Niccolo Rising (88 page)

“I saw he wouldn’t fight,” said Katelina. “But maybe …” She broke off.

Simon frowned. He said, “It did strike me. He got Lionetto to kill his great-uncle. He didn’t do it himself. I don’t much like the idea of
someone saying nothing to my face and then creeping about planning disasters.”

Katelina said, in a rather odd voice, “Your father. His whole life came to an end in the same way.”

“Fat father Jordan?” He wondered what had put that into her head. He said, “Well, Claes can hardly have ruined Jordan de Ribérac, can he? Unless he’s really trading services with the Dauphin.”

“Perhaps he is,” said Katelina.

“Well, if he is, he’s done me a favour,” said Simon. “And if he was behind the gun that killed Uncle Alan, then he did me an even bigger one. You know, there’s something strange about that. But of course, it can’t be.”

“What can’t be?” she said. She looked green, the way she did when she was overtired.

Simon said, “You’ve done too much. Never mind this nonsense. I’ll get your woman.”

She actually caught him by the wrist to stop him. “No,” she said. “I want to know. What do you think is strange about Claes?”

He was surprised, but he dropped into the other chair and poured himself some more wine and then, as an afterthought, some for her. She didn’t take it. He said, “Well, just that if he really did all those things, you would think he was getting rid, one by one, of all his family.”

She said, “All his family?” and he wished he had gone when he said he was going.

He said, “Well, Jaak de Fleury. He was his great-uncle. And the woman he married was related, and he got rid of her son.”

She said, “Did he? I didn’t hear that.” She looked even more distracted. She said, “And who else? I didn’t think Nicholas – Claes – had any family.”

With no food and a pleasant amount of wine inside him, he thought that was funny. He said, “Well, that’s Jaak gone. And his wife Esota. And old Thibault the brother ruined, and his daughter, whatever she’s called. And old Jordan, my revered father done for. And Alan my uncle. I’m the only person he hasn’t succeeded in harming, if you don’t count Lucia, and she’s in Portugal. It’s amazing. He hasn’t been able to touch me. All he’s done is get me my title.”

You would think she was drunk, the way she persisted. He hoped she wasn’t drunk, because it would harm the baby. He realised, hazily, that she hadn’t drunk anything. She repeated, “But I didn’t know Nicholas had any family. I thought his mother died.”

He wondered how she knew that. He said, “Yes, of course the stupid bitch died, and good riddance. The whore produced him and dandled him for a few years and told him a few lies, and died. Don’t you see how he looks like her? Don’t you see?”

Katelina was whispering. He wondered why. She said, “You knew her then? Nicholas’s mother?”

They were all bitches, and all stupid. He stared at Katelina.

“Knew her?” said Simon. “She was my wife. That’s why that stupid bastard won’t fight me. Claes. Nicholas. He thinks he’s my son.”

He got to her as she started to slip off the chair. Her face looked terrible. He shouted for her maid and held her weight against him on the floor, patting her back to reassure her. “It’s all right,” said Simon. “It’s all right. Four months to go, and you’ll see a fine, fat, beautiful baby. Claes is brainless, you see. He never dreamed I’d marry and get a child on you. A real Kilmirren, to inherit all he thinks he’s entitled to. He may have outguessed the rest of the family, but he couldn’t best me.”

Chapter 41

G
REGORIO, WHO
never swore, said, “Oh Christ Jesus.”

“My feelings entirely,” said Tobie. “Simon, who tried to kill Nicholas at Damme, should have been his father. And Jordan de Ribérac his grandfather. De Ribérac who, in case you don’t know, apparently scarred him for life with his ring. Now tell me Nicholas wasn’t right to lay as many trails and traps as he liked.”

Julius said, “But Jaak and his wife were the only ones who were hurt because of Nicholas.”

Tobie dragged his hat off and polished his scalp. “No. Evidently Jordan de Ribérac’s fall had something to do with him too. The demoiselle didn’t know what. But you’re right otherwise. Simon hasn’t been touched. Neither could you blame Nicholas for the cannon killing Simon’s uncle. Not really. And the demoiselle is adamant that the death of Jaak and his wife were unintentional. I’m inclined to believe that,” said Tobie.

“For what it’s worth, so am I,” said Gregorio. He said again, “My God. Poor bastard.”

