle that something struck Felix as odd, and he turned.

But by then the kerchief was, he saw, bound tightly over the demoiselle’s full, tinted lips and Nicholas’ arm was already swinging towards his, Felix’s, head with a thick wicker flask at the end of it. Felix tried to shout, too, but his mouth was blocked by a large and familiar hand, smelling of new ink like Collinet Mansion.

The blow presented him with one ridiculous thought, before every thought left him. If Collinet Mansion was there, Claes must be somewhere about.

Claes would help him.

Chapter 32

F
ELIX DE CHARETTY
, who had left his home in the middle of April to go hunting at Genappe with the Comte de Charolais and the Dauphin of Vienne, did not return. In Bruges, it was generally known that the boy had ridden south, thinking to overtake his mother and the young fellow he used to go about with. Nicholas, who married the demoiselle.

There were those who thought it a bit funny that Nicholas went off like that after the fire. Although, of course, the Widow had very good help, what with that busy new notary Gregorio, and Cristoffels, who had a reputation with the brokers who used to deal with him. Indeed, it was amazing what they had all done to pull the business together in a few weeks.

But all the same, you saw the difference in Marian de Charetty. Whatever you thought about the marriage, that young man had a head on him, and was useful to her. And now he was gone, and her son as well. And there was a mystery. For one way or another, surely the boy Felix had caught up with Nicholas. And learned of the fire. And had been desperate, as any boy would, to get back and comfort his mother, and help set things to rights. But May ended, and the first week of June arrived, and Felix didn’t come.

In Spangnaerts Street Felix’s two nubile sisters saw no reason for worrying. As their mother pointed out, he and Nicholas might have missed one another. Felix might have ridden a very long way before he learned of the fire. Catherine rather enjoyed the May Fair and the Holy Blood Procession without Felix, now she was getting over all the nice things she had lost – her gowns and her oldest toys, and the coverlet she had made, and the box a man from Danzig had given her.

Now people gave her more things because they were sorry for her, and in return she told them all about the fire, and especially the frightening bits. As she remembered more, the story got better and better, and there were always new people to tell it to.

Tilde, too, was recovering, although rather more slowly, for there
were things of her father’s that she would never see again. And sometimes, at night, she thought of Felix, and remembered the little knife Felix carried and how short-tempered he was. She hoped, when they met, that Nicholas would remember to say the right things to Felix, the way he used to. At first, she had thought Nicholas had done such a terrible thing that none of them should speak to him again. Then she began to think that it was all her mother’s fault. Now, since the fire, she felt so sad for her mother that she had forgiven them both. At least, when he came back, Nicholas would be living in the same house, and her mother would be happy.

Only neither Felix nor Nicholas had come back by the beginning of June, and Tilde hoped they wouldn’t stay away long. She had a new robe, since the old ones were burnt, and they had to put buckram into it. But of course her mother wasn’t talking of husbands at the moment, for husbands meant dowries, and the company had to be set on its feet first. And although at times she looked pale, and spoke sharply because she was working so hard, her mother had said, just the other day, how well everything was going: just as Nicholas planned. Tilde had thought then she would talk about suitors, but instead she just got up and left the room.

The Adornes also spoke about Nicholas, but not so freely, since Anselm and his wife were not in perfect agreement over the scheme which drew them and the young man together. But when outside his home, Anselm Adorne spent a good deal of time on the subject, especially when among the Doria and Spinola in the Genoese consulate.

In the Medici establishment, Angelo Tani and Tommaso his under-manager received the Widow’s representatives and proved to be actively helpful in the matter of loans, and forbearing in the face of indebtedness, as Nicholas had said they would be. They also, from time to time, requested news from Jacques and Lorenzo Strozzi on the progress of the Milanese ostrich. For news of the ostrich, Lorenzo Strozzi had taken to relying on Katelina van Borselen’s little sister. According to the last letter from Brittany, the ostrich was still alive but impounded, and could not be set on board ship until a legal case had been settled.

Gelis van Borselen, who found it necessary to visit Bruges a great deal at this time, and who was a frequent caller at the Hôtel Jerusalem and at Spangnaerts Street, had summoned Lorenzo Strozzi to her father’s house to hear that bit of Katelina’s letter. She thought Lorenzo Strozzi moody but romantic. He had sworn never to marry, they said, until he had a business of his own. She looked forward to several more talks about ostriches.

About the rest of the letter from Katelina she said nothing, either to her parents or to Lorenzo. It was the first to come from Brittany since Nicholas married the old woman. But when Gelis burst the wax and flattened it, there was nothing about Nicholas and the wedding at all,
because her letters hadn’t reached Katelina. Nor had anyone else’s. Some ship must have sunk.

She would have to write it all down again. And this time add the news about the mysterious fire at the Charetty, and how Nicholas had run off south three days later, and how the Charetty boy had disappeared. Not been killed in a joust (which, as Nicholas himself pointed out, he would be blamed for), but simply sent out of Bruges and never seen again. For which, of course, no one could blame Nicholas at all.

That was the person she and Katelina had taken all that trouble to fish out of the canal on Carnival night. Katelina should never have taken him home. It wasn’t as if Katelina was married yet. And if she wasn’t careful, her reputation would get spoilt, and even Guildolf de Gruuthuse would start looking elsewhere. From what she wrote, the court in Brittany was as bad as courts anywhere, with Duke Francis and the King of France sharing the same mistress. Antoinette somebody. Katelina spoke as if she saw her all the time. Mind you, she was probably a relief from the old Duchess, the Scottish king’s sister, who sounded bad-tempered as well as dim-witted, and wouldn’t go home to be married to anyone else now her husband was dead.

