Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [20]
‘She’s off her head, the poor thing,’ said a woman. ‘What are you going to do, Meester Nicholas?’
Meester Nicholas. The under-manager of the Medici Bank had called him that too, just now. Had offered to lend him one or two men, indeed, to break his way into the building. Nicholas had replied, with restraint, that he had thought of starving them out. He had then added quickly that it seemed likely that the doors would be unbarred at some point, unless the company were to go out of business, but that he had no intention of forcing himself on his step-daughters. He repeated the gist of this now, and removed himself and Thomas politely into the inn. It was a good one, being sited behind the church of St Donatien, near the burgh square and within a discreet distance of Spangnaerts Street, which was why he had chosen it. There were therefore quite a lot of men of substance who heard Thomas say, as they ascended the stairs, ‘You’ll never guess who is here.’
‘I’ve just been told,’ Nicholas said. ‘An envoy of Carlotta of Cyprus. Popular opinion has already made her my mistress. Where is she?’
‘Out. But everyone knows she’s been asking for you. What’s she doing in Bruges?’ Thomas said. He opened a door on an empty room.
Nicholas followed him in and closed the door firmly. ‘At a guess, cajoling money for Cyprus out of Duke Philip,’ he said. ‘If the Queen sent an accredited envoy, she would upset her dear relative France. Hence Primaflora with, I should think, an excellent clerk, a decent retinue and an inadequate chaperon.’
‘The Duke’s past it,’ said Thomas.
‘But I am not,’ Nicholas said. ‘And the Queen wants me as well.’
‘I see,’ Thomas said. He sat down, still in his boots. ‘That Primaflora, she’s just lost her husband.’
He had picked Thomas to travel with because of all the qualities he was now displaying. It was too late to regret it. Nicholas said, ‘Ansaldo wasn’t her husband. The lady Primaflora, Thomas, is a professional courtesan.’
Thomas made a visible effort. ‘You could afford one,’ he said.
‘No. I think,’ Nicholas said, ‘she would be too expensive.’
The message was slipped under his door late that night. He rose quietly, lit a taper and read it without waking Thomas. Then he pulled on pourpoint and hose and left, carrying his soft boots and cloak to put on in the passage.
There was no one awake in the common-room, and he unbarred the front door himself and stepped out into hoar frost and fog. It was as well that he knew every bridge, every well, every street, every house in this city. The night-lanterns were diminished by fog, flat as sequins. As he walked, he saw the Mother of God, eyes upturned, suspended over the city, the Child in her arms. Or perhaps it was an image three inches high, lamplit on some near, pious corner. His soles slid on the cobbles, and crunched on the rime in between them. Once he heard other footsteps, belonging no doubt to the watch. He thought, at one point, of crossing to the warm unseen fire of the cranemen, but thought better of it. They were good friends, who had helped him enough in his escapades. He crossed the bridge by the Spinola quay, and felt his way quietly through Spangnaerts Street.
The bodyguard were no longer there, although the lanterns had been lit at the gates and all the way along the spiked wall, and there was a rim of light round the porter’s lodge shutters. He walked round, and found the rope hanging over the wall between the spikes, and the mattress laid conveniently over them. He tested the rope, and then jumped, and gripped it, and hauled himself up, and then over.
Julius met him by the stables: a familiar whisper;