Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [23]
Filippo Buonaccorsi did not escort his guest to the door, nor attempt to view those who came to remove him. It was not his purpose, or the King’s, to challenge the merchants of Danzig. He presumed that they knew that Nicholas de Fleury was not attracted to them, but intended to partner the privateer Benecke. It would still be, on the whole, to their benefit. He thought of his own chequered past in Rome and Florence and Venice: the passionate militancy, the flaunted follies, the dangerous plot (de Fleury had smiled) from which he had barely escaped with his life. His habit of learning had saved him.
This man, of whom he had expected much, had refused such a path. Buonaccorsi wondered what had produced, in reality, so drastic a change. But then, the cause hardly mattered. Men either dealt with adversity, or did not.
Chapter 3
IN APRIL THAT YEAR, the winds which had sealed off the mouth of the Vistula backed at last to the west and, overtaking the Three Princes’ Mission, the fleets of the Baltic united at Danzig, there to jostle and bob, awaiting their clients the grain rafts: the winners of the annual race down the Vistula with the fruits of the broad Polish cornfields.
Because the Mission travelled by road and arrived, by intent, on the Sabbath, its ears and eyes were spared the immediate impact. It heard, in the clear, biting air, only the battling clangour of church bells and the crackling tread of the welcoming cortège, followed, as they entered the city, by the dutiful salutes of the citizens. Only when riding down the wide street to their lodging did Kathi glimpse through the portals ahead the wharves of the little Mottlau, Danzig’s river, and the second, watery city that dwelled there.
Not all the inhabitants of Danzig lined the streets, or gazed in curiosity or annoyance through their expensive glass windows. Some had climbed the tower of St Mary’s, the better to follow the foreigners’ progress. Two, especially at home on the wharves, had joined the freighter-men in the holy of holies, and were standing on the towering, topmost floor of the Crane, where the timbers creaked in the wind, and the cable, even when bound, muttered and snored as if at any moment the mighty hook would come thundering down to ganch all the men on the jetty and raze the mast from the ship lying beneath it. Paúel Benecke said, full of anticipation, ‘Here they come.’
The man he now thought of as Colà did not immediately answer. You could see little as yet: a line of plumes, the glint of cuirasses; a quantity of large velvet hats and cloaked shoulders. Benecke said, ‘They’re putting them into the royal apartments. Windy as hell, and first thing tomorrow, all the noise of a seaport. I see the Franciscan. Is that Adorne, with the chequer? And another chequer of sorts — it must be his nephew.’
‘It isn’t his nephew,’ said Colà.
Benecke pursed his lips and shaded his eyes. ‘You’re right. It isn’t. It’s the little lad who came with us, Robin something. But with Adorne’s chequer? How odd!’
‘He’s married to Adorne’s niece,’ Colà said.
Benecke shot him a sparkling glance. Then he returned to surveying the riders. He said, astonished, ‘It’s the girl-brother Kathi! The maid in the fur hood is Kathi! She married that infant?’
Colà got up. ‘Why, does it make you ache in the joints? His voice has broken, so far as I know. I have to tell you that old women prize youths: they are indefatigable.’
‘You should know?’
‘I should know.’ The cavalcade had disappeared; the show was over.