Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [127]
When Felix exploded, Claes got him out of public view and then found a way for him to get rid of his energy. It was different with a young girl, who kept dragging her hand from the miserable chaplain’s and hurling herself into the thick of the crowd – a crowd which by this time was not quite so orderly, or so sober, and which was beginning to be pushed this way and that by another element – the young nobility, in their silks and their furs and their grotesque and marvellous masks, walking in groups to and from their chosen mansions with their servants and their musicians and in the mood to slap aside a careless child who cannoned into them – or to take her by the arm and lead her with them.
Claes caught her twice and fetched her bodily back in a whirlwind of squealing and laughter. The second time, Tilde brought up her arm and slapped her sister open-handed on the side of the head so that Catherine screamed in earnest and glared at her, hand to cheek and tears in her eyes. The Adorne daughters stared at them both and the chaplain made a noise like a horse trotting in mud.
“Hey!” said Claes, closing his warm hand round Tilde’s wrist and taking Catherine round the shoulders with his other arm. He shook Tilde’s wrist a little, and tilted up her clenched hand. “Look at that fist! You frighten me! How can I escort a lady who might beat me at any moment?”
Catherine giggled. He turned to her. “And oh dear, look at Father Bertouche. He can’t look after everybody, can he, while I’m running after you? He’ll have to take everyone home, and we’ll miss the tightrope walkers, and the bonfire and the fireworks. And you haven’t even had your fortunes told yet.”
“I want my fortune told,” said Catherine.
“But I can’t trust you, can I?” said Claes. “So I’ll just have to see that you don’t run away again.” And holding her arm tightly in his, he unbuckled his belt, and adding it to her girdle, shackled her loosely to him.
It was what she wanted. Tears gone, she took his arm and dragged him across to the astrologer’s. Beside him, Tilde walked stiffly. She said, “Mother would have slapped her.”
She was no longer his undisputed partner. Catherine skipped on his other side. Claes said, “Of course you must slap, if everything else fails, and there is some danger. But it’s quite good to try other things first.”
“Felix hits you,” said Tilde. She paused, and then went on before he could answer. “But of course, my mother doesn’t.”
A roar went up. The tightrope walkers had appeared at the top of the belfry. The heads of Marie, Katelijne, Catherine, Father Bertouche and even of Mathilde turned involuntarily upwards. Claes blew, invisibly, a sigh of relief and amusement that made his cheek crack. A commanding voice, shrill as a whistle said, “Ah, there you are! Where have you been? You were told to look out for me! You haven’t been trying!”
Herod, where are you? Packhorses crossed the Alps with less trouble. Dragging her expensive furs to his side was a short, stout party he had seen before … Ah, Gelis. The young van Borselen girl with whom he had skated, and who had tried to command his services for this evening. Pushing through to stand behind her, thank God, came a liveried manservant and a cloaked maid in a white coif. Beside him, Tilde’s head turned, and a moment later, the chaplain’s.
The van Borselen sprig looked up at him sternly. You put a bag over their faces, that was all. A bag with a few oats at the bottom and they were perfectly happy. The van Borselen girl said, “I brought a cloak and a mask, in case you couldn’t afford them. Here.” The manservant, catching no one’s eye, transferred to his mistress a long roll of extremely good cloth, with a vast concoction of feathers settled on it. She held the armful to Claes.
Claes said, “Demoiselle, you are welcome to join us. We were hoping you would. But there are too many of us for a masquerade. You know the demoiselles de Charetty? And of course, the demoiselles of Adorne. Father Bertouche …”
Father Bertouche, his inflamed nose