Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [176]
The boy scribbled something and then looked up at the woman. “That’s it,” he said. “I knew we’d forgotten something. I could lie on cloth-of-gold cushions all day and you could sell Henninc and hang me with diamonds, so that Felix has to beg in his tavern and Tilde and Catherine have to marry street-sweepers. Your spending and my wages have to be controlled. That means trustees. That means good accounting and an independent check on the ledgers.” He turned to the notary. “We’d already reached the conclusion,” he said, “that it isn’t so much a wedding as a re-write of contractual law. That’s why we need you. We want it to take place this morning.”
Laymen always said this sort of thing. Gregorio of Asti said, “It’s unlikely, I’m afraid, that that could be done.”
The boy said, “Mm. I think it might. I’ve sent a message to Meester Anselm Adorne. Once we’ve considered the worst of the problems, I’ll leave you and the demoiselle to draft out a contract. Messer Anselm can call out the écoutète, the public attorney and perhaps one of the burgomasters to represent the city. I’ll call with him on the dean of the Dyers’ Guild and on Meester Bladelin, and on the Bishop of Terni for special permission. I’ve sent a message to him as well. Before noon, we might have enough people at the Hôtel Jerusalem to let us go through with the civil contract in a proper manner. Then the Bishop or, failing him, Meester Anselm’s own chaplain, can hold the wedding Mass in the Jerusalemkerk, and it’ll be done.”
Gregorio looked at the widow. She looked as if, despite herself, she felt a little dazed. Dazed did not describe how he, Gregorio, felt. She had been right about one thing. The fellow had brains. He was dangerous. A stirring of compassion for Marian de Charetty came to her notary. He said, “I see. You have planned very well. But why the speed, might I ask?”
The young man looked at him with apparent frankness. “Because everyone will think exactly the way you’ve been thinking, and there’ll be a commotion. Once the wives get hold of the story, there won’t be a wedding: they’ll intimidate their husbands. We want the conditions of a normal business meeting in which to transact a good contract which will protect every party.”
“Except, I see, yourself?” said Gregorio sympathetically. “If, as you say, you wish to be excluded from any financial gain directly or indirectly through your future wife, apart from your allotted wages? How will you live, for example, if, God forbid, she were to die? The inheritance would then devolve on her son, and he would be free to dismiss you. I gather, since you don’t mention him, that he has had no say in this arrangement?”
“That,” said Marian de Charetty, “is the other difficulty. My son is seventeen and headstrong. I want this marriage complete, if possible, before he knows of it.” She paused and said, “I may say we disagree about this. We do it this way on my insistence. I will not have my personal decisions interfered with beforehand by Felix. Afterwards, it will be bad enough. And if the law normally requires his consent or his presence, you must get round the law.”
Gregorio said, “There are ways, if the Church is sympathetic. But if he is minded to be vindictive, in later years if not now, this contract gives him power.”
The young man said, “He needs all the power the law can give him, only reserving the rights of his mother. Let there be no doubt of that. Felix will be no trouble to me or to you, when you get to know him. He’s only young. And as for money, I can find that without the Charetty business, Meester Gregorio. I think the demoiselle hinted at a new venture. That will be mine, made with my partners and drawing nothing from this company, although I hope it will benefit from it. You too, if you are so minded. It is why, since I am sure you are wondering, Meester Anselm