Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [124]
As a mother, she tried to rule and educate her only son Felix, and when he defied or resisted her, it drove her wild with annoyance. But was this the alternative? Lorenzo’s mother Alessandra, stranded in genteel poverty in her native Florence after the exile and death of her husband, had never stopped pushing her three sons and two daughters.
Her youngest son was now dead. Filippo, the eldest and ablest, had received the best training and was now honourably settled in Naples in the family business of his father’s cousin, Niccolò di Leonardo Strozzi. Lorenzo had left Spain to come here to work for Niccolò’s brother, head of the Strozzi business in Bruges. But, taught by Alessandra and their own pride and ambition, her sons saw this as servitude. In Florence, Alessandra sold off property; sent them money and advice while, writing between Naples and Bruges, Lorenzo and his brother plotted and planned and struggled and were unhappy.
None of them could go back to Florence, which had exiled them as well as their father. None of them, she noticed, attempted to marry, any more than Tommaso Portinari had done. Unless you could get a good Florentine wife, you made no binding arrangements. And if old Jacopo Strozzi died here in Bruges, would Lorenzo, son of a cousin, inherit? No, the business would go to the brother in Naples. And the brother in Naples, looking at Lorenzo, twenty-seven years old and hungry for money, might think it safer to appoint his own manager, and leave Lorenzo to run errands for the Medici on matters like ostriches.
She said, smiling, as Lorenzo finished his recital, “And I’m sure you have a partner for this evening? Felix tells me he is accommodated, although I haven’t been told the girl’s name.”
Catherine, her mouth full of gingerbread, said, “We’re going out with Claes.”
To Lorenzo, children were a closed book. Remembering, no doubt, a number of heated arguments, he flushed and said, “Yes, I heard.”
Marian was amused. Without thinking she said, “Arranged by Felix, I gather,” and caught the flash of Tilde’s upturned eyes. She went on, smoothly, “In fact, they’ve been invited to join the Adorne party, which they will all enjoy. Oh, to be thirteen again.”
“You should be able to stay thirteen for ever,” Lorenzo said.
She did not know what to say, and let him go when he bowed and rejoined his companions.
In the afternoon, when it grew colder, she took the girls home for a rest, and something to eat, and so that she could set their robes to rights and comb their long hair and place upon each smooth hairline the rim of each expensive bag-cap, Tilde’s in crimson, Catherine’s in blue. The velvet wings, touching each shoulder, lent to the face of each child an engaging purity; and the back-fall, fringed with gold thread, showed off the straight childish shoulders under the cloak. Below that, the tight, square-necked dresses were of velvet with ermine on the tight cuffs. The Adorne would not be ashamed of her daughters.
Twelve and thirteen they were now; and no longer children. That angry glance from gentle Tilde had reminded her of that. What was to be done? She understood all too well how Felix had bestowed the task of escort on Claes. But he had done such things before and Claes was well able to outmanoeuvre him. She did not believe, either, that Claes was ignorant of Tilde’s feelings. More than most, he was able to put himself inside the minds of other people. It was Tilde who had told her of the chest she had seen open in Claes’ room, and the silver-gilt warming apple that had lain in it. A gift from Milan. But for whom?
But the silver-gilt apple had never been presented, at least not in this household; and she was afraid she knew why. And by the same token, he had found it convenient to engage himself for this long-awaited Carnival evening,