Katelina said the court was full of Scotsmen calling to try and get the rest of the old Duchess’s dowry, which had never been paid. Katelina said that Jordan de Ribérac had come to court one day on business of the French king, who owed him money and who relied on him for everything. Katelina said that Jordan de Ribérac often rode through to the coast to check over his shipping. Katelina said that she acted as if she didn’t know him, but he had had the conceit to kiss her hand and chat in front of the Duchess as if he had never insulted her, or tried to kill Nicholas. Katelina asked her to ask Nicholas to write to her.

Katelina was a fool.

At the end of the first week in June a messenger arrived in Bruges from the Medici manager in Geneva with papers for Angelo Tani. He also bore a letter which he delivered to Marian de Charetty. It was from her husband Nicholas. It hastened to assure her that all was well, and Felix safe in his company. It added that, because of the money they carried, it seemed best for Felix to travel with him to Italy and come home at the same time. The experience, it further added, might do Felix some good. There followed some detailed information and other cogent suggestions on trading matters. The greetings with which it closed were all that they should be. It was a pleasant letter. Marian de Charetty, reading it, deduced that Felix was misbehaving and that this was the way Nicholas had chosen to deal with it. She had no fears for Felix. The concern she felt sprang from the same source as Tilde’s. Felix, when thwarted, could harm people.

Being unconscious on the banks of Lake Geneva, Felix de Charetty was incapable of harming anyone at the time the pleasant letter to his lady
mother was being composed and written. Nor, in the days that followed could he be said to be a danger to anyone but himself, as he tried to release himself from the horse to which he was tied, or drive it out of the convoy on one side or the other, his head still thunderously sore from the blow which had felled him in Jaak de Fleury’s house.

How Nicholas had got him out of the house and out of Geneva he still didn’t know. The precious money-box, of course, was in Nicholas’ hands. The men at arms around him were all hired by Nicholas. His own two servants were there as well, more lightly bound than he was since they had less incentive, he supposed, to escape and attempt a moneyless journey back home. From the moment he returned to consciousness, gripped on the back of someone else’s horse, they had been travelling as if the devil were after them.

Of course, Jaak de Fleury would have sent those armed men of his to follow and rescue him. Or at the very least, would have enlisted the help of the Duke of Savoy’s handiest officer. At any moment, they would be overtaken and stopped.

They were not. Whatever trick Nicholas had used, no troop of avenging horsemen swept past them. When, on stumbling horses, they left the lake and began to tackle the rising ground which led up to the pass, Felix saw that no one was going to help him. If he was going to take home that box, and find the rest of the Charetty money he had been cheated out of, he would have to do it himself.

That night his new enemy felt safe enough, it appeared, to risk taking a room at an inn. Sitting on a led horse, with his hands tied together and his feet roped beneath him, Felix saw the man at arms dispatched ahead to arrange it.

He had refused to give his word not to escape. He had refused to speak to anyone. At the first halt he remembered, he had spat back the wine Nicholas offered him, and when they loosed his hands he had used them to do his best to throttle him. So they didn’t dare take him indoors. They rested and took their food in the open air, well concealed from the road. Until now.

He had wondered how Nicholas expected to prevent him from making a disturbance in a public place, but it was simple: he was gagged as well as bound and helped in, cloaked and hooded, as if he were drunk. He smelt food and charcoal and ale fumes and heard a confusion of languages and the clatter of booted feet, and the banging of trestles and platters and tankards. His feet found stairs and he hit on the idea of kicking them, but before he could do it, powerful hands took him under the armpits and carried him bodily upwards. He remembered Claes being lifted like that. On board the Flanders galleys, it was. Just before they flung him into the sea.

Had he resented it all as much as that? All the time? Hating and resenting him, and Julius, and Jaak, and his mother?

A door opened, and he was set down beyond it, held by the grip of a
single hand. The door shut, cutting off the noise from below, and a key turned in the lock. Felix dragged on the restraining arm and tossed his head like a warhorse, to dislodge the muffling hood. His head began to ache wildly. The second hand returned to his other arm. Resisting, he found himself stumbling backwards and then pushed down, with a jolt, on a low bed. His hood was grasped and folded back, but the cloth round his mouth remained there.

Nicholas stood looking down at him. Nicholas said, “You hear how quiet it’s got? That’s how thick the door is. And anyway, my fellows are just outside. So don’t waste time shouting. I need some food, and some sleep, and so do you. And I want to talk first.”

It had puzzled Felix for some time: why Nicholas hadn’t killed him and his servants immediately. But that, of course, was merely because he was afraid of pursuit. Now he’d shaken it off, he could arrange for Felix to die more conveniently, and perhaps attach the blame somewhere else.

Felix had no wish to talk to his murderer. He made an elaborate show of closing his eyes while the other man was still speaking, and lying back on the bed, stuck his chin up. The mark of a merchant was his dignity. He hoped he also looked bored. His heart and his lungs, which were not bored, refused to co-operate.

Nicholas said, “Well, if I’m going to apologise to you, you might at least keep your eyes open. Is your head still as bad?”

Silence. The scrape of a stool. The voice of Nicholas, again, from a lower level. It sounded submissive. He said, “I don’t suppose I’d have the nerve to lie there, in your place. You must think I’m going to carve you up and send the pieces to your mother. I hit you on the head because I had to get you away. I had to get you away because I couldn’t let you go back alone with the money, and I couldn’t go with you. I couldn’t go with you because I’ve got to get to Milan. I’ve got to get to Milan because your mother and Anselm Adorne and a lot of other people are involved in a highly secret piece of trading which is going to make you so rich that the fire doesn’t even matter. But only if I get to Milan. And only if other people don’t get to hear of it. Other people like Jaak de Fleury.”