Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [112]
He saw her trying to read his face, and then look away from it. She said, “Well? Why are you interested in the Greeks, and the Greeks in you? We don’t sell silk. They dye their own cloths in Constantinople.”
Claes said, “It would be useful if the Pope launches his crusade. To have a connection, I mean.”
She stared at him. She said, “You don’t want me to know. But if something goes wrong, I shall be ruined as well as you. You heard de Ribérac.”
“There’s nothing to know,” he said.
She said, “And the other things he was talking about? The letters you carry? I never knew a man more able than you to unsew a letter or copy a seal or decipher a code. Thank God, at least the Medici are safe. They change their code every month and use Hebrew into the bargain.”
There was a silence, during which he turned over meat with his knife-point. He failed to think of something to say, and paid the price for the failure.
“Loppe!” exclaimed Marian de Charetty. “Loppe was owned by a Jew? And you are spying, of course. Probably for and against everyone. And the Medici are going to find out. And you are going to hang a rich man. Or would, if I let this go on. It is not to go on. You are to go back, cancel this contract, and join Astorre in Naples. Do you hear me?”
He said, “How can you stop me?”
“I can disown you,” she said.
“Then you’ll receive your profits from me as a present. Disown me, of course, if you’re truly afraid. But you needn’t do it yet. And demoiselle,” said Claes. “You can’t really believe I could put you in danger?”
She was sitting bolt upright, staring at him. She said, “Claes, double-dealing is mortally dangerous. Double-dealing where there is an enemy about like de Ribérac is stupid. These people your clients are jealous and powerful. He mentioned the Dauphin. If the Dauphin enrols you and has reason to doubt your loyalty, then we may as well shut the business and go into exile.”
Claes said, “I know all that. Those kinds of risks can be avoided. As far as the Dauphin is concerned, I’d never expect to deceive him. For a prince, he’s far too astute.”
There was a pause he didn’t understand. The demoiselle picked a piece of meat herself and toyed with it. “Felix would agree with you,” she said. “The house has rung with the Dauphin’s praises for a month. Or with praise of his hounds. It’s the same thing.”
He waited. When she added nothing, he said, “You’ve been in Louvain a lot, then. It must have passed the time for Felix.”
“Well, of course, he and the Dauphin met in Louvain,” said the Widow judicially. “But nothing, I can tell you, surpassed the splendour of that first summons to the court at Genappe. I thought Felix would swoon. You probably swooned, listening. I dare say he talked about it all night.”
“He talked all night,” said Claes. “But I am sorry to tell you that I slept through half of it. Perhaps Felix will take me there some time. It depends what you want done about the courier service. If you let me run it for you, I couldn’t go back with Thomas and rejoin Astorre.”
Marian de Charetty said, “I understood that you had already declined your post with captain Astorre and were presenting me with an ultimatum. Either you run the courier service for me, or without me. I should be interested to know how your propose to raise the money for it on your own.”
Life consisted of starting to smile and stopping again. He said, “From the Medici. But of course you would have a permanent call on the profits. The scheme and the first expenses were yours.”
She was thinking. She said, “You would do some of the riding yourself?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “I’d need to stay a few weeks in Bruges to arrange it. I’d need to go back to Milan to confirm contracts. After that, I’d spend my time between the two places, very likely. If Bruges will receive me back from time to time. They probably would. It would be in their interests.”
He knew how stubborn she was. She was brushing the quill of her pen back