Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [27]
Nicholas thought. He could take it no further. It had been worth attempting. Whatever they both did in business, it oughtn’t to touch Tilde and Catherine. ‘You have my limited confidence,’ he said, his face solemn.
‘Good. Then I shall tell your brave escort they can go. Will your trust go so far as to eat with us?’
‘When,’ said Nicholas, ‘did you know an ex-convict ever refuse a good meal?’
He watched Adorne leave, and was only aware that someone else had entered the room when a child touched his sleeve. He turned. A small girl stared at his face. ‘I know you,’ she said.
‘And I know you,’ said Nicholas. ‘Your name is Lewijse, and you want to see a guessing-puzzle in cotton.’
The child’s cheeks reddened and bulged. ‘It is!’ she said. ‘It’s Claes! The one that does jokes!’
Three other children pushed in, and he surveyed them all. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘What first? A joke or a puzzle?’
They wanted a puzzle, but he didn’t have thread.
He had wool. He lifted the crumpled rate card and, one by one, drew from their slots the soft yarns, dyed with the grains of the Orient. Then, pleating, twining and knotting, he fashioned a cord fit for Joseph. To celebrate, he tossed it into the air and made it snake and whirl like the Persian toy he had once sent home from Florence. Then he dropped it looping over his fingers and made it perform, while four intent pairs of eyes followed his movements.
He did not see Margriet Adorne come to seek him and stop, quietly drawn to one side by her husband. But he heard, when it came, the summons to dinner.
Instead of waiting three days, Adorne had hinted, he ought to leave Bruges immediately. It gave him no time to tidy the final, frayed ends of his business life with the Charetty – but Julius, he supposed, would be willing to act as his agent in that. Tommaso Portinari would be annoyed, but then he had no sense of humour, or he would hardly have offered to help Nicholas batter his way into Spangnaerts Street. There were people he liked and hadn’t seen, like Colard Mansion the painter. Some he had caught sight of in passing, riding last night to the inn. A good many had avoided his eye, although he was then in a state of bereavement, not one of disgrace. The more senior inclined their heads but didn’t add to his embarrassment – or maybe their own – by coming forward. But some had slapped his knee and said, ‘Bad luck. Come and visit us.’ John Bonkle was one of those, and Jehan Metteneye, the innkeeper, who had cause to remember him. They probably meant it, and would still mean it today, when all Bruges knew what had happened.
But there wasn’t time to stay, for several reasons. There wasn’t time, for one reason in particular. He said to Thomas, returned to the yard of the inn, ‘All right. I’m free. I’ve got a pardon. We’re leaving.’
‘You can’t,’ Thomas said. ‘The Duke’s Controller is here. Pierre Bladelin. He wants to apologise, and place an important traveller in your care. It’s the lady. It’s the lady –’
Nicholas turned his horse in the opposite direction. ‘Primaflora. Tell them I’ve gone. Pack and meet me in Ghent.’
‘You won’t get out the gates,’ Thomas called. ‘She says the Queen …’
He didn’t listen. Let Thomas make what excuses he could. If he couldn’t get out, then he’d go to earth. In the end, he got rid of the horse and doubled back to St Donatien’s, where he knocked up Colard, and he and the painter got drunk together amid the inks and vellum and reeking tallow. He had, of course, been sober for a very long time. It occurred to him that he hadn’t managed to get drunk, even when he wanted to, since the news of Marian’s death. Perhaps the present blessing was due to Colard’s personality, which was violently self-centred, and the fact that he was not directly part of Marian’s world. Although it was through Colard that he had engaged the priest Godscalc. He thought he owed quite a lot to Colard for that.
December darkness fell early, and brought a vague inclination for food. With money from Nicholas, Colard sent a boy for a joint and more ale – and, an afterthought, for some news