Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [148]
She said, “We’ve had it already.”
“I thought you might,” said Claes. “I haven’t much time. But I wondered if I ought to go and see the new man. Olivier, isn’t it? Felix might like to go with me. And I thought I should also like to call at Genappe.”
Sixteen miles south of Brussels, the compact moated castle of Genappe had been a favourite hunting lodge of the Duke of Burgundy’s until recently. Until the Dauphin Louis, heir to the kingdom of France, had fled to his dear uncle for sanctuary and his dear uncle the Duke had presented him with Genappe, to be his home for as long as he wished to defy his own father.
Claes proposed to call on the Dauphin of France. Her servant Claes. Her remarkable, half-inebriated, wholly self-possessed Nicholas. Who was so happy, so often.
He clearly saw nothing odd about it. She said, “Well, you’d better make sure your blue doublet is properly mended.”
The large gaze admired her; the caterpillar mouth expanded in a beam of complete and serene understanding. He said, “And put back all the bells while I’m at it?”
Chapter 22
EASTER, THAT year, fell in the middle of April. The expedition to Genappe, Claes decided, should ideally take place just before it. In case circumstances changed, he became very busy.
By the middle of March, Marian de Charetty was a substantial property-owner, possessing three warehouses next to her own, a wine tavern close to the fish market and – at a cost that frightened her – a house and storerooms in Spangnaerts Street. Spangnaerts, or Spanish Street, was in the heart of the prime trading quarter of Bruges, near the Bridge of St John, across the canal from the English and Scots trading houses, and within three minutes of the customs house, the Bourse, the consulates of Florence, Venice and Genoa, and the Lodge of the Brethren of the White Bear. It was also next door to a house owned by Anselm Adorne.
Felix was given the task of supervising the refurbishing of the wine tavern. Astoundingly, he set about it with vigour, making a number of excellent innovations and causing concern only in the undue sternness of his dealings with both his staff and his customers. One of the Metteneye boys, who had been accidentally sick over one of Felix’s new trestles, was more than surprised to find himself bundled into the street and told not to return until he could hold his drink properly. Felix’s mother, called upon by the Metteneye mother, found herself having to apologise.
The money to do all this, it seemed, was being found partly by loan, and partly from the profit of some investment Claes had made with the Milan Medici.
Thomas, arriving with two hundred foot and horse towards the end of February, found accommodation, beer, food and fodder waiting for him, and a string of mules and hired carts bearing armour. Thomas, offspring of three generations of landless soldiers stranded in France by a succession of forgivable English defeats compounded by a succession of unforgivable English truces, began to soften still further towards foreigners, who weren’t at all bad so long as you kicked the bastards from time to time where it hurt most.
After a week of pandemonium Thomas and his small army left, to join Master Tobias at Milan and proceed south to Astorre and Naples. With him went an extremely burly chaplain called Godscalc from northern Germany, and a Hungarian crossbowman called Abrami, both discovered by Claes. The function of the chaplain, he explained, was to help Julius with his clerking and keep Tobie from interfering, while reminding the troops that disobedience to Astorre’s orders meant death and hellfire immediately. The job of Abrami was to help Thomas imagine he could handle everything, while handling all the things Thomas couldn’t.
Marian de Charetty listened, questioned, objected, argued and occasionally won a point.
The pump in the yard had been set right, and a man brought in from