Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [177]
Gregorio was amazed. He was filled with horrified admiration. He felt a strong desire, before this meeting was over, to set his hand to a marriage contract for this manipulating pair that would do what they said they wanted it to do – precisely, fully and properly. One so binding that, no matter what trickery the youth had in mind, what delusion the woman was under, it could never be broken.
Then, he thought, he would much enjoy staying on for a bit, to see what happened.
The second to receive the news was Anselm Adorne, to whom a packet was delivered as he rose from his knees and led his wife and family and servants from their morning devotions in the Jerusalemkerk, the private church built by his father and uncle. The packet proved to contain a densely-written letter of several pages, whose contents caused him to lay his hand on his wife’s arm and say, “Before you begin your household duties, we must talk together. Then the hall is to be put in order. We shall have guests this morning.” He had to wait, as he might have expected, while she hurried to the kitchens with instructions. Then she joined him in their bedchamber.
She was a little excited. Not worried, for all their children were about them, even Jan, home from Paris for Easter. And after sixteen years, she knew her careful, courtly husband and his good feelings. Anything wrong with Father Pieter in his quiet retreat with the Carthusians, with the uncles and aunts, the sisters and brothers, the numberless cousins and nieces and nephews of the Adorne and van der Banck family, would have led him to tell her immediately.
She didn’t think of business. She knew of course of some of his many concerns. Margriet van der Banck had been fourteen when she married him, and an orphan, but she had been well trained. She was a good organiser, a good mother, an expert in household matters. That was her business and there was no need for her to meddle in his. Except, of course, when it was a matter which affected their joint future, like this alum affair. He had told her all about that. She still wished he wouldn’t touch it.
So she was alarmed when, settling down to hear of some exciting new prospect, a presentation, an appointment, an acquisition, she heard him speak of the very thing that troubled her. About the alum negotiation, and this dyers’ workman, this very decent young man Claes who had been so good with Marie and Katelijne, and who, one was asked to believe, had invented this whole dangerous proposition, with some doctor in Italy backing him. Using him, more likely, to presume on his acquaintance with Anselm. Although Anselm appeared to believe in the youth’s capabilities.
But not every man was brilliant as Anselm. Anselm had married her at nineteen, and had become a Bruges counsellor at 20, and won his first prize in the White Bear joust the same year. Anselm was a burgess, but in lineage he was an aristocrat, kinsman to Doges. This was a workman. And now Anselm was saying, “You remember young Claes, of course, of the Charetty household. This is a letter from him. He’s coming here in a moment to ask for our help for Marian de Charetty. The business has expanded so much that she now needs a partner. She thinks Claes himself is the best person to run it but, of course, he hasn’t the standing. That she’s decided to deal with, it seems, by proposing to make the young man her husband.”
Margriet couldn’t stop herself gasping aloud. Anselm looked up, in the way he had. He said, “My dear, this is their affair. The demoiselle has made up her mind. She wants the marriage contracts written and signed this very morning, and begs my help in arranging it. He says she hesitates to ask, but he knows that she would like the Church’s blessing. He asks if we would permit the signing to take place today in our hall, and Mass to be celebrated