Niccolo Rising (9 page)

The crippled outward-bound lighter tugged its mooring ropes, burst them, and shed its cargo with languor into the watery gloom, capping it with its own weedy bottom.

As it went, Julius rose to the surface. His eyes opened on horrified faces, Burgundian and Flemish. His ears, streaming water, caught the first ejaculation of moment which did not come from the Flemings at all, but from the Scottish Bishop. “
Martha!
” exclaimed that figure in a voice of bronchial protest. “What have you done? What have you done? You have sent Martha, you fools, to the bottom!”

No one laughed. Especially Julius didn’t laugh. For now he knew what had been in the barge, and what they had ruined.

There was no one to warn. Claes, his feather lost, was floundering over there and Felix, swimming briskly, had nearly got to the bank, neck and neck with the dog, which scrambled up past him. The boat with the bath was tied up, and the lightermen already stood, a sheepish
group, on the towpath. Dripping, Felix got out and, commendably, went off and joined them, shadowed by Claes. Feeling old, Julius climbed up and squelched after them. The dog shook itself, and its master’s man, scowling, got it warily by the collar.

From the circle of eminent persons, severe voices had continued to rise. The Bishop’s demands could be heard: “Will you take some action, my lords! Get your engineers, your dredgers, your seamen!” And later: “Unless, of course, the insult is deliberate. My cousin of Scotland is promised a gift, and the gift is lost by the Duke’s own officers in the Duke’s own waterway. What am I to think?”

The commandant hurriedly spoke, and the Burgomaster. Then at last came the calm voice of Anselm Adorne, who had held, in his time, the highest office in Bruges and whom Julius would trust to smoothe anyone’s feathers. “My lord, you have lost only a wind and a tide. The Burgomaster will escort you to Bruges. The commandant will take these men into custody. The canal will be dredged and the object retrieved or replaced. It was, I believe, purely an accident, but the city will pursue its enquiries and make you their report. Meanwhile, we can only offer our humble apologies.”

The Burgomaster said, “That is so. That is so. The lightermen will answer to the dean of their guild, and if negligent, they shall be punished.”

“They were not all lightermen,” someone said. “Those three. Those three wear no badges.” The voice of Simon of Kilmirren, newly arrived from the lock, negligent in blue taffeta, his fair face perfectly bland. Someone gripped Julius hard, from behind, by the arms. “And,” continued the same amused voice, “they owe the lock-keeper money.”

Anselm Adorne turned his head, glanced at Felix and Claes and remained studying Julius. His hollow-boned face, deceptively monkish, was non-committal. He said, “I am acquainted with Meester Julius. Any mistake over money was, I am certain, an oversight. But I must ask. How did you three come to be on this boat?”

“We were asked,” Julius said. “With so many ships in the basin, crews were pushed to serve everyone.”

“The Duke cannot command a lighter crew when he wishes?” said the Bishop. He had pushed back his hood. He was not very big, but he had the chin of a fighter.

The man in the Florentine gown had lost interest. Turning his back on the Bishop he had strolled to the quay, to watch the water lap at the lock. Adorne’s wife was still present, and the girl Katelina, picking her way down from the lock, chose to stand between her and Simon, looking pensive. Then she turned towards Julius, who was pouring water from doublet and jacket and hair, and she smiled. It was not a smile of sympathy; and when the fair Simon murmured something in her ear, she broke into a low laugh that was even less sympathetic. Returned without a husband, they said. With Simon, who had never
had a refusal. The rich ones think he’ll marry them, and the poor ones don’t care.

“My lord, there were enough lightermen,” Julius said. “But none who could care for the bath. An officer asked us …” He heard himself, a well-schooled, responsible notary, stumbling through his explanation. Rolling back from the rabbit-hunt, full of good wine from the grateful dune-herder, ripe for novelty, heading in any case seven weary miles back to Bruges – who would not have taken the chance to travel in the Duke’s bathing basin?

He ended as best he could. “And indeed, minen heere, neither we nor the lightermen are to blame for the accident. The walls leaked, and the basin became uncontrollable.”

The man called Simon drifted to the Bishop’s shoulder and stood there smiling. “Uncontrollable! To Bruges lightermen, conveying such property! Who was steering?”

No one had been steering. Everyone had been steering. One of the lightermen, pressed, admitted suddenly that that apprentice called Claes had been steering.

