Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [204]
When he had gone, the tumble of business resumed. Competitors, servants and horses, ladies and escorts, spectators from miles around Bruges – all that, every year, meant hard work, flourishing trade and, of course, money. Acclaim, too, for the influential city of Bruges, host to the flower of chivalry. Pride as well as self-interest inspired the carpenters hammering day and night to erect the lists and the tribunals in the market place, the painters completing the blazons and banners, the city officials hurrying everywhere with the officers of the White Bear itself, seeing to the dressing and clearing of the streets, the preparations for the feasts, the protocol for processions and ceremonies and presentations, the entertaining and ruling of the scattered company of elite challengers.
Tomorrow the jousters, each with his train, would wind in procession from the Abbey of Eckhout there, behind the house of Louis de Gruuthuse, to the lists in the market place. Tonight, Simon of Kilmirren was lodging, as usual, at the house of Jehan Metteneye, with his banner and hatchment and crest dressing the windowsill of his chamber, as was the custom.
He had got rid of Muriella and her ladies first, at the house of her hostess. He was quite pleased with her. She was rich: her brother was a Scotsman turned Englishman trading in the Staple at Calais. She was dark, in contrast to his fairness, and striking, in crimson and that extraordinary headdress like some sort of butterfly. Although none of that could compete, he was aware, with golden hair and green plumes and silver armour.
The brother, John Reid, had not been unattracted by the idea of a marriage contract, although it was clear that he would prefer to hand over the girl to a title. But, as Simon had happened to mention, his titled uncle in Scotland was old, and his titled father in France, although unfortunately set apart by affairs from his only son and heir, had a well-cultivated seigneurie. That, of course, was a double-edged weapon. His father’s fortune had probably been signed away already to some parcel of monks or a mistress, to deny it to his unpopular son. And although his father could not, probably, alienate his heir from his land, the French king certainly could, if he heard what Simon had been up to in Calais. Nevertheless, John Reid had been interested. Simon had been allowed to bring Muriella, properly chaperoned, as his lady of honour on the strength of it.
The presence of the chaperone didn’t disturb him at the moment. Tonight was the great formal feast at the Sign of the Moon in the market place. Already the Forestier, last year’s champion, would be parading the town with his heralds, his pipes and his drummers, and calling on the grand ladies and well-born maidens whom the Brotherhood wished to come to the banquet.
Muriella would be his partner at the feast, which would finish prudently early, so that he could escort her prudently home. After that, he had a well-tried welcome already awaiting him somewhere else, as he always did before a contest. Something easy, expert and quick. That way, you didn’t waste time before you began, or in trying to get away when you’d finished. He wished to do well tomorrow, after all, for his lady’s sake.
Then when the lady had watched him win in the lists, and had danced with him, and had shared his cup at the banquets before returning each night to her cold bed, she might begin to think of that short journey home in his company. She would admire his chivalry. She would dream, as ladies do, of perhaps testing it. And in some inn on the way she would find the means, he felt sure, to relieve him in some sweet, thoughtful way, of the minor impediment of the chaperone.
And then, if he still felt like it, he would