Scales of Gold (79 page)

Something told her. Something identified the reason for all the weeks of waiting, the curious withdrawal, the reluctance to move. She said, ‘I think it is good news of the one person you have been waiting to hear from. I think it is to say that Loppe – that Umar is safely home.’

He kissed her then; a kiss of pure affection and relief and a number of other emotions she could not then name. He said, ‘I
don’t need consolation any more, and if you do, it’s going to take the form of strong liquor. Margot, go and wake Tobie and Julius. I don’t want to sit here alone, not even with you. And then I have to make plans.’

‘You’re going?’ she said. ‘Now you can move, you are going? Where?’

‘Where else but Bruges?’ Nicholas said.

Bruges in spring was the homecoming gift Nicholas had refused for three months to allow himself. When he left Venice, he took Margot with him, with the extremely ready permission of Julius. She was a quiet companion, and the journey, though hard, was not painful. No sweet singing voice disturbed the snows of the Alps, but the same voice was still lifted in song, if in a different land, and there were three children now to hear it, including a daughter.

The spirit of Marian de Charetty remained, but as a dear and benevolent presence, and no longer the source it had once been of self-reproach and of anguish. Marian his wife slept near Dijon. Six years ago, her two orphaned daughters in Bruges had forbidden him to enter the Charetty house. Since then, Tilde had met him in Venice, and he had tried to make her into a friend. She and Catherine her sister had permitted Gregorio to use part of their house for the Banco di Niccolò, and any lingering doubts, Nicholas suspected, would have been swept away by their new guide and manager, Diniz Vasquez. And Godscalc was with them.

Nicholas had heard from Gregorio, and from Diniz. Hasty letters received just before he left Venice, they expressed incoherent joy at his return. Godscalc had added a great sprawling line with a joke in it.

He had received other letters – from his fellow merchants, from the city fathers, from the boys he had grown up with. He was a burgher of Bruges; he had been seen to do the town honour: there would be a reception almost as great as the one he had been given in Venice. He was prepared for it; crowds did not disturb him now. He had not barred himself from society out of fear, only from a need to establish, in peace, what had happened to him. He knew what he wanted, but until Umar was safe, he would not snatch it.

He had received no letter from Gelis van Borselen, and looked for none. Whatever had to be said, good or bad, had to be spoken. She knew he was home, and could guess he would come, sometime, to Bruges.

If she did not want to see him, she had only to leave early for Scotland. She had not left. And if she had not done so immediately, he thought she would wait for him now.

He had forgotten how green and wooded the countryside was, and the noise of the birds, and the density of the colours: the chestnut of ploughing horses; the crimson caps, the russet tunics, the dark leather aprons of the men in the villages; the ruddy cheeks and muslin-wrapped heads of the women; the scarlet and gold of poppy and buttercup in the hedgerows. And on every side, the blinding flash of sunlight on water, brighter than diamonds.

Then the brown walls of Bruges stood before him, the windmills turning above; the tunnelled, towered portico open; the drawbridge down over the canal; and a crowd on the far side. Among them he saw silk and velvet, banners and trumpets. In the centre was the Black Lion of Flanders, the great standard of Bruges.

Nicholas brought his cavalcade to a halt, and rode forward alone. Understanding, he did not feel either a fool, or contemptuous.

From the town issued a group of three échevins and three laymen. He didn’t look at the échevins, for the other three were Gregorio, Diniz and Tilde. Beside him, Margot was weeping.

Then the leading official stepped forward, and to a flourish of trumpets, bid welcome home to his town the Knight Nicholas vander Poele, honourable burgher of Bruges.

Chapter 39

B
EFORE HE SET OUT
for Bruges, Nicholas had in mind that, by some subtle arrangement, his first words there to Gelis would be spoken in private. On the other hand, it was always possible that she would choose (as she did) to come face to face with him before others, and on an occasion as public as the reception given for him by the Lord Louis de Gruuthuse.

Considering Gelis, Nicholas took into account (he took everything into account) that it was two and a half years since they met. The only intimacy between them had been the physical bond of one night, and in her only sight of him since, he had been a senseless invalid, in a worse state than Godscalc.

