Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [55]
It annoyed Felix that Claes was not prepared, or able, to speak to him, and that, when he apparently went off his head and started a fever, it was to Julius that one doctor or the other gave his instructions, and Julius and his mother who sat by Claes and dosed him when they had time.
For three days, Felix had the door shut in his face. It was unfair. He needed some facts from Claes. When, on the fourth, he began to repeat his complaint, his mother cut in with unusual acidity. If he wanted to pick Claes’ brains through the hole in his chest, he was welcome to try, she informed him.
Felix was thrilled. Quite unchastened, he bounded to the sickroom, displaced a blushing girl on her lingering way out with a dinner-tray and sat down on a stool by Claes’ mattress.
“Well. Who did it?” he said. He bent forward. “You should see your face!” said Felix. “I’ll get a mirror. Remember that vat that went wrong, and came out sort of grey streaked with yellow?”
Claes was quite normal after all, because the dimples appeared and disappeared. Claes said, in nearly his usual voice, “You should have seen me yesterday. What happened to Astorre?”
“He proposed marriage to Mother,” said Felix. “All right. I can’t help it if it hurts you to laugh. He said Lionetto had impugned her honour and it was up to him to set it right.”
“Did she accept?” said Claes.
“She said she’d give him his answer at the same time as Oudenin,” said Felix. “And you’ve no idea how keen Oudenin is to marry her. You know what? He bought that black boy. You know. The one that dived for the glass you broke, you silly idiot. He bought the black boy, and he’s handed him as a present to Mother. To Mother!… Listen, I can’t help it. You asked,” said Felix impatiently. “Will I get somebody?”
He watched, intrigued, as Claes’ face turned yellow, and then white again. He then helped Claes to be sick, which everyone who ever went to a tavern was used to doing, and said morosely, as he dumped his head back on the pillow, “I can’t hold much of a conversation if all you do is splutter.”
His eyes shut, Claes grinned. “Tell me something sad,” he said.
“Anselm Adorne came this morning,” said Felix, which was the most boring item of news he could think of. “Oh, and Mabelie’s been twice, so now everybody knows you’re still seeing her. And Lorenzo. And John. And Colard, saying something about pigments. If you’ve been promising shearing-lakes to those painters, Mother will have your ears.”
“She can have them,” said Claes drowsily. “It’d spare me your recital.”
“Well, I came specially to see you,” said Felix, getting up crossly. He realised, suddenly, that he had been led away from the vital purpose of his visit. He said, “You didn’t say, anyway. That bastard Simon. Did he do this?”
Claes’ lips, reduced to normal, produced a reposeful snuffle. Felix, used to this also, opened his follower’s eyes by the simple expedient of grasping a handful of hair and pulling it tightly. “Simon?” said Felix.
“Pontius Pilate,” said Claes rather sourly, and would not be wakened again.
Normally, Felix would have persevered but, as he found to his astonishment, Julius put the entire blame upon him, Felix, for some imagined relapse in Claes’ condition, and barred the door to him for a day. In the end, even Tilde and Catherine got in before their older brother.
As someone had remarked, Claes was of a class that generally mended well, and he was strong. He also had, freakishly, the attentions of two doctors. When Quilico wasn’t there, Tobie frequently strolled in, mostly sober. Once they both came at the same time and went out together and got drunk. The day after that, Tobie sat on the sill in Claes’