Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [271]
In the days that followed all the household grew to realise what had happened, for neither the demoiselle nor her husband tried to pretend that her bedchamber was not being shared. During the day, it was a house of black cloth and tailors and mourning. At night the demoiselle accepted the comfort that was legally hers. Where once her servants would have felt discomfort or resentment and would have resorted to obscene jokes and even hostility, now they excused and forgave. The death of Felix changed everything.
Julius, consumed with curiosity, watched it happening. Not only was the marriage accepted, he saw, by Henninc and the men who used to work with Claes, but even the burghers they dealt with were apparently reconciled to the union, and had been even before this development. He spoke to Gregorio about it and heard a little, from the other lawyer, of how the marriage had been achieved. He was wary still about Gregorio, as any man was entitled to be with another in his own line of business, but he liked what he had seen of him at the time Jaak de Fleury was killed, and he had found him an unassuming, hard-working partner during the unpleasant tasks that had followed. In subsequent hours over the ledgers he had had to admit, as well, that the man was more than competent. At times, he thought that there was something more than competence behind the disconcerting black stare; but after he found that Gregorio had a mistress called Margot, he realised that he was just like everybody else. The woman was a good cook, as well. He wondered, after Gregorio had invited him, unprompted, to meet her, why he had the impression that Gregorio was secretly much amused.
To the rest of Bruges, of course, Nicholas was the new hero. Now everyone knew what a rogue Jaak de Fleury had been. Several had spotted it right away, when the man appeared so suspiciously, taking over the demoiselle’s business and claiming to own it. Nicholas and Julius between them had the facts and figures to show that he didn’t, and what’s more, had been cheating the poor Widow for years. And young Felix’s servants, if you questioned them, were very ready to tell just how and why Nicholas had got Felix safely away from M. Jaak in Geneva, and how well Nicholas and jonkheere Felix had got on from then on.
Everyone, of course, was sorry about what happened to the jonkheere, but agreed that his city and his family could be proud of him, fighting for King Ferrante and winning the laurels in a great joust in the Abruzzi. It was only a pity it hadn’t been here, so that his own friends could have cheered him. But if a young man had to die, what better way was there?
And as for Nicholas, who used to be Claes, who would have thought it? Held his own against two armed men and killed them, and then fought that bandit de Fleury to the death, no matter if another man had finally finished him. And so careful of his new wife, you wouldn’t believe, as well as showering her with all the money he’d made in Italy. You only had to hear the stories of the money credits he’d sent her through the summer, so that all her debts were paid, and the two girls could look forward to fine dowries. A good boy, Nicholas had turned out to be.
The only person who didn’t seem to want to rhapsodise about all this was Nicholas, who spent a dazed morning being slapped on his bandaged back and congratulated, and then took desperate refuge in work. Julius and Gregorio shared his long hours and the succession of hard-bargaining meetings without objection. Decisions made by Jaak de Fleury were corrected or reversed and new ones made in their place. The courier service was inspected, renewed and reorganised. Everything Gregorio had done since April was assimilated and discussed, including the purchasing programme for the Flanders galleys. And the vital meetings began with Bembo and the Venetian merchants.
Within a week, sanction should come from Venice for the acquisition by the Charetty and the Genoese merchants of the prescribed