Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [220]
Nicholas stood still, with his guardian beside him. After an interval the clerk came back for the steward and the lady of Fleury. He carried with him a key for the parlour. The steward scowled at Nicholas and went out, but the lady was in no hurry. She waved the clerk off, and again, more angrily, when he hesitated. Felix was sorry for him. He was even slightly alarmed when, with his mistress’s leave, the clerk went out without her and, shutting the door, turned the key in it from the outside. He left the box, so Felix stayed, in the uncomfortable company of Esota de Fleury and the servant his stepfather.
Felix waited for Jaak de Fleury to come back. He seemed to be away a long time. Nicholas walked backwards and forwards and Felix watched him. He even saw Nicholas stroll to the window and nod to someone he knew in the courtyard as if there was nothing to worry about. Indeed, it was not until Nicholas walked back, kerchief in hand, to bend courteously over the demoiselle that something struck Felix as odd, and he turned.
But by then the kerchief was, he saw, bound tightly over the demoiselle’s full, tinted lips and Nicholas’ arm was already swinging towards his, Felix’s, head with a thick wicker flask at the end of it. Felix tried to shout, too, but his mouth was blocked by a large and familiar hand, smelling of new ink like Collinet Mansion.
The blow presented him with one ridiculous thought, before every thought left him. If Collinet Mansion was there, Claes must be somewhere about.
Claes would help him.
Chapter 32
FELIX DE CHARETTY, who had left his home in the middle of April to go hunting at Genappe with the Comte de Charolais and the Dauphin of Vienne, did not return. In Bruges, it was generally known that the boy had ridden south, thinking to overtake his mother and the young fellow he used to go about with. Nicholas, who married the demoiselle.
There were those who thought it a bit funny that Nicholas went off like that after the fire. Although, of course, the Widow had very good help, what with that busy new notary Gregorio, and Cristoffels, who had a reputation with the brokers who used to deal with him. Indeed, it was amazing what they had all done to pull the business together in a few weeks.
But all the same, you saw the difference in Marian de Charetty. Whatever you thought about the marriage, that young man had a head on him, and was useful to her. And now he was gone, and her son as well. And there was a mystery. For one way or another, surely the boy Felix had caught up with Nicholas. And learned of the fire. And had been desperate, as any boy would, to get back and comfort his mother, and help set things to rights. But May ended, and the first week of June arrived, and Felix didn’t come.
In Spangnaerts Street Felix’s two nubile sisters saw no reason for worrying. As their mother pointed out, he and Nicholas might have missed one another. Felix might have ridden a very long way before he learned of the fire. Catherine rather enjoyed the May Fair and the Holy Blood Procession without Felix, now she was getting over all the nice things she had lost – her gowns and her oldest toys, and the coverlet she had made, and the box a man from Danzig had given her.
Now people gave her more things because they were sorry for her, and in return she told them all about the fire, and especially the frightening bits. As she remembered more, the story got better and better, and there were always new people to tell it to.
Tilde, too, was recovering, although rather more slowly, for there were things of her father’s that she would never see again. And sometimes, at night, she thought of Felix, and remembered the little knife Felix carried and how short-tempered he was. She hoped, when they met, that Nicholas would remember to say the right things to Felix, the way he used to. At first, she had thought Nicholas had done such a terrible thing that none of them should speak to him again. Then she began to think that it was all her mother’s fault. Now, since the