Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [149]
When she wasn’t worrying about loans, the Widow felt like smiling as well. She had never before experienced so buoyant an upheaval: not in her girlhood; not in Cornelis’ lifetime. She had envied Claes his disposition. All through the worst of his ’prentice excesses, he had always been lively to deal with. Employing him now, it would seem, as an equerry, she woke every morning alert and expectant, wondering what amazing battles she would have to fight, what new acquisitions, new experiences, new adventures would be packed into this day before it ended. She was never disappointed. She had never seen anyone work so prodigally in so many diverse arenas. The excesses of the past she now interpreted as mere spillage of all this vitality, and could only be thankful there had been no more of them. Speed, of course, was important because he had to get back to Milan, because of the courier service. That had been organised, too. She had asked to be kept informed about it, and was, to a fault. It seemed to be a matter of hiring riders and analysing information about horses and lodgings and tolls and other couriers. The Bruges branch of a number of banks, including the Medici, then made known their willingness to confide certain kinds of dispatches under contract to the Charetty. One of the new couriers had already gone south with a heavy guard and a satchel.
But managers like Angelo Tani wanted personal service, and Claes was ready to oblige. He would carry the letters. He had to report to Milan in any case, and set that side of the business in order. Tani would expect Claes to go as soon as the latest word came in from London. And as soon as Tommaso received firm news of the ostrich. Had it, or had it not been shipped by the Strozzi company aboard a Catalan ship in Mallorca?
The Flanders galleys, after lingering an inordinate length of time, had taken courage and set sail for London, to load English goods and begin the long journey home to Venice. The question was whether the English King Henry, with civil war on his hands, would commandeer the galleys for his own uses. The merchants in Bruges and London and Southampton waited anxiously.
Bishop Coppini, on his saintly mission for peace, departed along the coast to visit English-held Calais and converse with the English rebels, the Earl of Warwick and Edward, the son of the King’s Yorkist challenger. They said a number of Scotsmen had been seen in Calais as well. They said the King of Scots, changing his mind, was now holding secret talks with both sides of the English dispute instead of just the reigning Lancastrian, and had sent to ask the Duke of Burgundy if he could spare any more guns.
They said the Scots king was sending some envoys to Brussels in the guise of merchants, one of whom was likely to be Simon of Kilmirren. Remember Simon, who made that fuss over his dog after finding young Claes with a girl in the cellar? Who took sides with Lionetto at Sluys against Astorre and the Charetty crowd? Who nearly did for young Claes with a pair of cloth shears? Or maybe it was the other way round …
The Widow heard that piece of gossip. She was in the mercers’ hall at the time, pursuing a contract to do with yarn dyeing – one of the few parts of the business she still kept in her own hands. There followed three different meetings, held in various quarters, to which she was escorted by Claes, and during which she had no chance to talk privately. Riding