Julius said, “But that’s the point, isn’t it? He is a bastard. His mother had a child – Christ, to Simon, it must have been – which was stillborn, and went off to her father, old Thibault, to recover. Her husband – Simon – never went near her again. Then Nicholas gets himself born. There was nobody to blame for it but the servants, but which one fathered him they never found out. Meanwhile he grows up … I suppose … longing to be accepted as a Kilmirren.”

“As Nicholas de St Pol,” Tobie said. “That’s the Kilmirren name.”

“Claes vander Poele,” said Gregorio. “Of course. So there’s a stubborn streak. He wouldn’t let the name be discarded. I can see the point.”

To Julius, there was only one point that mattered. He said, “So what did the demoiselle say?”

Tobie was silent. When he answered, it was in his clipped, professional voice. “She said that I was to tell you who Nicholas was. That I
was to ask you not to tell anyone else. That I was to say that Simon was likely to pursue this feud of his, and that we should be warned that working for the Charetty company might become dangerous. And finally, to say that she believed in Nicholas, and his character and his loyalty, but that we should have to decide whether or not we could act as his keepers, so that there would be some restraint on the way his intelligence worked. She used the word
keepers
,” said Tobie.

He paused and then said, “She also said that the Venetian Piero Zorzi is holding festival on the Flanders flagship this evening, and has invited herself and her husband. She hasn’t seen Nicholas since, but she thinks this is what he’s been waiting for.”

Julius said, “Hasn’t seen … Didn’t he come back from the church with her?”

Tobie said, “Come back here? Knowing that we were going to be told what we’ve been told? I should think we’ll be lucky if we see him this week. And I can’t imagine how, if I were Nicholas, I could find a way to face us.”

“That’s because you’re not Nicholas,” said Gregorio. “Tobie. You’re the doctor. He’s exposed now, to us at least. What difference will that make to the way he works in future? Do you have more faith in him, or less?”

For a long time, Tobie said nothing. Then he said, “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s changed the way I felt before. I think I can out-guess him. I’m curious enough, at any rate, to want to try.”

Julius said, “Here? Do you think he’ll stay here?”

And Tobie said, “I don’t know if it will be here. Not if Venice is involved. Would you go overseas? Goro? Julius?”

Gregorio said, “I don’t mind where I go. But the demoiselle would need someone here. And I thought you and Julius were returning to Astorre next year anyhow. You’d be safe from Simon there.”

“But Nicholas wouldn’t,” said Tobie. “Not if he stays here in Bruges. I wonder what he wants. I wonder what he’s thinking now.”

“I wonder where it is now,” said Julius. He wrinkled his brow. “The ostrich.”

“What?” said Tobie.

“He said something about going to see the ostrich. It’s to go to the Duke of Milan, and Tommaso keeps complaining that it’s dying on him.”

“That sounds like Nicholas,” Gregorio said in his solemn, rumbling voice. “If he can’t bear to face us, depend on it that he’s gone to look at an ostrich.”

Nicholas had indeed gone to look at the ostrich.

The principal problem, to begin with, was that there was nowhere to go.

Confining the problem to Bruges and not allowing it to assume
cosmic proportions, there was nowhere, that is, where he could be sure of avoiding Tobie, Gregorio and Julius, now in possession of knowledge about him that they should never have had. He couldn’t go home without meeting Marian, now aware of his … engineering, and struggling somehow to trust him.

The rest of Bruges was occupied by people who had seen and heard what happened at the Gruuthuse palace this morning. Or who wanted to talk about Jaak de Charetty, or Lionetto, or Felix. And finally, somewhere in Bruges were Simon of Kilmirren and his fertile wife Katelina, whose mood he could guess, but whose plans he did not know.

So Nicholas thought of the ostrich, which was supposedly in the stable compound of the house of the Florentine merchants, and set off to inspect it. It seemed fairly certain that he would find there none of the Charetty employees. And Florentines had been largely absent from the morning’s High Mass for a Scottish monarch. The Flanders galleys occupied them far more seriously.

And since the Flanders galleys occupied them, he might not have to consider ciphers, or dispatches, or any of the alluring, dangerous strands that might lead to a new set of devices or echo old ones. Just the simple matter of an ostrich to be dispatched to Milan.

He met Angelo Tani, the Medici manager, before he had crossed the threshold of the handsome, towered building by the Bourse. Tani said, “I’m off to a meeting, but go in. Tommaso’s there somewhere. There was a message for you – why here, I don’t know. A boy brought it. You’re wanted at Silver Straete this afternoon, at Florence van Borselen’s house.”

