Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [198]
“Now let me think,” Nicholas said. “I remember. Something about a dog.”
“And a girl called Mabelie,” said Gelis spitefully.
That night, in his room, Nicholas read the letter from Brittany.
Katelina, he noted, trusted her sister no more than he did. Even to an over-informed pair of eyes, it contained no message at all that was personal. The journey had been reasonable. She thought the appointment would not be unamusing. She filled in some snippets of court gossip, including the information, which he already knew, that the Duchess’s son had acquired the King of France’s mistress who, the court thought, would have passed on the pox by September.
September? He paused over the intrusion of the date, and then recalled that the Carnival had been on Shrove Tuesday so that, even to calculating small sisters, the reference had no hidden significance.
The main item of news, and patent purpose of the letter, made him laugh quite a lot, which he had not expected to do. He put it away and promised himself a visit, somehow, tomorrow to Lorenzo Strozzi. The news about Simon he didn’t pass on to Felix’s mother. She would hear soon enough. Oddly, it was Gregorio who brought it up when Nicholas joined him in the new building after a morning which had started at dawn.
With less than a week to his departure Nicholas had begun calling at last for his dispatches. On Jacques Doria, colleague of Adorne and coolly authoritative, who had given him a satchel for Genoa. On Angelo Tani and Tommaso, the one business-like and the other pointedly reserved, and both offended by his refusal to leave before Monday. On Arnolfini for letters for Lucca and Sforza, delivered with pallid amusement, but no comment. It was Arnolfini who had passed him the Dauphin’s promised gold, for services about to be rendered. He had bought his clothes with it, and a man. Or he hoped so.
Now, in Spangnaerts Street, he walked through the new building to his large office, touching each busy clerk on the shoulder and greeting Gregorio at the other desk, as he dropped to a seat and pulled forward his papers. They worked until noon, when the bell went and the youths were given leave to go below and eat. Gregorio said, “I have to ask something.”
Nicholas said, “Yes?” without lifting pen from paper.
Gregorio said, “About the joust on Sunday. Gossip says that our Felix is going to have a hard time. Some Scotsman who regards himself as a personal enemy.”
“Simon of Kilmirren. Yes.” Nicholas powdered what he had written, and looked up to meet a singularly hard black gaze. He said, “He’s one of the people I have to warn you to watch while I’m away. He’s more anxious to harm me than Felix, but he won’t manage either if I can help it. I’ve promised Felix’s mother that he won’t enter the joust, and he won’t.”
Gregorio said dryly, “Then you’ll have to kidnap him. He won’t back out now.”
“Oh, you never know,” said Nicholas. “And now I’ve something to ask you. You weren’t in your room all last night, or the night before?”
The black gaze became even harder. Gregorio sat back in his chair. “You pay me by the night hours as well?”
“Bruges,” said Nicholas, “is the living heart of good Flemish gossip. If you install a lady in such a way, it usually means a permanent arrangement. If you have a permanent arrangement in one direction, it occurs to me that you might intend a permanent arrangement in another. With the company that employs you, for example.”
He waited, letting the other man study him. Gregorio said, “You spy on me?”
Nicholas grinned. “I wouldn’t need to. Tommaso’s mistress lives in the next house to your friend’s. Tommaso Portinari. You can tell when he leaves in the morning by the clash of his rings. I don’t suppose I could meet her?”
It was early to broach such a thing, but he hadn’t much time. He knew the lawyer was quick. He would dismiss, he hoped, the notion that in some way his mistress was being inspected. He would grasp, he hoped, the fact that his mistress was being invited to inspect Nicholas. About whom, no doubt, she had heard so much. And about