Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [217]
That night, Jan Adorne wrote to his father.
I’m sure you remember de Salmeton. I can tell you at least he is rich: I have seen the palazzo he lives in, and he spends, they say, like a prince. Do I remember that Kathi didn’t like him? She’d better change her mind now that she’s married a Berecrofts. A man with the ear of the Curia can make or break a merchant firm like her husband’s.
That letter went off in April and reached Anselm Adorne in June, at the height of the solemn Masses, the rich processions, the extravagant banquets staged at Neuss by the Duke and the Emperor (without Nicholas de Fleury), to celebrate the end of the war and the siege. Adorne attended them without joy. Time, lives, and a hundred thousand florins of Burgundian money had been squandered on fruitless campaigns which had lapsed only because France had entered the field once again, and England was demanding attention.
Anselm Adorne read his son’s letter in his tent, and sent for his chamberlain, for here was something he could deal with which was personal to his own family. God knew, he had little time for de Fleury, but he knew more than Jan about the nature of David de Salmeton. De Fleury was not, of course, within reach of M. de Salmeton’s displeasure, but his family were, and Kathi, who had helped foil him in Cairo. Anselm Adorne wrote to her in Scotland immediately, and also to his nephew Sersanders. Lastly, he sent word to de Fleury’s wife, supposing she still held that name, suggesting a meeting in Ghent.
IN PEACE AND WAR, Anselm Adorne, Baron Cortachy, was a frequent and favoured visitor to both the palace and castle in Ghent. His sister had married Daniel Sersanders, a political firebrand, but born of a great local family. His daughter had served the Duchess of Burgundy’s English mother in London. He was a friend of Louis de Gruuthuse who was a member of the permanent Council. With generations of fiscal skills behind him, Adorne was one of the advisers upon whom the Duchess Margaret relied when she was forced to raise money, yet again, for the ducal wars. The calls Anselm Adorne made to the Duchess’s court were rarely social ones: they were to guide and warn the Duchess and Chancellor Hugonet in their dealings with those independent and rough-spoken communities within Flemish Burgundy which the Duke so blithely regarded as his vassals.
Technically, no doubt, they were. Technically, they had no right to revolt as Liège and Ghent itself had done in the past. As a boy, Adorne himself had been forced to flee with his family during another upset in his own Bruges. Merchants, diplomats, farmers of taxes incurred duties both to the burghers whom they represented, and to the Duke whom they also served. A clever man, trusted by both sides, could often keep both sides out of trouble. But not always. And sometimes wealth and high office did not seem worth the strain.
On this particular warm day in June, Adorne rode first to the castle, where the Chancellor awaited him. Although different in nature, the two men had long formed a useful alliance which had produced, among other things, Jan’s present post with Cardinal Philibert, the Chancellor’s brother. The Chancellor knew the gossip of Rome. He also knew Gelis van Borselen, who was in Ghent these days almost as often as Adorne, and who seemed to be proving herself to be as useful to Burgundy as her husband had been at Trèves.
The Chancellor had listened, in the interstices of a more urgent discussion, to the gist of Jan’s message. He said, ‘Camulio is a plotter; you know that. He will spy for anyone, but mostly for Genoa and Milan. With what he knows, he makes an excellent collector of taxes. But even he cannot travel everywhere. Your David de Salmeton will be expected to exert local pressure. You say he is a dealer?’
‘He was an