Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [195]
He had found time, extraordinarily, to do other things as well. The archery society of St Sebastian, which was not an exclusive one, had admitted him as a member, and he spent an hour there every day, shooting at the mark and becoming known to his fellow members. He was also visiting the small founder who had made up some of Astorre’s requirements of armour, and who had been a master at arms in his day. It was Felix who told her that Nicholas was apparently reviving his recent brief acquaintance with the military arts. To protect all the money he intended to make, Felix had suggested.
The truce of the marriage-day had not lasted. Now, Felix threw her, from time to time, all the scraps of gossip he could glean about Nicholas. Short of walking out of the room, which she sometimes did, she couldn’t prevent him. So far, there was little she hadn’t known. Blessedly, in any case, Felix was out most of the time, practising. He had acquired the rest of his jousting equipment, far more splendid and far more costly than was sensible, but she had not objected, since Nicholas hadn’t. As the days passed and the time for the tournament neared, she tried not to think of it, even when at every meal Felix related, with glittering eyes, the names of the great ones who were to take part in it.
With glittering eyes and frightened defiance. If he had been vulnerable before her marriage, he was twice as vulnerable now, in his bravado. She ached for him, wondering how he was managing, torn between despising her and defending her. Once, he had come back to the house with a bruised cheek, but had not explained it. And the wife of one of her clients had offered her an admiring account of how her dear son Felix had stood up for his mother the other day, when one of those ill-bred girls from Damme had forgotten her manners. The pawnbroker’s daughter, it had been. The daughter of Oudenin the pawnbroker.
When at home, Felix spent his time with his sisters, or with Henninc and his deputies. He ignored Gregorio, assuming (rightly, she supposed) that he was in process of being won over to Nicholas. Nicholas himself he did not speak to, but he often watched him for lengthy periods. When he did, there was a look in his eye that reminded Marian oddly of Cornelis. A calculating look.
At Easter she didn’t entertain: she had rarely done so, in any case, since Cornelis died. Invitations did, however, come. One was from the Adorne family to spend the day at the Hôtel Jerusalem. Tilde and Catherine went with their mother and Nicholas. Felix was otherwise engaged. They were treated quietly and kindly, and she was grateful.
The house of Wolfaert van Borselen was another matter. For one thing, he was married to a Scottish princess – one of those six royal sisters who were meant to ally the king of Scots with half Europe – with France and Savoy, Brittany and the Tyrol and Zeeland.
Marian de Charetty had met the princess and her husband, and knew they kept state in Veere, where their residence was, and were never less than formal in their tall gabled town house in Bruges, where she and Nicholas had been bidden to supper.
When the day arrived, the demoiselle stood in her bedchamber, her robes spread about her, and considered what lay before them. She would expect to see their son Charles, who was eight. She would probably meet Louis, seigneur de Gruuthuse, whose wife was a van Borselen, and perhaps Guildolf, the Gruuthuse kinsman who was so far unmarried. Florence van Borselen and his wife would certainly be there, but not their daughter Katelina, now in Brittany. She remembered the incident at Damme involving the girl, which had ended in a beating for Nicholas.
Felix, Julius and Claes. The trouble they caused.
Her eyes were wet. She turned her mind resolutely to the problem of selection, which was not great. Her finest robe, her most elaborate headgear. Concealing her own hair, as always.