Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [214]
Thomas said, “Claes?”
Julius said, very slowly, “Claes has turned spy?”
“Spy!” said Astorre. Heads swivelled. He replaced the roar with a volley. “Maybe he has. I’ll believe anything of the little brute now. Anything. Thomas, how do you fancy working for Claes? Toadying for drink-money? Thanking him for a new pair of boots?”
Thomas began to turn a puzzled red. Julius also flushed, thinking furiously. Claes, the obedient courier; the most beaten, most cheerful servant in Bruges. Claes, who was clever with numbers, and who had perhaps taken his good advice at last. Julius said, “Has he begun to help with the business? Has the demoiselle brought him into the office?”
“Into the office?” yelled Astorre. “Holy Mother Mary, the mad-woman’s married him!”
Julius began to laugh. He laughed all through Thomas’s worried questions and Astorre’s consequent fiery exposition which catalogued every disaster awaiting them, from the insult to their dignity to the coming bankruptcy of the business which would turn them all into beggars unless they could face taking orders from a cocky young stud who had one skill, by God, which everyone knew about, by God, and which he had used, by God, to get where decent men couldn’t.
Afterwards, Julius remembered recovering enough to point out that Tobias, at least, must have left Milan for reasons other than the demoiselle’s ill-chosen nuptials, which had not then taken place. But Astorre, shaking with rage, would have none of it. “If there’s been a marriage, it’s because there’ve been couplings enough for a scandal. That bastard Claes! Maybe Tobias put him up to it! Maybe Lionetto put him up to it! Maybe Lionetto’s the new Charetty captain, on his way south to wipe us all out and save the newly-weds paying our wages! I’ll kill him!”
“Who?” had said Julius.
“Them all!” had roared Astorre with perfect logic, retiring thereafter to drink himself to the pitch of picking a fight with the biggest man he could find, and winning it.
Julius spent two days calming him down and succeeded after a fashion, without eliminating, for the benefit of King Ferrante of Naples, the core of a simmering animosity that bid fair, as Thomas had once conjectured, to destroy the entire opposition single-handed.
For himself, Julius felt neither anger nor envy but a growing pleasure, and a growing curiosity. For whatever reason, it had begun. And now, what would come of it?
A week before the news of his marriage reached Julius, Nicholas set out for Milan. Behind him in Bruges he left a courageous woman and two weeping children. He also left Gregorio, with Cristoffels hourly expected. He had confidence in them both. Between them, they could begin, without him, the work of restoration. And within three or four days, Felix should have ended his stay at Genappe and be shortly restored to his mother.
In fact, three days after the departure of Nicholas, the young broker Cristoffels arrived in Bruges from Louvain. He knew nothing of the fire, and expected to find the Widow and her new consort already gone to Dijon and Geneva. Stunned by the news of the dyeshop, Cristoffels did not at once respond to the Widow’s pointed enquiries about her son Felix. Then, collecting himself, he reassured her at once. The jonkheere was well. His entertainment at Genappe had evidently been most agreeable. On leaving Genappe, he had called at Louvain to change horses before riding south with his servants. That is, ignorant of the fire and consequently of his mother’s changed plans, jonkheere Felix had taken the notion of riding after herself and Meester Nicholas. Of riding, that is to Dijon. And straight to Geneva, if he failed to encounter them there.
At that point, Cristoffels had paused, mistrusting the look on the demoiselle’s face, and had glanced at Gregorio, who gave him no guidance. Then the demoiselle said, “I am glad to know where Felix is. I thought for a moment that it might be worth riding after him. But he will meet Nicholas soon enough,