Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [31]
Claes’ battered face showed, also, his customary cheerful smile. “And give you good day, Messer de’ Acciajuoli,” he said. “If you’re collecting for me, don’t try the King of Scots this time.”
Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli pursed his bearded lips, but his eyes were amused. “Nor the Duke of Burgundy, I must assume,” he said. “After the episode of the bath and the cannon. Nor, I suppose, those innkeeper-brokers with pretty serving-girls. Do you cause so many upsets in Louvain?”
Claes tilted his head and brought it cautiously upright again. “Perhaps,” he said. “But the university is more used to them.”
“Where, of course, you attend your young master. And his mother, the widow of Charetty, oversees you. Is she strict?”
“Yes,” said Claes, and shivered.
“I am glad to hear it,” said the Greek blandly. “I hear from Messer Adorne that she is on her way to Bruges to deal with these matters. Master Julius has already called to discuss your case, and you may well be freed before nightfall, if a price can be agreed. Do you think your employer will retain your services, which are costing her so dear?”
“Monsignore,” said Claes. Two lines had appeared on the untroubled brow.
“Yes?” said the Greek.
“I thought I would be out by mid-morning. They let you out after a beating.”
“Are you complaining?” said Acciajuoli. “By offering money, your master the notary has spared you a second beating so soon after the first.” He paused. “Or did you have another assignation?”
Behind the bars, the brow cleared. “That’s it,” said Claes. “And my friends have left. And if I know him, Meester Julius won’t let Felix come and see me. And – I don’t suppose, monsignore, I could trouble you to convey a message to Felix de Charetty?”
Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli, of a race of Athenian princes, who had merely paused from curiosity on his way from Messer Adorne’s house to a pleasant rendezvous in a tavern, was moved to laugh. He said, “In Greek? I very much doubt if it would be possible. In any case, why should I?” He might have agreed, so clear was the boy’s smile.
“Because you stopped,” said Claes.
Messer de’ Acciajuoli paused. His feelings at that moment were of a sort that Julius would have recognised. He said eventually, “And what would be the message?”
“Tell him not to do it,” said the apprentice simply.
“Tell him not to do it,” repeated the Greek. “And what is he not to do?”
“What he is doing,” said Claes. “He’ll know.”
“Presumably he will,” said Messer de’ Acciajuoli. “But I am going to the market-place to join my good friend Anselm Adorne after his magistrates’ meeting. I have no idea where to find the shop of the Charetty.”
“Monsignore, there is no difficulty,” said Claes. “Felix will be with Meester Julius in the Two Tablets – in the same tavern after the fine is paid. The magistrates meet upstairs to consider these cases. I hear that Turks are damned souls and drink nothing.”
It was time to go. “Some of them drink,” the Greek said. “But I don’t know if you could consider them saved as a consequence. I can make you no promise, young fellow. If I see your young friend, I shall tell him.”
The great smile returned. “Monsignore,” said Claes. “Tell me, if any day I may do you a favour.”
The Greek laughed. Afterwards, he remembered laughing.
If the angriest man in Bruges that day was the Scots nobleman Simon, the next was Julius, the Charetty notary.
By noon, of course, the news of Claes’ folly was all round the town. Of the repercussions in Silver Straete, where Florence van Borselen heard an uncensored account with some disappointment, and his daughter a censored one with contemptuous laughter, Julius knew nothing.
He learned, as everyone did, that the town had taken advice, quietly, of the officials involved, and was not proceeding against anybody. It was assumed that the injured Metteneye family would complain to the long-suffering Charetty family about the conduct of its apprentices, and restitution would be made. The owner of the scavengers