Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [296]
It brought his answer, at last. “Katelina!” said Jordan de Ribérac. “I thought I had told you. Didn’t I tell you she is your bitterest enemy, your most vicious opponent, the person who will not rest until you are punished? I never thought to see Simon confess his cuckoldry, that festering secret from his past. But of course, he was in his cups. Simon told her, this morning, who you are. The son of her husband, you might say, if you had been legitimate. The half-brother of her coming child. Oh, I tell you. If Simon thinks you are a devil, she thinks you are Satan himself. With what they are planning to do to you, and your wife, and your little company, I have nothing to fear.”
The clean-shaven chins quivered as the fat man chuckled. “I was to tell you that. She was insistent that I tell you that. Now she understands everything you have ever done.”
Nicholas said, “The demoiselle de Charetty has done nothing. Or the others in her company.”
The fat man said, “I believe you. Indeed, Katelina herself pities the lady. But for you, the demoiselle de Charetty would be safe.”
Nicholas said, “She will be safe.”
The fat man smiled. “Dead, she would be safe. But not once I’m in Kilmirren and Simon has to look for another arena. He should have married the Reid girl and gone to England like her brother. With all the double-dealing he’s been involved in at Calais, the Yorkists would welcome him. He could set up his business in Southampton, in London, in Burgundy. He might do it yet, with Katelina to spur him on. And all the merchants who don’t like losing trade to an elderly widow and her clog-wearing child lover might well feel like joining him. Jealousy wrecked my business, and jealousy will ruin yours.”
Nicholas said, “How could jealousy ruin you?”
“Antoinette de Maignélais,” the vicomte said. “You’ll never have heard of her. She thought, no doubt, that the King was paying me too much attention. She got wind of some connection I had with M. le Dauphin, and suddenly, the word had reached the King. But for the warning I got from the lady Katelina, I should have been taken. You could say that you, too, helped me escape.”
“In the same way, I expect, that I helped kill your brother,” said Nicholas.
“Oh, indirectly, of course,” said de Ribérac. “However else do you always act? Katelina knew she had to smuggle me out. She also knew there was a ship of mine in St Malo. The St Pol. I should be grateful, by the way, if you would refrain from using our family name. Claes vander Poele is already too close for comfort.”
“I shall remember,” said Nicholas. “And she arranged for you to board the ship and escape?”
“Because she happened to be there on business of yours,” said de Ribérac. “Something to do with an ostrich. Have I said something more witty than usual?”
“Yes,” said Nicholas. “You have completed my day. Is that all you wanted me for?”
His grandfather looked at him. “My dear fool,” he said. “What else should I ever want you for, except to tell you whom to kill and whom to leave alive? When you cease to be useful to me, I shall cease having you summoned.”
“I understand,” said Nicholas. He got up. “But next time, perhaps, you might have the courage to summon me in your own name.”
The fat man laughed aloud. “Don’t speak of courage as if you knew what it was. Certainly, I can tell you, you won’t receive another summons from Simon’s lady wife. Or if you do, you would be well advised not to answer it.”
Going home, he offended no doubt a great many people, because this time he saw and heard nothing until he was entering the house in Spangnaerts Street. Soon after that, he did notice Julius, who asked him how he was and then went away. He must have reported to the others because neither Tobie nor Gregorio came near him, although he became aware of a number of broadly smiling faces about the house and the yard. With a jolt, he remembered the ostrich.
His own room, which he had kept, was empty. He stood there for a while, thinking, and then, because there were things to be settled, he went to Marian’s cabinet. She was there