Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [130]
Perhaps he observed it. At any rate, he made her a bow of elaborate and expert dimensions, presented his arm, and laying his hand on top of hers, proceeded to lead her up the street in the wake of the richly dressed courtiers ahead of them.
The first open courtyard they came to was the Controller’s. On Carnival night, their clothes, their masks, their jewels were the only passkey gentlefolk needed. They swept under the archway and into the lantern-lit garden where fire-baskets glowed through the wine they took in their glasses. High in a tower, flutes and fiddles and viols penetrated the chatter, and a small diligent drum paraphrased it.
People moved, and circled, and went. Once, there came winding under the trees an arcade of dancers, linked hands high, sleeves swaying below finials of monstrous and beautiful headgear. In the icy February night, the women’s headdresses bloomed like camellias or lily-spikes; or seemed fit for eating, like gourds and pastry-puffs and heaps of sugared sweet things, bound with angelica.
Tonight, she had left behind the famous hennin, and her maidservant had pleated strands of her hair through a thin goldsmith’s caul, and made the rest into a thick ribboned braid, long enough to be pressed by her cut-velvet skirts when she seated herself. Tonight, her four-stranded gold necklace from Lyons lay upon bare skin instead of the eternal infill of gauze, and she had rings on most of her fingers.
Her companion, she saw, had none; not even a signet. It confirmed what she guessed, although, observing the rules, he did not speak again. He knew what manners required. To begin with, she made few demands on him, but later, as they moved from Bladelin’s to the new-built courtyard of the Ghistelhof and from there to the house of Vasquez; from the palace of Jean de Gros to the Seven Towers or the hall of the Archers’ Guild; when they ventured into the great mansion of Gruuthuse without meeting a leopard, and finished in the gardens of the Princenhof itself, guests of the absent Count of Charolais – then, tentatively, she ventured to take part in the dances and found that she had no need for concern, because he was skilled in their figures and deft in their execution. When she wished refreshment, he served her punctiliously, and also such of her friends as they met.
Sometimes, at a less formal encounter, he served them in other ways, making them gasp and laugh by the way he tossed and juggled their plates and made knives calmly appear or disappear. He was not vulgar, she found to her relief, but he was amusing. And he neither took off his cloak, nor did he touch her, except by the hand or the elbow. Only she noticed, while she was able to notice, that he so managed that she was offered a great deal to drink.
She was not disturbed. She let the evening go where it would lead her, knowing the pattern. At some point he would take her home – to the house empty but for the porters who, recognising her accredited escort, would allow them both in. She would lead him to her mother’s parlour and, to thank him for his escort, would offer him wine and ask him for the privilege of seeing his face. And he would unmask.
Girls who had told her this much were rarely explicit about what followed. If a conquest had been made, the family of the suitor would pay a call on the family of the prospective bride and an arrangement would be come to.
That was next day. What happened on the evening in question was, evidently, a matter of discretion. But it couldn’t, after all, be very much. The house might be empty,