Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [101]
“No,” said Claes. “I see it isn’t wanted. I’ll take it back. It was a porcupine in a cage.”
“That’s a girl,” said Lorenzo Strozzi, returned to gloom. “And how was Meester Julius? And the rest of them?” The ecclesiastical cortege had moved on, allowing them to enter the town in their turn and make their way, noisily, through narrow streets where every other man called a greeting, and quite a few girls as well.
Claes said, “Meester Julius is fine, so far as a humble person like myself could tell – all his days spent in one palace or another, drawing up contracts and arguing about fees and clothes and provisions, and dancing on his toes with fine ladies.”
“Astorre too?” said Anselm.
“The finest court dancer in Italy,” said Claes. “If you caught sight of Astorre hand in hand with the Duchess, with his hat full of flowers and his frills and ribbons so long they need a page-boy on each side to carry them, you would weep for admiration. As for the doctor, your brother-in-law had better look out, Messer Lorenzo. That sister of yours is the prettiest girl in Milan, and Meester Tobias wasn’t the last person to notice it.”
“You saw Caterina?” said Lorenzo, his eyes brightening. “And my mother? Was there news of Filippo?”
“And Loppe? And Brother Gilles …?”
“The horses? Did you see Lionetto?”
“And girls? Come on, what were the girls really like?”
It was a merry homecoming.
Even when, late that night, the others had gone, and the two entranced sisters, flushed and wide-eyed, had at last been coaxed to their chamber, Felix sat before the fire in his mother’s little cabinet, talking and talking while Claes listened. A shrewder eye, looking at Claes and recalling how far he had travelled, might have wondered why he remained.
Some of his business was done. With the Widow away, there was no one to report to. After the unloading, the men at arms had been sent off to take their ease, Thomas with them. Then Claes had made the required trip to the dyesheds to have his shoulders slapped by his friends, and answer all manager Henninc’s less searching questions. After that, Claes had quartered the town, as a courier should, to deliver his letters. Some doors were shut, and some merchants absent.
Undelivered documents had come back with him: he would have to arrange for them. He had some oral reports still to make. Some clients, curious, wanted him back for a refreshment. He had to see Angelo Tani tomorrow. Today. It was very late.
“… That was after the explosion,” Felix was saying.
“The explosion?” said Claes. He had heard, first of course, about the girl. The girl who – at last – had coaxed Felix out of his virginity. It was not, as he had wondered, the girl Mabelie, but someone new, from Varsenare, come in to do kitchen work, and the sailors hadn’t even got to her yet. (Oh yes, the Flanders galleys were still here. Half the seamen, of course, were kept busy in the boatyards on caulking and repairs and refitting and the town took good care to think up work for the rest, but all the same, every night was carnival night to those foreign pigs. Which reminded Felix …)
“It’s not long till Carnival Night. Yes, I know. I’ll be here for it.” “What else?” had said Claes. And had been told, in detail.
He gathered that the city fathers, once Claes had gone, had lost all sense of humour and had made a ridiculous fuss over the smallest thing, which in turn had put Felix’s mother into a rage, just like a woman. All those things Julius had talked about? Well, he had done some of them. He’d found someone to make buckles, and they’d bought some sheets of copper from England, from a boat that didn’t want to put into Calais. A woman had agreed to sew helmets. But then there had been that trouble over the hawking, and by the time it was over he didn’t know what his mother had done.
Detailed account of the trouble over the hawking. Specifically detailed account of this splendid girl, whose name was Grielkine. Mabelie, he ought to tell Claes, was now the friend of John