Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [72]
“She doesn’t recognise me,” said Claes, grinning down at her. “Claikine, Tasse. Remember Claikine, aged ten? The boiled eggs under the broody hen?”
“Claikine!” The formless face, rough as pastry, divided into planes of amazement, and then recognition, and then pleasure. “Claikine, grown!”
“Like a hedge. The whole tale of my successes. And how is Tasse?” She dropped her apron and Claes put both big hands under her armpits and swung her up in the air. She gasped, and beamed, and gasped, and her hair fell out of its coif in grey ribbons.
From the doorway came another gasp. Hard on the gasp came a scream. “Murder! Rapine! Robbery!” screamed Madame de Fleury.
Chapter 11
IT COULD, THOUGHT Tobie, be no one else, even before Esota de Fleury moved from the doorway and into the light. The brush of a heavy gown, the glimmer of a jewelled collar, the scent of imported essences – that was Madame, or a mistress. And nobody had talked of a mistress. And then the not unmusical voice, trembling with fright: “Husband! Men in the house! Oh Tasse, Tasse, you are ruined!”
Her voice rose, in a way with which Tobie was familiar. He said, “Put that woman down!” to the youth Claes. He was aware of a tinge of professional pride that, so soon after his recovery, Claes could lift a full-grown woman and hold her. Then he started towards the agitated Madame de Fleury, who immediately fainted. Tobie caught her, staggering a trifle, and lowered her to the tiled floor. Claes, his smile gone, ceased hugging the servant Tasse and set her upright. The negro Loppe, without being told, took a lamp from its bracket and brought it over. Tobie leaned over Jaak de Fleury’s helpmeet.
He expected to see, without doubt, a large woman. What else he saw was unaccountable. If her husband was, as he seemed, about fifty years old, Madame de Fleury was thirty or less, her skin unlined, her hair, uncovered and dressed as for a party with ribbons, a rich glossy brown. In a mask, apart from a certain lack of proportion, she might have raised a man’s hopes. Without one, there was no denying that she was ugly. Gazing down at the bladdered nose and the great jaw, the low sloping brow and the thumbnail eyes, tightly shut, Tobie wondered, mildly, what the size of her dowry had been to persuade Jaak de Fleury to marry her. Below the face, the solid body was encumbered in velvet. Childless, the notary had said. And decked in emeralds. One of her hands, blindly raised, was groping towards him. He put his own over it. “Don’t be afraid. We are guests, Madame de Fleury. From Bruges. From your kinswoman Marian de Charetty.”
Her eyes opened, and then her mouth, on a large framework of teeth. She said, “Tasse. He was assaulting her.”
Tobie slid his arm round her shoulders and helped her, with some trouble, to sit up. “He was greeting her,” he said. “Don’t you see who it is?” He was aware that, behind him, the Englishman Thomas stood impatiently scowling, while the negro Loppe had retired with care to the shadows.
Claes and the serving-woman stood side by side. The servant, who looked frightened, glanced at the youth. Claes had rested his gaze on the reclining woman. His expression was blank and without dimples, and his mouth occupied less of its line than was normal. Then of a sudden, in its familiar way it expanded. Claes said, “You won’t catch me ravishing anyone with Julius around. He’s the expert on that. Shall I fetch him for you?”
And the woman frowned, and moved weakly within Tobie’s grasp, and then said, “Little Claikine?”
“No. Big Claes,” said the apprentice calmly. He did not approach.
The woman gasped. “I feel