Nicholas heard his voice saying, “I thought he was away.”

“He is. His daughter Katelina wants to see you. Hangings for the accouchement, perhaps. They’ve bought some fine christening silver from me already. They pay, too.”

“So they do,” Nicholas said. He stood looking after Tani, and was bumped once or twice by people coming out or in. A boy of fourteen, a
giovane
, said politely, “If you want Messer Tommaso, he’s gone to the stables.”

The civility was not unmixed with something else. Looking again, Nicholas saw it was the boy he and Felix had spoken to, the day they had taken the Medici barge with Lionetto to Damme. Nicholas said, “I hear you’re keeping the whole company right these days. What’s Messer Tommaso doing? Taking a journey?”

The youth became a little less guarded. The power of Milanese manager Pigello, it was easy to see, hung over the Bruges branch of the Medici. The boy said, “Oh, no. He’s gone to look at the ostrich again.” One of his eyes gleamed.

Nicholas said, “Again?”

“To look at its droppings,” the youth said. Both eyes gleamed.

With a gigantic effort, Nicholas detached his mind from everything else and said, his chin on his chest, “Messer Tommaso is doctoring it?”

The Medici
giovane
gave a sudden and seraphic grin. He said, “No. He’s just watching its droppings. It’s eaten Messer Tommaso’s hat jewel and two of his rings.”

Nicholas said, “I should have thought it was the
giovane
’s job, to help your under-manager with a problem like that.”

The boy looked at his face, and then, relieved, grinned again. “He tried to make me, the first day. But he got the idea I wasn’t looking closely enough.”

“Poor Messer Tommaso,” said Nicholas. “Well, suppose you and I both go and help him? We could hold his jacket. I suppose he takes off his jacket?”

“One of the grooms gives him an apron,” said the boy. “But some of them say the rings could stay inside the ostrich for ever.”

“Or emerge as an extra, late gift for the Duke of Milan,” Nicholas said. They were walking through the house to the stable yard. He said, “Is the bird better, then?”

“They say so,” said the boy. “You heard about the shellfish?”

“Yes,” said Nicholas. “Who on earth fed it shellfish?”

“It ate them itself,” the boy said. “Wading ashore from the wreck. Then it worked through a whole field of corn before they could catch it. It runs very fast. It took eight horsemen to get hold of it, because they had to watch not to damage its feathers. It likes little birds.”

“That’s rather charming,” said Nicholas.

“To eat. And insects. And grasses. They’ve had to keep it in its travelling box, or it steals all the feed from the horses. It has this very long neck. And long legs. It kicks with its legs when Messer Tommaso tries to look in the box.”

“How did – how did it get hold of his rings?” Nicholas asked. They had emerged into the yard. From the furthest stables came the sound of thudding, accompanied by a low, booming roar. Nicholas said, “Not the bird?”

“That’s the ostrich,” said the boy. “It roars when it’s unhappy. It usually hisses when it sees Messer Tommaso. Sometimes it cackles. His rings came off when he pulled his hands too quickly back from the bar.”

“I expect it cackled then,” Nicholas said. “This stable? Well, the horses look all right. And that’s the travelling box. It’s very tall.”

“It’s a big bird,” said the boy. “Five feet to its back; eight feet to its head. A cock. You tell by the black and white plumes. That’s what makes them so valuable. The big black and white plumes.”

Tommaso Portinari was not, at the moment, peering into the box where the ostrich stood. He was not, either, inside the box inspecting its droppings. He had not even replaced his jacket with the leather apron which hung from his hands as he stood, his back to a post, contemplating
his feet. He looked up, with deliberation. Adversity suited him. He was pale. The dark, ruffled hair, cut round his brow and across the top of his ears, framed the long-nosed antelope face with its fine arched brows and high cheekbones. His expression was one of a man pushed beyond endurance.

Nicholas said, “Your boots. It’s eaten your boots?”

For answer, Tommaso Portinari merely turned his head on one shoulder and nodded towards the box. It was an extremely stout box, as befitted a cage for a 300-pound bird. The sides were solid, with windows let into them. The top consisted of open spars. The whole contraption stood filling a horse-stall and emanating a smell of rotting fruit, bruised grass and ostrich. Nicholas jumped for the frame of the horse-stall and straddled its wall, looking down at the far-travelled captive. Then he started to laugh.