Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [99]
The only one who seemed to mind was Thomas, who would have Claes’ society when he set out north to collect the rest of the company. And, perhaps, some of the men at arms, who had got used to Claes’ serial representation of Astorre fighting his way through the duchies of Europe, collecting screaming cooks who had to make veal jelly, and smoked ham and pounded pork fried in the way that he liked it, until there was no tent big enough for his cooks, his latrines or his belly. Claes also did a superb imitation of Lionetto, which Tobie did not wholly appreciate.
Captain Lionetto had arrived in Milan, and he and his former medical officer had had one clash in public already. Lionetto had a new cloak lined with dormice, and was covered in coloured stones which this time were quite clearly not glass. Someone was being very good to Lionetto, and Tobie suspected that it was not Piccinino, who had hired him. Nor was it the Medici, about whom Lionetto had told two shocking stories and professed an attitude of deepest contempt. Especially when he heard where Astorre had placed his money.
Tobie had told Astorre about the encounter, less to shake Astorre’s trust in the Medici than to invoke Astorre’s vigilance in case Lionetto sent three men after him, Tobie, with hatchets. It spoiled his pleasure at the thought of remaining in Milan over Christmas, which he had been at such pains to arrange. Julius had complained about that as well.
It had fallen to Tobie to point out that Brother Gilles was in no shape at present to travel. Despite captain Astorre’s fading interest, someone had to attend to the poor fellow’s leg. He undertook to do that. Then to deliver the monk to the Medici in Florence. Then to join Astorre and Julius and the others in Naples, where they would have spent the winter getting fat and surrounded by leeches of one sort or another. By that time, the spring fighting should be about to begin. Astorre would fight. Julius would count the wounded. He, Tobie, would heal them. Wherein lay the objection to that?
“It’s that girl,” Julius had said. “Isn’t it? By God, you’re as bad as Claes. I never see him either.”
“The trouble about you,” Tobie had said, “is that you think nobody is busy except yourself. Girls? Claes is at the Castello, learning to be a little soldier called Niccolò. The Duke’s Chancellor insisted, if he was going to protect the ducal packages. Me? I’m going to Piacenza tomorrow with Thomas and Manfred. We’ve the guns to order for Fleury, and I’m buying handguns for Astorre.”
“He didn’t tell me,” said Julius. “Out of the condotta fund?”
“I suppose so,” said Tobie. “Either that, or Claes is playing cards for money again.” He slapped the notary’s shoulder, which was solid and made his hand sting. He rotated it abstractedly all the way to the door, looking satisfied, while Julius sat and stared after him.
Chapter 15
GOSSIP, HURRYING over the Alps with departing Papal delegates, got to Bruges before Thomas or Claes. It included a tale that captain Astorre had won a useful contract for the Charetty company, and was sending to call south his fighting-men. Gossip, less believably, tried to make out that the Charetty had won some other contract to supply an accredited courier service between Flanders and Italy, run by – but no. The greatest lords, the greatest men of business in northern Italy entrusting their dispatches to Claes, that scatterbrained lump of an apprentice, who had marched out of Bruges with the company just three months before? Was it likely?
Felix de Charetty, stuck in Bruges with his sisters while his mother was storming about managing the business in Louvain, was one of the first to hear that piece of news, and he believed it all right. Trust Claes. All the best riots, all the best jokes they’d ever shared had begun with some idea of Claes’. He envied the couriers the fun they would have before it all collapsed about their ears, like the Waterhuss prank. He tried to imagine the beating