He himself had not realised, until the faces of Diniz and the other two warned him, that his own colleagues had come to the Gand gate apprehensive of what they would see. They had heard he was safe: he had sent them messages; he was obviously capable still of journeying over the Alps. If they were so relieved to see him properly gowned and largely unchanged, then presumably others had shared their misgivings. It was not until he saw Godscalc that he understood the whole cause.

By then, he had replied to the speeches and received the scroll with the burgomaster’s name on it, and led his small cavalcade through all the familiar streets to the tall, elaborate house he now shared with the Charetty. The citizens of Bruges did not line the way, although the most curious had come as far as the bridge and plenty of others glanced over their shoulders as the banners and trumpets trooped past. He saw a few rascals he knew, and a few old friends, and one or two very old enemies. He didn’t embarrass any of them by stopping to speak.

Diniz was, he thought, disappointed; but Gregorio, flushed with emotion, explained over the noise of the hooves. ‘I’m amazed they managed the trumpets – they’re punch-drunk with ceremonies. The
old Duke’s funeral, the new Duke’s entry, the Chapter of the Golden Fleece, the Easter processions, and now this bloody Wedding, twice postponed. Are you really well?’

His eyes kept travelling beyond Nicholas. Nicholas said, ‘If you stopped yelling in my ear, you could drop back and ride beside her. Margot, tell him we’re all really well, and you’ve agreed to marry me.’

Both now scarlet, Gregorio and his splendid Margot changed their order of riding. Tilde said, ‘They should marry.’

She looked well, too; twenty-one years old, with her brown hair long and burnished under her cap and her lightly furred cloak falling from straight shoulders. She was smiling into space.

Diniz said, ‘Everyone should.’ He was smiling into space, too. Then they both turned and spoke to Nicholas at once.

At Spangnaerts Street, their town escort departed and Diniz, by magic, disposed of the servants and soldiers they had brought with them. In the yard were all the dyeyard workers from Henninc downwards, and the office workers led by Cristoffels. And Catherine, Tilde’s young sister, crying a little. And a tall, bent man in a priest’s robe with a crutch under one arm who held out the claw of a bird and said, ‘Now I am content.’

‘And I, also,’ said Nicholas. ‘But there is still room for improvement.’

That day he spent among them all, as was right. The barrels of wine were broken open and the platters of food came steaming through from the kitchen, accompanied by the cooks themselves, and the whispering kitchen boys in relays. And as the hours wore on, others came – not of the greater sort, but small clients and craftsmen who would not figure at the town’s board, but who had known the Charetty family long enough. Among them was Colard Mansion, scribe and painter.

‘My dear! The Baptist, angelic and meagre! And sober, on your day of rejoicing?’

‘It’s a lie. I’m as drunk as you are. Did you get my letters?’ said Nicholas.

‘What letters?’ said Colard. ‘Yes, I got them. Never mind farting business. You should see what vander Goes and I have done for the Wedding. You heard about the Wedding? We had to get it all ready for May, and now it’s not till nearly July. The twelve bloody labours of Hercules – I am serious. Ships, and trees. A lion. A leopard. A unicorn. A whale. A camel – you ought to know all about camels. Anything that can take a tube up its arse and pee wine. Come and see it all. I’ll get Governor William to come.’

‘Will you?’ said Nicholas. Godscalc was out of hearing.

‘Yes. How much money have you got?’ said Colard Mansion.

‘Enough for half of what you’re thinking of,’ Nicholas said.

‘You’re a mean bastard,’ said Colard, without rancour. ‘You’re a mean, sober bastard who likes to see other men drunk.’

Nicholas went to Godscalc’s room that night, after he had spent time with Tilde and Catherine and Diniz, and had told Gregorio not to wait, since he was too tired to see him tonight.

Godscalc smiled when Nicholas reported that to him. The priest was not in bed but, wrapped in a robe, was resting in a chair with a back, his feet propped on a stool. He said, ‘If you hadn’t brought Margot, he would be a sorrowful man.
Are
you tired?’

‘Not for this,’ Nicholas said. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘A little,’ said the big man. ‘But I have my life. I am glad you have yours.’

‘It was given me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I should like to do something in return. I have something to show you.’

