The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [16]
“Wait until Godscalc comes,” Tobie said. “Then we can all leave together and Nicholas can repopulate Florence. I don’t know. I might stay and help him.”
“Do that,” said Julius. “You know what Monna Alessandra will do? She’ll geld you both.”
“Personally?” Tobie said.
“No, she’s no fool,” said Julius. “She’ll employ you to do it, and then dock your fee because you’ll be too sick to handle the aftercare. Oh, my God.”
The door opened. “You blaspheme?” said their hostess Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, straight as a pair of book-boards. Her plucked brow, high as Tobie’s, was finely printed by age in what could have been numbers. “It is time your priest came. You will make confession tomorrow, or leave this house of mine. Is that your fellow, this Niccolò?”
Julius, employee of widows, was readier than Tobie to answer. He said, “We’ve been waiting for him, Monna Alessandra. His Magnificence Messer Cosimo has sent for us.”
“Hence the cutting of hair. I am glad that some circumstance brought the need to your attention. Do you propose to go to the Palazzo Medici with your Niccolò in his present condition?”
She finished the sentence, even though by that time Nicholas had entered the room. Studying him, Tobie tried to be objective, and succeeded. The head of the Charetty company of Bruges was a very large young man, and well-developed. His throat was stalwart; his face widely framed and most remarkable in repose for its eyes, which were large and misleadingly innocent. It was however seldom in repose, being expert in the business of imitating the faces of other people. A scar less than a year old marked it from eye to chin on one side. He had never explained it. Gossip had long since put it down to a belting by some ex-virgin’s master or father, and if Nicholas was prepared to let the theory pass, then so were the few who knew better. His hair, the colour of dirt, had become wet during his walk, and was crimped like a spaniel’s buttocks. In one hand he grasped a stained jacket, flung haphazard over one shoulder. In the other he held a small object. Monna Alessandra said, “Hah! And what is that?”
Nicholas looked at her fondly. He turned the same smiling gaze towards Julius and Tobie, lingering only on the bead of blood standing on one of Julius’s ears. Julius’s scalp moved in annoyance. Returning his gaze to his hostess, Nicholas held up to the object in question. It was very small, hardly two inches across, and shaped like two mushroom heads stuck together. “This?” he said. “It’s a plaything. I made it. After my lord Cosimo has seen it, I’ll show it to you.”
Tobie and Julius gazed at him. Only Monna Alessandra took action. “You are stupid,” she said. She walked forward, plucked the object from his hand and, crossing the room, thrust the toy into the brazier. It burst into flame. “Playthings are for children,” she said. “You are an infant no longer. You are responsible. To your wife. To your company. To your colleagues. If they will not tell you, I shall. You will now clean yourself and your clothes and take the advice of your elders, or you will disgrace us all at the Palazzo. Do I wish the Republic to know that I have taken cretins into my home?”
Julius, mesmerised, gazed at the woman. Tobie preferred to watch Nicholas. He saw a single flicker of movement, then nothing more. Nicholas stood where he was, his gaze on the place where the little toy burned. It had, one supposed, taken some trouble to make. He had fashioned it, paring, shaping and buffing the wood, while holding that series of talks, as their representative, in the hilltop cloisters of the Franciscans. The Friars had not reproved him. He had joked, of course, about showing it to the Medici. In Bruges, he had liked to make playthings and puzzles.
Julius said, “Where have you been? The lord Cosimo has sent for us. You look disgusting.”
“I know,” said Nicholas. “But I’ve just found out I’m going to make a fortune. Say I’m beautiful.”
Monna