Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [84]
“Of course I saw Claes,” said Tobie. “He was right in front of my nose. If you also want my interpretation, he was hoping for a nice little avalanche, and he got a big one. And a fright to go with it. He was as white as the snow for a bit, was our little friend Claes.”
Julius was looking at him. Julius said, “I’ve seen him get more than he bargained for. I’ve seen him frightened. But I tell you something. Underneath all the fright, the bastard enjoys it. Or he’d stop. Wouldn’t he?”
The tone was impatient, but under it there ran a thread of something almost like wistfulness. Tobie rode on, and left the question unanswered.
Chapter 13
LED BY THEIR captain Syrus de Astariis, known to the trade as Astorre, the spearhead of the Charetty company rode into the city of Milan eleven days after leaving Geneva. From far across the green Lombardy plain, travellers had a view of the red massive walls of the capital, and its spires and its towers. The duchy of Milan was one of the Five States of Italy, rival to Venice, secret ally to Naples, open friend of the Pope. The duchy of Milan stretched from Tuscany to the Alps and was at this moment beloved of Florence, which could not reach its northern markets without it. And Florence, at this moment, meant the Medici.
Milan was not latticed with water like Bruges, or built on it like Venice. Milan was protected by two concentric circles of canalised river and ramparts of handsome red brick, pierced by six portals. Astorre proposed to enter through the Porta Vercellina. It was a provocative entrance, planned all the way through Aosta, Ivrea, Vercelli and Novara, where they had spent a whole night, Julius remarked, polishing gear like a wife on the eve of a bankruptcy sale.
Julius himself did his share, however: presenting himself with his papers at dawn at the drawbridge, and employing the pure, persuasive Italian which belonged to his notarial years in Bologna. By midday he was back with a permit and a paper from the Duke’s secretary allowing them wood, wine and lodging in the Inn of the Hat and its annexes. An hour later they were riding through the Visconti portals, and past the hunting-grounds of the Castello Visconteo now being transformed, in a maze of cranes and shovelling men and red fork-tailed battlements, into the Castello Sforzesco.
For the heiress of the Visconti had married Francesco Sforza, son of one of the greatest condottieri, God save us, that Italy had ever known. And Francesco Sforza, these nine years Duke of Milan, was the man to recognise a professional turn-out when he saw one. So the Company Charetty paced through the crowded Milanese streets, helms and shields and knee-armour glittering, and lances erect as the masts of a war-fleet. And other captains, equally lured from their hearths by the aroma of war, looked appraisingly through tavern windows as Astorre’s charger picked its way over the paving, the horse-cloth heavy with expensive embroidery; the harness glistening over its chest and netting its hips in intricate leathers.
Captain Astorre had ostrich-plumes today in his helmet, and a fur collar which covered his quarter-ear, and rings on top of his gloves. Today, he had no wish to be part of a lance, rollicking round a barn fire and complaining about women and usurers. Perhaps he was less sure the following day when the head of the ducal Chancery summoned him to the Court of Arengo, the old Visconti palace beside the cathedral, to make known what services he and his company offered.
A fighting man, after all, was at his best in the field and not stumbling over his sword in the presence of noblemen. Astorre supposed he could rely on the wits of the notary, whom he was taking with him. And he had a fine gift for the Duke in the African Loppe, who had been dressed up in red cloth quilted over his chest so that given only a pillow (said that chatterer Claes) you could go to bed in him. They’d got him two-coloured hose into the bargain, and a Sforza