Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [121]
“Perhaps,” said Claes. He knew the tower the armour was kept in. He looked up at it, consideringly, as they passed. “Unless, of course, the arms are old, or in bad repair.”
“On the contrary,” Adorne said. “I have no key, or I would show you. Brigantines, helms, leg armour. Coats of mail from Hannequin’s time, in good condition. Pikes and lances. Even some swords.”
“Well, I can tell you, monseigneur,” said Claes, “there are many who would be glad of them. There’s little money for armour, once new guns have been bought. Captain Astorre is purchasing from Piacenza at this moment. From Messer Agostino, who is casting cannon for the Holy Father himself. One to be called Silvia after his own name, one Vittoria after the Pope’s mother, and the third Enea after the Pope’s name in the days of his … Before he had need of cannon. It can throw a stone ball through a twenty-foot wall, can Enea.”
“Better than the cannon from Mons? You would hear,” said Adorne, “that it found its way safely to Scotland, as it was bound to do in the end. Here we part. Or at least, here we must part, if you are to make sure of your lottery ticket. And tomorrow, you will bring your mistress’s children to the Hôtel Jerusalem, prepared for the Carnival. Say at sundown?”
“At sundown,” repeated Claes; and ducked his head, and watched Adorne walk away. He was happy.
He had the Dauphin’s letters to fetch for Messer Arnolfini, and the bale containing the Dauphin’s redeemed armour. He had to walk back to the Burgh and acquire (another) lottery ticket. He had to get hold of Felix, and sober him, and start finding out what was wrong with Meester Olivier, the disturbing manager at Louvain. He had to begin, cautiously, to sound out various tradesmen whose names had been mentioned as having property they might wish to part with.
Skating had made him hungry, but in other ways had restored him. The morning was far away, and the threats of the morning. He stopped for twenty minutes at one of his own favourite taverns and had a dish of tripe and a pot of beer with a lot of people he knew, including Thomas, who seemed pleased to see him. Then, full of energy, he set off on the programme he had made for himself.
Chapter 18
THE COMING OF the Venetian galleys, and Carnival-time. The two marvels of a child’s year which Katelina van Borselen had missed, exiled with an exiled queen in Scotland. She remembered thinking as much, in her father’s house here in Bruges, just before Simon of Kilmirren had taken her into the garden and had tried to embrace her. And she, independent fool that she was, had resisted him.
That had been in September, and galley-time. Now it was February, and time for the Carnival which would decide whether or not she was to be packed straight off to Brittany to be maid of honour to the widowed Duchess, who was yet another sister of the Scots king. Another fortunate widow, now some thirty years old. At her betrothal, they said, her future husband wasn’t upset when they warned him his fiancée was more than a trifle dim-witted and didn’t know much of the language. It suited him, said that nobleman. All she needed to know was how to tell his shirt from his pourpoint. He made her a mother twice before he made her a widow, so she must have sorted it out.
Well, if she, Katelina, wanted to be a widow, she would have to be a wife first and tonight, of course, was her chance. So said her mother: a forceful woman whom Katelina disliked, and who had now taken in hand the matter of her daughter’s future. From a list of suitable cavaliers, three had been chosen in face of Katelina’s determined indifference, and friendly visits had been paid by her mother to the mother of each. Even now, as she sat with her parents looking down on the market square, young men of good family were probably eyeing her from below, and agreeing which would stand masked in her path after nightfall