Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [100]
Tilde, who fussed the way his mother once did when his father was living, rushed up to him with his cloak, and stood looking wistfully after him. At Catherine’s age she would have screamed to go with him, but thirteen had its dignity. Catherine, on the other hand, jumped up and down, pumping her sister’s sleeved arm and chanting. Since Claes left, Catherine had become a woman. She thought she might like to marry Claes, especially if he was away a lot, and brought her presents from Italy.
Naturally, the arrival of the papal nuncio had been heralded, and by the time Felix and a number of his friends had arrived at the St Catherine’s Gate, the ducal representatives and the sires of Ghistelle and Gruuthuse and the burgomasters and the Chancellor of Flanders and the dean of St Donatien and the Provost and Receiver of Notre Dame and the clerics of St Sauveur and the monks from the Minorite Friars and the Augustines and the Jacobins and the Carmelites were all standing in the February cold, with the town trumpets and drums, greeting the Bishop as he rode up with his escort.
Behind, waiting to make a less elaborate entrance, was Astorre’s deputy Thomas. With him were half a dozen men at arms and a figure with a pointed helmet and huge elbow-guards and glittering leg-armour and a stout horse as good as Thomas’s. The figure was Claes. His new armour was striped with bird-shit from the pigeons disturbed by the trumpeters. Terracotta within its circular frame, his face beamed at his fellows with its remembered, undisturbed, dazzling smile. What was more, Thomas was grinning as well. Thomas!
Elbowing his way through the respectful ranks of the crowd, the heir to the Charetty won to the rear, his fellows following, and pulled off and waved his beaver hat at his mother’s servants. “What do you think you’re doing! Back to the dyevats!” shouted Felix, snorting with laughter. John Bonkle stood grinning behind him, and Anselm Sersanders, and Lorenzo Strozzi, and two of the Cant boys.
His apprentice Claes raised a gauntletted hand and made, also grinning, a vast and explicit gesture. He said in the burgomaster’s voice, “Boys! Boys! Remember the great city you represent!”
Among the men at arms and the spare horses, it could now be seen, a group of baggage mules stood also waiting, their canvas bales bulging. It was Lorenzo Strozzi who looked it over and said, “I thought couriers didn’t stop to trade?”
“That’s what I told him,” said Thomas.
“Trade?” said Claes. “It wasn’t trade, it was a free gift, as you’ll be the first to agree. There was this band of freebooters –”
“Robbers.”
“Highwaymen.”
“And you destroyed them?” said Felix.
“No! No,” said Claes. “Someone had done that already, and all their old armour and weapons were being sold off cheap at Dijon. Half price or less. It was a bargain.”
Felix said, “How did you pay for them?” His narrow face had somehow got narrower.
“Out of my wages,” said Claes. “And Thomas’s wages. If your mother doesn’t want them, we’re planning to sell them off at a profit. But of course –”
“What do you mean? You’re her employee. They belong to her. You’d better come along to the yard,” Felix said. The smile began to spread again. “And wipe the dirt off all that tin. No boiled leather leggings now, eh? And princesses in your bed, speaking Italian.”
“Speak?” said Claes. “Let them do one thing but gasp, and you’re done for. Thomas will tell you. If you stop for a rest, they scream for their fathers and there you are, made a Duke.”
Thomas was still grinning. “That’s a lie,” he said. “But they’re good enough wenches. Claes is right.”
“And we’ve brought something for you,” said Claes to Felix.
“A girl?” said Felix. The note in his voice