Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [110]
There was another stool in front of him. The grip left his shoulders and the demoiselle de Charetty went and sat on that, and looked at him. “Because he is an evil man,” she said. “We couldn’t warn you. He threatened us with what he could do to you.” She paused, and then said again, “If we could only have warned you.”
“I think I guessed,” he said. “He wanted to lie in wait. He hoped to learn something.” His brain began, sluggishly, to work again. He said, “The threats were nothing. But you shouldn’t have heard them, or the insults. I’m sorry. And you defended me.”
Before he finished, his mind had begun to stray back. She must have realised then that her first reply answered the wrong question. She said, “It was a trial. He expected you to refuse. Claes?”
She had begun to start from her chair. She stopped and, changing direction, took time to find a fresh napkin. She held it out. “In a moment, I’ll get you some water.”
There was blood all over his clothes. The fresh cloth to his face, he blotted idly here and there with the old one. He said, “If it was a trial, there doesn’t seem much doubt of the verdict.” The lightest touch of the dressing was painful. It wasn’t the same as the back lash he was used to. Scarred for life by a ring. By a man’s ring, at that. No one would believe it. Not Julius, anyway. Tobie, maybe.
He began, at last, to be able to handle the matter. He turned fully towards the demoiselle. He said, “Oh, no magistrates. There’s nothing very much that would help matters. Nothing even worth talking about. He forced his way in. You couldn’t stop him. It would have been silly to call in half the yard over that. I’m only sorry you had to put up with it.”
“There is the matter of your face,” said Marian de Charetty.
“No,” said Claes. “What action could I take that would do any good? And it isn’t for you to take any. I wouldn’t let you. He won’t come back. He has a feud with his son, and he tried to involve us. He knows now where we all stand.” He paused. He made to smile, and stopped very quickly. He said, “Put it behind you. I shall. He’s just an unpleasant man with an unpleasant son and too much power. I know what went wrong. You didn’t ask him if he was thirsty.”
But she was not prepared to be hurried. She said, “And the threats? They didn’t sound like nothing to me. What have you been doing?”
Claes said, “You can judge for yourself. Let me get clean and come back, and I’ll tell you.”
“Everything?” she said. She had risen and gone to her cabinet. She turned, flask in hand. She said, “You need some of this, first. What was it in Felix’s tavern? Beer?”
“It would have been,” he said. “Except that my employer summoned me just as the rim touched my lips.” He began to say, “Your son has very bad timing,” and then did not say it.
She said, “This is the strongest wine I have. Don’t tell Henninc I have begun to drink it. It has been that kind of winter.” She paused and added, “For everybody, I think. And Felix has done very well.”
He emptied the full cup she gave him in a single long swallow, and let her refill it. He took it with him to the sleeping room that he shared, which was empty, and stood in silence for a moment before the piece of mirror, before he went to find water. The demoiselle had offered to help, but he was used to all this. More or less.
He was quick. He cleaned the deep ragged cut and changed his shirt and scrubbed the marks on his doublet and hose, holding fresh cloths to his face as the bleeding stopped and started. He had put ointment on the wound, and alum. It was the correct styptic, of course. It was also a small, personal gesture of defiance.
After all that, he went back to the demoiselle’s office, and found that there was a tray of assorted meats on the table, and more wine. She was dressed from chin to floor in one of her usual gowns, but not the same one, and of a softer material. She was rather pale, and extremely efficient. He was not very hungry, but was glad to drink again. She said, “You deserve to be speechless, but perhaps after your report,