Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [262]
“My dear woman,” he said. “They are not coming back. One is at war and the other has money to spend. Your Nicholas dare not return and face what he owes me. My ledgers may be burnt, but who will take his word against mine? Make up your mind. You have no heir and no husband, and will have to look out. If nature cannot now provide you with the first, at least the second is here to hand.”
She saw then the full extent of the plan, and her touch on her chair became a broad clasp. She said, “Your wife? Esota?”
“Oh, they killed her,” he said. “I think your husband had left when it happened, so the hands which did the deed were not his. In any case, she would never have survived the journey. She needed to pack so much, poor Esota.”
He was smiling when she left. She went downstairs, and found Gregorio, and together they questioned the men who had come from Geneva. They confirmed, as she had expected, what Jaak de Fleury said. They confirmed it, as she had not expected, with anger and sullenness, and every appearance of truth. When she finished, and went with Gregorio into her parlour, she was shaking.
Gregorio said, “Put him out.”
“I’ve told you what he will say. And these men saw Felix and swear that Nicholas felled him. Do you think they’re lying?”
“No,” said Gregorio. “But I can think of good reasons as well as bad for silencing Felix.”
That was when, for the first time, her fear was checked. She stared at Gregorio. Then she said, “Let me leave you in no doubt. There is no one on this earth, far less Jaak de Fleury, who can shake my faith in Nicholas and his loyalty. What we are talking about are ways of protecting Nicholas as well as this business. Not everyone knows him as I do.”
Gregorio said, “You would allow this man to install himself in your house until they come back, rather than spread rumours?”
“Yes,” she said. She thought he would protest again, and when he didn’t, she said, “You agree, then.”
Gregorio gave an impatient sigh. “No man in his senses would agree,” he said. “Except that I think you’re not mistaken in your trust. I think Nicholas will come back if he can, and the jonkheere with him. But there’s another thing. You say M. de Fleury saw all the ledgers?”
“They were all there,” Marian said. “He isn’t a layman. Better than anyone else, he could make them out instantly.”
Gregorio said, “If he’s seen the entries, he knows that you’re thriving, whatever opposite story he means to tell. He wants the company. He’s sketched how he hopes to acquire it. He had another means he may not yet fully realise. If, that is, he’s seen the size of the payments from the Bembi.”
Marian de Charetty was silent. There in that entry was the only hint of the long, precarious negotiation which had brought them the alum money. To protect that, she would have to agree to anything, or lose all she had.
Gregorio had known that. “Put him out,” he had said; but only to test, as was reasonable, her belief in the youth she had married.
She said, “Then he stays until Nicholas comes. But what can be done about the Bembo entry?”
Gregorio said, “Leave it to me. A temporary disguise of some sort, I’m sure, can be come by.”
She said, “He’s a very unpleasant man.”
“But it will be for a short time,” said Gregorio. “Don’t do anything. There’s a lot of goodwill in the yard, and they understand hints. Henninc and I will see that everyone is encouraged to be patient. Perhaps you’ll want to send your daughters away for a little. The burden will fall mainly on you.”
“Yes,” she said. Now it was decided, she felt a small return of courage, and of resolve.
She had to wait, in any case. She might as well fight as she waited.
Chapter 38
BY THE TIME THEY and their servants had reached the Ghent portals of Bruges, Julius had stopped trying to converse with Nicholas.
On the way from Milan, Julius had heard about the alum mine. If the news about the de Fleury credits had amazed