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By Root 2385 0

Gelis was one of several good timber erections not unlike those which Nicholas and Jodi had occupied, she had heard, in the Burgundian camp outside Hesdin. The muddy lands around the low hill of Neuss, however, were to contain the Duke’s person as well as his armies. The besiegers lived in a vast phantom city of hundreds of tents and fine houses, fortified by walls, ditches and drawbridge, and furnished with baths and drinkhouses, shops and forges and taverns, barbers and brewhouses and cart-makers, joiners, cutlers and drapers, priests and apothecaries. Musicians sang every morning outside the Duke’s prefabricated mansion of elegant carpentry-work, while the state visitors to the duchy were received in luxurious silken pavilions, stocked with magnificent chests and gold plate. The envoys of Naples, Hungary and the Palatinate had already undergone the experience, while the Venetian ambassador, dazzled, had asked leave to have a painting of it all done in oils.

‘Then we had King Christian of Denmark,’ said Astorre, who liked boasting about extravagant masters. ‘They got him on a barque on the Rhine, and the Duke received him in his good tunic. A hundred thousand florins’ worth of real pearls. Remember, he wore it at Trèves.’ Astorre never had qualms about mentioning Trèves, which Gelis found soothing.

She said, as she might not have said to anyone else, ‘Did he talk about Scotland?’ The Queen of Scotland was King Christian’s daughter.

‘There was some nonsense about Scotland and Russia. But mainly, it was all about the King’s visit to Rome. The Holy Father wants us to stop besieging Neuss and go to fight Ottoman Turkey instead. As if we could.’

Gelis decided not to pursue Scotland and Russia. She remarked, ‘It’s what Ludovico da Bologna was always demanding.’

‘Well, that’s his job. We did fight in Cyprus and Trebizond. But Charles’d be mad to send his army off now: the Emperor and the Swiss would step in and march all over his territory. Then, of course, the English army is coming.’ The sewn eye in the grizzled face confronted her as well as the open one. ‘If they’re still coming. They’re supposed to invade France with our help this summer.’

‘They’re still coming,’ said Gelis. ‘So you’re not tempted to take the company east?’

‘Why, does Nicholas want me to?’ said Astorre, astonished. ‘We’d earn more money here.’

‘I don’t know what Nicholas wants,’ Gelis said. ‘You and John must decide. And if you stay in the West, you ought to think where you most want to be. The Duke will be fighting on three fronts at least, by my reckoning.’

‘I fancy the French,’ Astorre said. ‘I’ve always fancied the French. And the Duke wouldn’t be breathing over my shoulder.’

‘He would, if your contract is with him,’ Gelis said. ‘Not if it’s with the Bank. You could choose. When you’re ready, we’ll talk about it.’

She spoke distinctly, because of the copious echoes, both within the wooden building and outside, where the alleys were belaboured by the cries of the fish- and vegetable-sellers, the rumbling of carts and the clang of the armourers over the groundswell of wrangling voices of soldiers and their women, and the squeals of their infants. Beyond that, distantly, was the roar of a crowd at a wrestling match, and the whoops from the jeu de paume court, backed by the ever-present thresh and grind of the wind- and watermills which ringed the whole camp. And behind those, if you listened, the skittish pops and occasional bangs which represented the war: a warning, a sally, a counter-attack. There was a burial ground here, but no sound came from that.

‘… twenty thousand marks,’ Astorre was saying.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Gelis.

‘The peace between England and Scotland. Didn’t you hear before you left Ghent? King James has undertaken to marry his son to King Edward’s young filly Cecilia. That’s the dowry. Scotland gets all that money, so that England can choose to invade France without Scotsmen attacking her borders. That Nicholas,’ Astorre said. ‘He was a fool, closing his business in Scotland. Look at them. Rich.’

She could not speak.

Later,