Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [27]
The dog nearly knocked him over. Wrenching itself from Simon’s hand, it leaped past Metteneye, round a pillar, through an archway and, scrabbling, vanished behind a great stack of kegs. They followed it. It had stopped before five bales of forest and brown and middling wool and a sack of skins which had just been inspected. It was barking in front of the bales as if they either threatened its peace of mind or contained its dinner.
Simon walked forward. Between the bales and the wall was a space. Upon the space, a makeshift bed appeared to be laid, composed so far as he could see of an assortment of fox, cat and hare skins, imperfectly cured. The portions of fur obscured a single undulating shape which separated, as he watched, into two distinct forms. A white article, evincing itself at one end, resolved itself astonishingly into the cap on the winsome head of the servant called Mabelie, followed jerkily by her shoulders.
She would have stopped there, but crowding round her, the mercers’ men and the Scots merchants had already begun to break into laughter. They dragged her out, guffawing, while she kept her eyes shut and her scarlet face hidden as best she could. She had her stockings on. Otherwise the only part of her clothed was her waist. Metteneye, smiling angrily, took off his jacket and flung it over her.
Simon took three steps off. He stood at the other end of the warm heap of furs where his dog was still barking, and he had in his hand the little dagger which foreign merchants were permitted to carry, to protect themselves against robbers. He bent, perhaps to probe with the blade, or perhaps to defend himself. He had no need to do either. Under his eyes, there emerged slowly a dishevelled head of dust-coloured hair, a pair of brawny shoulders and a sweating chest half encased in a madeover shirt of limp canvas and, over this, an even cheaper pourpoint whose laces did not seem to be entirely attached to their stockings.
Simon knew the face. He knew the broad brow, the moon-like eyes, the nose, precise as an owl’s between the dimpled cheeks, and the deprecating, disarming smile.
Claes, the Charetty apprentice. Claes, whose expression at this moment was neither apprehensive nor rueful nor mischievous, but something of all three. Who said, shutting his eyes with a sigh, “I won’t deny it. I admit it. I’ve the conduct of an oaf and the talents of a girl, and there’s nothing surer than this, that I’m a mortification to my father, wherever he is.”
It was the biggest joke of the evening, thought the mercers. Instead of a nasty scene with the Scots, a court case, a lot of ill feeling, there was a serving-wench being given her business by Marian de Charetty’s great smiling lout Claes, lying there in his undone laces, talking his way into his next beating.
It made you wonder, too, when you saw how the fellow Simon was taking it, whether the noble Scots lord might not have had an eye on the lassie as well. He had certainly gone a queer colour. Indeed, for a moment, the knife he had in his hand flashed once or twice, as if he wouldn’t mind using it.
And perhaps the fellow Claes thought so too, for all of a sudden, with a heave and a jerk, he was out of the furs and thrusting past the dog and between two of the lads standing laughing at him, and through the arch and round the pillar and up the steps and off through the house in the direction that led to the courtyard. The merchants and the mercers’ men looked after him guffawing, and someone slapped Metteneye on the back. Then the noble Simon seemed to come to himself, and he burst out laughing as well, and sheathed his knife, and called to his dog and said, “Well, what are we waiting