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 Claes would have to put up with this time. When the first of the country people, coming in through the St Catherine’s Gate, reported a grand papal nuncio’s cavalcade on its way into Bruges (that little bishop Coppini) and, guess what, a group with the Charetty flag keeping them company, Felix yelled to his sisters and found and rammed on his beaver hat with the tall crown.
Tilde, who fussed the way his mother once did when his father was living, rushed up to him with his cloak, and stood looking wistfully after him. At Catherine’s age she would have screamed to go with him, but thirteen had its dignity. Catherine, on the other hand, jumped up and down, pumping her sister’s sleeved arm and chanting. Since Claes left, Catherine had become a woman. She thought she might like to marry Claes, especially if he was away a lot, and brought her presents from Italy.
Naturally, the arrival of the papal nuncio had been heralded, and by the time Felix and a number of his friends had arrived at the St Catherine’s Gate, the ducal representatives and the sires of Ghistelle and Gruuthuse and the burgomasters and the Chancellor of Flanders and the dean of St Donatien and the Provost and Receiver of Notre Dame and the clerics of St Sauveur and the monks from the Minorite Friars and the Augustines and the Jacobins and the Carmelites were all standing in the February cold, with the town trumpets and drums, greeting the Bishop as he rode up with his escort.
Behind, waiting to make a less elaborate entrance, was Astorre’s deputy Thomas. With him were half a dozen men at arms and a figure with a pointed helmet and huge elbow-guards and glittering leg-armour and a stout horse as good as Thomas’s. The figure was Claes. His new armour was striped with bird-shit from the pigeons disturbed by the trumpeters. Terracotta within its circular frame, his face beamed at his fellows with its remembered, undisturbed, dazzling smile. What was more, Thomas was grinning as well. Thomas!
Elbowing his way through the respectful ranks of the crowd, the heir to the Charetty won to the rear, his fellows following, and pulled off and waved his beaver hat at his mother’s servants. “What do you think you’re doing! Back to the dyevats!” shouted Felix, snorting with laughter. John Bonkle stood grinning behind him, and Anselm Sersanders, and Lorenzo Strozzi, and two of the Cant boys.
His apprentice Claes raised a gauntletted hand and made, also grinning, a vast and explicit gesture. He said in the burgomaster’s voice, “Boys! Boys! Remember the great city you represent!”
Among the men at arms and the spare horses, it could now be seen, a group of baggage mules stood also waiting, their canvas bales bulging. It was Lorenzo Strozzi who looked it over and said, “I thought couriers didn’t stop to trade?”
“That’s what I told him,” said Thomas.
“Trade?” said Claes. “It wasn’t trade, it was a free gift, as you’ll be the first to agree. There was this band of freebooters –”
“Robbers.”
“Highwaymen.”
“And you destroyed them?” said Felix.
“No! No,” said Claes. “Someone had done that already, and all their old armour and weapons were being sold off cheap at Dijon. Half price or less. It was a bargain.”
Felix said, “How did you pay for them?” His narrow face had somehow got narrower.
“Out of my wages,” said Claes. “And Thomas’s wages. If your mother doesn’t want them, we’re planning to sell them off at a profit. But of course –”
“What do you mean? You’re her employee. They belong to her. You’d better come along to the yard,” Felix said. The smile began to spread again. “And wipe the dirt off all that tin. No boiled leather leggings now, eh? And princesses in your bed, speaking Italian.”
“Speak?” said Claes. “Let them do one thing but gasp, and you’re done for. Thomas will tell you. If you stop for a rest, they scream for their fathers and there you are, made a Duke.”
Thomas was still grinning. “That’s a lie,” he said. “But they’re good enough wenches. Claes is right.”
“And we’ve brought something for you,” said Claes to Felix.
“A girl?” said Felix. The note in his voice said it all. He saw, by the deliberate pause, that Claes heard, and was impressed.
“No,” said Claes. “I see it isn’t wanted. I’ll take it back. It was a porcupine in a cage.”
“That’s a girl,” said Lorenzo Strozzi, returned to gloom. “And how was Meester Julius? And the rest of them?” The ecclesiastical cortege had moved on, allowing them to enter the town in their turn and make their way, noisily, through narrow streets where every other man called a greeting, and quite a few girls as well.
Claes said, “Meester Julius is fine, so far as a humble person like myself could tell – all his days spent in one palace or another, drawing up contracts and arguing about fees and clothes and provisions, and dancing on his toes with fine ladies.”
“Astorre too?” said Anselm.