All eyes on Claes. My God: goodnatured, randy, innocent Claes, who knew nothing but how to make jokes and mimic his betters. Claes, with the biggest mouth in Flanders. Claes who, standing in a pool of light mud, opened his eyes, large as moons, and said, Of course, minen heere, he had been steering, but not inside the lock. The osprey feather would have been an improvement. His hair, darkened to the colour of gravy, hung in screws over his eyes and coiled over his cheeks and dripped into the frayed neck of his doublet. He shook himself, and they all heard his boots give a loud, sucking sound.

A liberal smile crossed Claes’ face, and faded a little when no one responded. He said, “Minen heere, we did our best, and got a ducking for it, and lost our day’s sport and our crossbows. And at least the Duke still has his bath.”

“I think you are insolent,” said the Burgomaster. “And I think you are lying. Do you deny, Meester Julius, that the youth Claes was steering?”

“He was steering,” said Julius. “But –”

“We have heard. But he ceased when you entered the lock. That is, you saw him stop. But he may have started again.”

“He didn’t,” cried Felix.

“I know he didn’t,” affirmed Julius stoutly. And uselessly. He saw the lightermen exchange glances. And knew, as if he’d been told, that the lightermen would not give the same assurance. They couldn’t afford to. His legal training told him it was all entirely unfair. His experience of courts ducal, regal and churchly told him that fairness had nothing to do with it. He hoped his employer, Felix’s mother, would keep her head. He hoped the Bishop was less vindictive than he looked, and that some god would stain, tear or even drench the taffetas of the exquisite
Simon, who was still murmuring to Katelina van Borselen, watched, as they all were, by the devouring gaze of the onlookers.

The serving-girl with the pail was also still there. She had stopped courting the glance of the taffeta, and there was concern on her round face, not blushes. Perhaps Claes felt her eyes on him. He looked up, and found her, and gave her one of his happiest smiles. Mary Mother, thought Julius. He doesn’t even know what is happening. Should I tell him? That the Duke’s cargo that sank was a gift – a gift from Duke Philip of Burgundy to his dear nephew James, King of Scotland. A fifteen-foot gift of some import. To be plain, a five-ton war cannon, grimly christened Mad Martha.

Someone cried out. It was, perhaps, thought Julius, himself. Then he saw, to his surprise, a mass of dishevelled brown hair dart past the Bishop, and recognised the athletic figure of the girl Katelina. And behind her, also running, was Claes, followed by an increasing number of soldiers.

At the lock edge, the bearded man in the long robes had turned. He saw the girl coming. He tried, stepping hastily, to move out of her way. Then he saw what she was after and stretched out a hand. Her hennin, blown off by the wind, rolled and skipped at his feet. He stooped, just as Claes, sprinting, passed the girl and started to pounce in his turn. The two men collided.

The bearded man fell, with a sickening crack that could be heard all round the basin. Claes, his feet trapped, dived over the body and plummetted, with a fountain of unpleasant water, back into the canal. The girl stopped, threw an annoyed glance at the water, and then stooped with a frown beside the prone, convulsed form of the Florentine.

The grip on Julius had gone. Felix, also free, said, “Oh my God,” and rushed to the water’s edge. Julius followed him. Between heads, he could see Claes splashing about in the water. When the apprentice glanced up, it was at Katelina van Borselen, now come to the edge, and not at the soldiers lined above him at all.

“It’s buckled,” said Claes, with regret. He referred, you could see, to a soaked steeple headdress captured firmly in one powerful, blue-fingered hand. He coughed, examining it, and water ran out of his nostrils. He paddled carefully back to the steps and gazed up, with apology, at the hennin’s dishevelled owner.

Katelina stepped back abruptly. Claes climbed the steps. The soldiers seized him. Claes’ circular eyes opened wide, winking as water ran into them. He gave his attention to the soldiers, and to Katelina, and to the hennin, which was no longer a snowy cone, but a battered scroll mottled with indigo. She accepted it in a dazed manner.

The generous lips widened in that marvellous smile which had bewitched every servant in Flanders. “I took the weeds out of it,” said Claes to Katelina von Borselen. “And the mud will wash off in no time,
and Felix’s mother’s manager will get rid of the indigo. Bring it to the shop. No, send a servant. A dyeshop is no place for a lady.”

