Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [18]
The priest brought out wine at the end of the paperwork, but Nicholas made some excuse and left without tasting it. It embarrassed Thomas, as the priest was still talking, and had offered them supper. On the road, he complained. Nicholas said, ‘We learned nothing new. He only wanted to gossip.’
Thomas grunted, but as time went by, his expression became somewhat more hopeful. Nicholas could read his mind. It was December, and freezing, but at least nothing stood now between him and Bruges, and warmth, and comfort, and mates of your own ordinary kind who would speak to you.
In the event, Bruges came upon Nicholas rather suddenly. He had thought he was prepared for it. The sergeant in charge at the bridge was a burgess’s son who recognised him. He said an awkward word or two about the demoiselle’s death, and then asked, after a pause, if Nicholas was going to Spangnaerts Street. Or the dyeyard?
Spangnaerts Street was the address of the excellent quarters – house, warehouse and stables – where he and Marian and all their clerks lived and had their offices. The yard, elsewhere in Bruges, held their work force. Answering, he saw the other’s eyes flicker. But if something was wrong, Julius would have sent word, or met him. He was aware that news of his coming would have been in Bruges for days. But the sensation, surely, was over. The demoiselle de Charetty was dead, and had left her husband nothing, as everyone knew, because he needed nothing. Why should he be here, except to comfort and help his wife’s daughters?
Thomas said, ‘There’s something up.’ Simple though Thomas might be, he had an instinct.
Nicholas said, ‘Yes. Never mind. Too many people. Let’s go.’
As usual, he had fortified himself against the wrong catastrophe. In the crowded streets, he saw hardly any faces he knew; was stopped for no funereal outbursts. The streets were busy, of course, as they always were, and faces turned as he and Thomas rode by, but he was not called on to act. Thus, with undiluted insistence, there fell on his ears all the sounds he had missed for a year: the clack of the looms, the rumble of barrels, the creak of signs, the echo of under-bridge voices; the splash and trickle and rush of canal water. The sounds and the smells of the great Flemish town where he had grown to manhood and marriage. Marian’s town.
Spangnaerts Street was not far away, and filled as usual with draught horses and oxen, boxes and barrels, servants and merchants and the chilled and shadowy scents of fruit and spices and dyes. Outside the tall, gabled house he had bought for his wife there were clusters of people who were neither neighbours nor passers-by, but who seemed to be waiting. He saw, as the faces turned, that they were waiting for him. He stopped Thomas. ‘You know the Avignon hostelry? Go there. Find beds for us all, and wait for me.’
Thomas frowned. ‘Not here? There’ll be beds.’
‘If I change my mind, I’ll send for you,’ Nicholas said. There were spikes on the high wall that enclosed the courtyard of his house. He had put them there himself. He had never had guards standing below, as they now did. He rode slowly forward to the gate and dismounted. He said, ‘Will you hold my horse?’ to one of the boys, and walking to the closed gates, pulled the bell. The postern opened.
It was not Julius who stood on the threshold, or Godscalc, or any of the men he and Marian had employed or trained. The stranger said, ‘Yes?’
Nicholas said, ‘I am the husband of Marian de Charetty, come home from Venice. Are her daughters there, or Meester Julius, or Father Godscalc perhaps?’
‘They are all away,’ said the man.
‘Really?’ Nicholas said. ‘Then perhaps I might wait for them?’
‘I regret,’ said the man. ‘I cannot admit you.’
‘I understand,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I do intend, of course, to come in. There is nothing difficult about it. You can either bring out someone who knows me, or I will bring you a man of good faith to identify me. Which would you like?’
‘Monseigneur,’ said the porter.