“The finest court dancer in Italy,” said Claes. “If you caught sight of Astorre hand in hand with the Duchess, with his hat full of flowers and his frills and ribbons so long they need a page-boy on each side to carry them, you would weep for admiration. As for the doctor, your brother-in-law had better look out, Messer Lorenzo. That sister of yours is the prettiest girl in Milan, and Me
ester Tobias wasn’t the last person to notice it.”
“You saw Caterina?” said Lorenzo, his eyes brightening. “And my mother? Was there news of Filippo?”
“And Loppe? And Brother Gilles …?”
“The horses? Did you see Lionetto?”
“And girls? Come on, what were the girls really like?”
It was a merry homecoming.
Even when, late that night, the others had gone, and the two entranced sisters, flushed and wide-eyed, had at last been coaxed to their chamber, Felix sat before the fire in his mother’s little cabinet, talking and talking while Claes listened. A shrewder eye, looking at Claes and recalling how far he had travelled, might have wondered why he remained.
Some of his business was done. With the Widow away, there was no one to report to. After the unloading, the men at arms had been sent off to take their ease, Thomas with them. Then Claes had made the required trip to the dyesheds to have his shoulders slapped by his friends, and answer all manager Henninc’s less searching questions. After that, Claes had quartered the town, as a courier should, to deliver his letters. Some doors were shut, and some merchants absent.
Undelivered documents had come back with him: he would have to arrange for them. He had some oral reports still to make. Some clients, curious, wanted him back for a refreshment. He had to see Angelo Tani tomorrow. Today. It was very late.
“… That was after the explosion,” Felix was saying.
“The explosion?” said Claes. He had heard, first of course, about the girl. The girl who – at last – had coaxed Felix out of his virginity. It was not, as he had wondered, the girl Mabelie, but someone new, from Varsenare, come in to do kitchen work, and the sailors hadn’t even got to her yet. (Oh yes, the Flanders galleys were still here. Half the seamen, of course, were kept busy in the boatyards on caulking and repairs and refitting and the town took good care to think up work for the rest, but all the same, every night was carnival night to those foreign pigs. Which reminded Felix …)
“It’s not long till Carnival Night. Yes, I know. I’ll be here for it.” “What else?” had said Claes. And had been told, in detail.
He gathered that the city fathers, once Claes had gone, had lost all sense of humour and had made a ridiculous fuss over the smallest thing, which in turn had put Felix’s mother into a rage, just like a woman. All those things Julius had talked about? Well, he had done some of them. He’d found someone to make buckles, and they’d bought some sheets of copper from England, from a boat that didn’t want to put into Calais. A woman had agreed to sew helmets. But then there had been that trouble over the hawking, and by the time it was over he didn’t know what his mother had done.
Detailed account of the trouble over the hawking. Specifically detailed account of this splendid girl, whose name was Grielkine. Mabelie, he ought to tell Claes, was now the friend of John Bonkle. Now Felix thought of it, he’d forgotten that the Bonkles were a half-Scottish family, but it didn’t matter. That bastard Simon had gone back to Scotland anyway, and so had Bishop Kennedy and so had the cannon. Katelina van Borselen was still about, and still unmarried. The Greek with the wooden leg had left, with his begging bowl. Felix couldn’t remember his name. Claes didn’t enlighten him.
Louvain? Oh. Well. What did Claes want to know? Oh yes: his mother was there just now. Well, she spent half her time there. My God, the new manager there was a handful. It was like listening to Goliath and David, his mother and that fellow standing up to one another. Bark, bark. Yap, yap. No. He was wrong. Goliath and God-damned Goliath. Felix couldn’t imitate them as well as Claes could. It would make John and Anselm and the rest spew up into their beer. They went to a new tavern now: they’d fallen out with the old fool at the other one. That was after the explosion.
“What explosion?” said Claes tenderly.
But Felix had veered off the subject again. Felix always resisted direction. He had, however, drunk quite a lot and, before too long, was steered back, mildly aggravated. The explosion. What about it? Numbskull incompetence, as was usual. One of the dyevats went up like a cannonball, shattering the suction pump and cracking the sewage pipe and losing a whole list of cloth and a boiling of crimson. It had taken a week to replace everything, and his mother had foamed at the mouth for a fortnight. Useless idlers! They deserved all they’d got.
“What did they get?” Claes asked.
“Red faces,” said Felix adroitly. He made a space for the laugh. “Ernout was worst – remember that idiot? The others lost a few yards of skin here and there, but that’s nothing.”
Claes said, “I thought I saw a few new faces.”
“Personally,” said Felix, “I think they’re all Henninc’s nephews, but when I say so, he just gets angry. I’ve found a man who can cut taffeta in the French way. You know. It’s expensive, though. What did you pay for those arms you bought at half-price?”