“Thank you,” said Katelina van Borselen, “for troubling yourself. But perhaps you should save your concern for the gentleman whose leg you have smashed? There he is, over there.”

The way his face changed made it clear that Claes had been unaware of the other’s misfortune. He was a good-hearted boy. He made to move to his victim, but the men at arms stopped him instantly. They buffeted him as they did it, and went on striking him every time he opened his mouth. The biggest mouth in the country, and the best-beaten back. Julius looked at his young master Felix. Felix said, “It’s all Claes’ fault. He never seems to grow up.”

Echoes of Felix’s mother. If they crucified Claes, would she blame her notary? There was no one else to worry about him. Claes was the sort of unfortunate bastard (Julius sympathised in a way) whose relatives were either dead or indifferent. Julius said, “The man whose leg he broke. Who was that?”

No one knew. A Florentine. A guest of the Bishop’s, come from Scotland with the Bishop himself, and the beautiful Simon, and Katelina van Borselen who, if God had been kind, would have found a husband in Scotland and stayed there. Whoever he was, they would find out soon enough, when he or his executors demanded Claes’ hide for his injuries.

They watched as Claes was dragged off. He went unregarded by Anselm Adorne, which was a bad sign. But Adorne was occupied, like the rest, in anxious ministration to the man with the beard.

Like most of the rest. The exquisite Simon, taking off his blue taffeta doublet, had offered it rolled like a bandeau to the lady; and was now binding it round her loose hair. It looked very pretty. He fastened it with the ruby, still talking. After a moment she smiled, in a cursory fashion. If you were interested, you might have wondered what the girl Katelina had against the young lord. Perhaps, on the journey from Scotland, he had ignored her, and had now changed his mind? Or had he once gone too far? Or had she selected a rival, and he was trying to lure her back to his company?

Julius considered these things, watching Simon. Then he turned his back on him with decision. But for that sportive nobleman, he and Felix and Claes might have escaped without notice. It did not occur to Julius then that the fair Simon’s interventions could have been other than idle. And yet he knew the practices of the city.

And he knew, as the fair Simon knew, which of the three would suffer for it most, in the end.

Chapter 2

W
HATEVER PROFOUND
legal argument Julius had with the commandant on the way back to Bruges, it was ineffectual. It didn’t save himself and Felix from prison. Before noon, they were locked up.

By divine intervention his employer, Felix’s mother, was away at Lou vain. Julius sent a soothing message, wrapped in money, to Henninc, her dyeshop factor in Bruges, and three others to people who owed him a favour. Then he hoped for the best. It seemed to him that no one was really interested in himself or in Felix. If one person was going to be blamed for everything, it was going to be Claes.

It was late afternoon when they got the first news of him. The turnkey, bristling through the bars, mentioned that their young friend had been put to the question. The lad, who wanted a tile or two, had talked for a turn of the hourglass about nothing else but the rabbit hunt. Of course, he had done himself no good, although he was a great comic, everyone said: as good as one of Duke Philip’s dwarves. Maybe Duke Philip would take him on as a jester, if he got over the beating. They’d made a better job of it than they usually did, hoping for a confession. Julius was sorry for Claes. Fortunately, Claes took this sort of setback philosophically; and in any case, he had nothing to confess.

Then the news came that he had been brought into prison. Naturally, he was lodged in the famous Dark Chamber. Julius (also philosophical) paid for warm water and cloths and wrote a promissory note for the bailiff, stolidly counter-signed by the town notary, to buy Claes the right to the upper floor, where his masters had bedding and sustenance.

The idiot was dragging irons when he arrived, and Julius had to pay to have these taken off also. He added this to the careful running note of his expenses, which in due course would reappear, neatly itemised, as student equipment for Felix.

Naturally. Methodically honest himself, Meester Julius had learned which of her son Felix’s experiences Marian de Charetty was prepared to pay for, and which she wasn’t. In the past two years, she had taken
the occasion once or twice to refresh her notary’s memory on the subject of his contractual duties, which did not include boisterous exploits with Felix. In point of fact, before the notary came, Felix’s exploits had been more than boisterous. Felix got excited. Felix never knew where to stop. Even Claes, who got into worse trouble than any of them, never went into passions like Felix.