He had brought all the books with him, apart from those he had left at San Michele, and several Tobie had kept. The crates were too heavy to bring up, but he had filled a satchel with the best, and now he put them on the table at Godscalc’s side. The priest touched them with the heels of his hands and then, applying his wrists, lifted one down to his lap and pushed the boards open. After a while he looked up.

‘You knew what to choose. I have never seen this before. Once I could have copied it for you.’

‘I know. I don’t want it copied,’ Nicholas said. ‘I want it printed, and I want you to help me do it.’

‘In Venice?’ Godscalc asked. He was gazing at a page.

‘No, here. Colard will translate. And Tobie will help, when he comes. You’ll see, we have a great many medical treatises, and Tobie is looking for more. There’s room to annotate them. Even to publish our own. If you would be interested.’

‘Some of these are from the Sankore libraries. You were planning this then?’ Godscalc said.

‘I had time,’ Nicholas said.

He left an hour after that, for although he was not tired, Godscalc was. Towards the end, it came to Nicholas that Godscalc wished to talk of the journey that had crippled him; that one of his greatest deprivations had been the absence of a soul other than Diniz to share it with. And Nicholas in return had described something of what he had found in the city, and Umar had shown him. Something only, for it was too rich in some ways to share. And in other ways, too private.

‘It is strange,’ Godscalc said. ‘Once I believed I could help you,
and longed for you to come, so that I could try. And now you are the rock.’

‘None of us can claim to be that,’ Nicholas said. ‘Our weaknesses are different, that is all.’

The next day, came the celebration, and Gelis.

The home of Louis de Gruuthuse, Knight of the Golden Fleece, lieutenant-general of Holland, Zeeland and Frisia, famous jouster, famous bibliophile, counsellor of Duke Charles and leader of the Burgundian armies, was a red-brick palace on two canals, surrounded by gardens. Nicholas and his entourage reached it by way of the Bourse and the length of the marketplace, and this time attracted quite a lot of attention, as even his pages were jewelled.

For himself, there was very little of his draped hat or brief doublet where mere cloth could be seen. His horse-harness was of gold, and so was the staff of his standard. Invisible assets, in Venice and Bruges, were no assets at all; gems were what the town and the seigneur de Gruuthuse expected. Accepting the parade as the duty it was, Nicholas felt less elation – less of anything – than he had the day before at his entry. The unaccustomed freedom from skirts slightly disturbed him.

Eight years ago, he had entered this house, an impertinent apprentice called Claes who had married his widowed employer. Then, he and Marian had been insignificant guests among hundreds; the occasion a requiem for a monarch of Scotland.

This time, Marian’s daughters walked behind him, with Gregorio his deputy and Diniz Vasquez the Charetty manager. This time, Louis de Gruuthuse himself stood in the tiled hall to greet him, his van Borselen wife at his side. Then they went up the grand stairs to his reception.

The hall with its ceiling-high fireplace was full of men and women Nicholas knew. The officers of the town. The Duke’s Controller, and the uncle of Diniz. Some of the young men he had grown up with – Anselm Sersanders, but not Lorenzo di Strozzi, now in Naples, or Jannekin Bonkle, now his agent in Scotland. The merchants the Charetty did business with. The foreign colony: men he knew from the Hanse; Spaniards whose cousins he had met in Valencia. Some with Portuguese interests, including a cool Genoese trader called Gilles whose second name was of course Lomellini. Venetian friends, including a Bembo; but not Marco Corner, whose child was trysted to Zacco of Cyprus.

Representing Florence, Tommaso Portinari, fine-featured, black-haired and gorgeous, who spread out hands whose rings this time were genuine and kissed him on both cheeks, exclaiming,
‘Dear Nicholas! Such good fortune! I have been trading in that area myself – you will have heard. You and I have so much to talk about. I shall send my secretary to bring you to supper. You know where I am? The old Bladelin building?’

‘Tommaso,’ Nicholas said. ‘Everyone knows where you are.’

The Genoese, represented by one named Doria and by the person of Genoese birth who had become, by descent, an aristocrat also of Bruges. Anselm Adorne said, ‘Margriet wept when she heard you were safe, and I swallowed a lump, I confess. Godscalc has told us something of what happened. You are a noble man, Nicholas.’

‘Persistent, rather,’ said Nicholas. ‘You have been kind to Catherine and Tilde. I have to thank you for that, among other things.’