But Claes, unaccountably, had fallen asleep and did not hear him. When Felix kicked him a couple of times he merely grunted, and turned over on the settle he had appropriated, which was high-handed enough, for an employee. With some trouble, Felix tipped the settle over, depositing Claes on the floor, where he continued to sleep. From experience, Felix knew that there would now be no awakening him. He lifted the waterjug and emptied it, concentrating, on the fire. Then he made his way, with slight difficulty, to the door, the staircase and his bed.
He was still in bed early the following morning, when Claes left sedately to pay a social call, as invited, on the Medici bank. It was, on the face of it, a minor event. Tobias Beventini might have warned them otherwise.
Angelo Tani, the manager, had shown, in arranging the interview, the qualities his Medici masters had honoured when they made him managing partner of the Bruges company, with five hundred shares of its capital, and a right to one fifth of its profits. His deputy was Tommaso Portinari, whose two elder brothers controlled the Medici bank in Milan. It was Pigello Portinari who, in some distant convulsion of madness, had entrusted this youth with a courier service. Hence Tommaso was to receive Claes as well.
Angelo was well aware that Tommaso Portinari was a jealous young man; jealous even of his own brothers. Angelo did not enjoy the sensation that every now and then mysterious reports on his own shortcomings found their way to Florence, but he put up with it. Ambition was a hone to performance, and his own record for a youngish man was unshakable.
Tommaso had some ability. Left in charge, he could wriggle out of a law suit; placate a customer. But he also liked flattering patronage. When Tani came back, he would find a few deals, a few loans on the books that he and his masters had doubts about. And, criticised, Tommaso would go off and commune in a corner with his opposite number, that fool Lorenzo Strozzi. At such times, Angelo would rub his round head of frizzled curls and draw his pen towards him and arrange for Tommaso, with his fine, ascetic face and diligent culture, to take trips to Brussels and Nieppe, and make himself agreeable to Duke Philip and his independent Duchess and his better-dressed courtiers.
It was good for business, and social success kept Tommaso contented. He wished sometimes that Tommaso would marry, instead of embroiling himself in long-standing contracts with large, stupid women. He supposed that, like all good Florentine mothers, Caterina di Tommaso Piaciti had forbidden her son to marry anyone but a Florentine. Pigello was married already, with two promising sons. One never knew. Perhaps when one of his plain mistresses gave him a plain son, Tommaso would be encouraged to have a bride sent out from Italy. Or perhaps what he wanted was not, in any case, to found another branch of the Portinari dynasty, which stretched back already more than two hundred years. Angelo often wondered how the Portinari felt, serving the Medici. But then, the Portinari had never won fortunes, or cities, whereas Cosimo had done both.
So Angelo Tani drew his under-manager into his room before the new courier came and said, “I think it would be wise, Tommaso, to forget that this boy Claes has been an apprentice. There are those in Milan, it s
eems, who think him useful. We should make him welcome.”
Tommaso had acquired another ring. The stone was Oriental. It represented, no doubt, some sort of discount on the goods he had bought from the Flanders galleys. Tommaso said, his eyebrows disappearing under his stylish arrangement of fringe, “He will be duly astonished. The last time I saw him downstairs he had a pair of shears under his arm, and an apron you could smell from the belltower.”
Tani said, “I don’t propose, naturally, that you carry him up the staircase and then wash his feet. But a courteous recognition of the fact that he has received a deserved elevation – that should not seem out of place. Unless you would prefer not to see him?”
Vain hope. Beringed and fastidiously dressed, Tommaso was there beside Angelo Tani when the parlour door opened on Claes. Today the Charetty servant wasn’t wearing an apron and there were short boots on his feet instead of clogs. The rest of his clothes certainly hadn’t tied up a fortune. The Widow had outfitted them all in blue cloth before they went to Milan, and that, clearly, was what Claes was wearing: a stiff-collared doublet with a short, plain jacket over, and a double-brimmed cap. He was professionally shaved, and his old frayed purse had been replaced by a newer one with a good latch, but otherwise there was no difference that leaped to the eye. His cheeks shone, dimple-buttoned. He said to Tommaso, “You’ve got a new ring. Duke Francesco has one like that. And a brooch to match. Made by one of his goldsmiths. What did you pay?”
Tommaso pondered, and then named a figure.
Claes, emitting an unfocused whistle, sat down on the bench offered him. “No, I couldn’t find you anything better than that. That was a bargain. You stick to your supplier. Messer Angelo, thank you. So you read the letters? Were they in order?”
“My friend, in excellent condition,” said Angelo heartily. He poured wine into three of the good cups, handed it, and sat himself beside Claes. “Considering the road, and the weather. And, no doubt, you had several others to carry.”