The beauty of the fire was now at its height. The fusion of strange and precious substances created a red and yellow pyre of extraordinary brilliance, shot through with salt greens and acid yellows and an unsettling violet. Now and then, above the crackling roar, a report or a hiss would herald a ribbon of silver or a plume of gamboge or an arrowhead of crimson, spitting sparks. The yard, pooled with water, reflected it.
Then the wind turned, and the black pall of the cloth smoke found its way, with the stench, to the roadway. As if awakened, the crowd started to move. The house, half ash, half fire, offered no threat now, with the altered wind. The nearby houses were safe, and the swarming figures began to leave them one by one. The woman who must be Marian de Charetty stood still, looking towards them. Simon saw the man in the black doublet speak to her gently and then, moving away, begin to look about him. Soon he was surrounded. He would have shelter to find, of course, for all the Widow’s people.
But of course, she was a widow no longer; and it was perfectly plain what she was waiting for. Something more important than the mere distress of her employees and their losses. And, sure enough, a figure separated from the last group of soot-blackened men coming back from their labours, and trod with strong, bare feet towards the woman and her two daughters. This immortal young bastard; this Nicholas.
Whatever expression he wore, a gum of soot and sweat concealed it. There was burned skin as well as dirt on his body where the untied shirt didn’t cover it. Then Simon saw the flash of his teeth and the taller of the two young girls left her mother’s shoulder and ran towards him suddenly. Nicholas put his arm round her tightly and kissed her forehead. Then holding her at his side, he walked forward and, one-handed, drew the woman and the younger child into the same wordless embrace. The mother’s long, ruffled hair blew about them.
What he said after that could not be heard, but the woman’s eyes as she listened spoke for her. Indeed, no one watching could doubt precisely how she had been induced to marry. Then her juvenile husband, breaking carefully away, called to the man in black, who turned and replied, and then looked about him, and then saw Simon, and pointed.
In his black cloak and satin feasting-clothes, slightly ruffled by Betkine, Simon waited while Nicholas walked over and stood before him. Below the dirt, the youth’s face was colourless.
Simon said, “With the world full of fat little businesses, why marry one so ill-smelling when heated? I hear you planned to scurry to safety tomorrow. But see, we’ve met none the less.”
They might call him Nicholas now, but the boy who took all the beatings still stood before him. He said, “Gregorio tells me that he left all our ledgers in your care.”
“Gregorio?” said Simon. He looked about.
“The lawyer in black. He did not, of course, know who you were,” said the youth.
Simon located the man in black and smiled at him. The man began to come over.
“Oh, another gallant employee drenched in urine. Tell him not to come,” Simon said. “If, of course, that’s the man whom you mean. I’ve never seen him before, or your poor ledgers. Are you sure, my dear Nicholas, that your lawyer didn’t find it convenient to throw them back into the fire? It’s been known.”
The man Gregorio had arrived. He turned to the youth who, God save him, he must be forced to regard as his employer. He said, “What did he do with them?”
“Flung them back in the fire, I imagine,” said Nicholas. “This is a gentleman called Simon of Kilmirren. It allows me to repeat what I said the other day. If he attempts to enter any building of ours, or interfere with any employee of ours, or speak to the demoiselle against her wishes, you are to call Meester Metteneye and Meester Adorne immediately.”
Simon looked at the fellow’s clown’s eyes, large and white as blisters in the blackened face. He said, “There must, surely, be some insult that would force you into a manly attitude. But, by God, I am at a loss to think what it could be. In a somewhat varied life, I have never met, Meester Gregorio, a servant quite so craven as the one who calls himself your master.”
He smiled and moved off, and no riposte followed him. He did not look round to see if the youth was gazing after him.
After a moment Gregorio said, “I take it you have your reasons.”
Nicholas turned. He said, “I don’t know whether I have or not. There is more to think of than a squabble.”
“The ledgers …” said Gregorio.
“They’re not irreplaceable. And if you’re going to ask whether he started the fire, I don’t know.”
“But you are going to try and find out?”
“No. You are,” said Nicholas. “You’ll have a lot of help. The city takes these things seriously. But I don’t expect anything will be found.”
“And the loans,” said Gregorio. “The security for all those loans, and the income you needed to repay them …”
“Oh, yes,” said Nicholas. “It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Whoever started it counted on that. They probably counted as well on half of us burning to death. But no one did. And that, really, is all that matters.”
The demoiselle had come up, with the girls. She said, “That wasn’t …”
“Come to say how sorry he was. Not exactly. We’ll talk about all that later. Now, let’s see what has to be done.”
Nicholas left for Geneva on Tuesday, only two days later than he had originally intended. With him went the hired escort he had already arranged, with the mules and his own horses rescued from the stables, with their harness. Also salvaged from the stables were his saddlebags ready packed for the journey, and (against strong advice) a single cart stacked with bales of cloth for Jaak de Fleury.
He left behind the bags and boxes which Marian de Charetty had prepared for the same journey, and which now represented all the clothes and trinkets she had. There was no question now of her expedition. With Gregorio, she had assumed at first that his also was cancelled. Through that, the longest night of her life, there was no chance to think of it. With ready hospitality, folk took in her homeless people. One of the burgomasters came, in his nightcap, bringing the town doctors to see to their burns. A guard was set round the flaring, smouldering building to protect anything that might be worth rescuing once the ashes cooled. Winrik the money-changer took his friends and stood by that part of the house where, somewhere in the ruins, was a heap of melted silver from her coffer of groats. Tomorrow the Mint would sent its officials, and she would perhaps get the return of some of its worth. The rest, promissory notes and pledges, had all gone. And all the stock of the dyeshop, save for a sack or two of the most valuable dyes, which Henninc had dragged out himself.
Then, at dawn, she and Nicholas and Gregorio had gathered blackened and exhausted in the unpaid-for, miraculous refuge of Spangnaerts Street, sitting about a scrubbed table with soup in their hands, and talked. It was not very sensible but, too tired to sleep, Marian de Charetty had earned the right to exorcise her worst fears by attempting to plan, while she had men willing to listen and help her.
Gregorio, kept awake by the persistent oddity of the relationship, watched Nicholas making up the demoiselle’s mind for her. The May Fair was less than two weeks away, but something could be contrived. The Louvain business would supply them with some stock to sell. The Guild would help them with credit for purchases, and very likely with some sort of shared premises. Spangnaerts Street and the other property Nicholas had bought were no use for dyeing. But the first would now become their home and office, and the other buildings, where not already let, could house some of their workers. The wine tavern perhaps could take some. The rest could go to Louvain.
Louvain, instead of being reduced, would be kept meantime, under Cristoffels. In Bruges, the large sprawling yard with its numerous lines of business was not worth replacing. They should look for quality work now, in dyeing, dealing and broking. Dyeing better than Florence’s. Valuable pledges requiring secure but not extensive storage. Opportunities for loans at high, well-
concealed interest.
It was, Gregorio knew, the view Nicholas favoured. He had gathered as much long before the fire. Gregorio said, “You’re talking of money-dealing linked with luxury trade. I’ve nothing against it. But where is all the money to come from to set it up now? You’ve numbers of people to support. You’re in debt for these buildings and the others. Customers’ cloth has been burned: people will expect refunds for that, and for your own cloth delivered on credit. Your confiscated pledges have gone, leaving every loan as a loss; and those who want their goods back will have claims on you. You’ve bought weapons on credit. The costs still to come from the mercenary company may be more than its earnings. If your commander is captured, or your soldiers badly defeated, you may have heavy bills for ransom or compensation to pay. You may find yourself without the means to replace men and armour and horses and fulfil the rest of your contract, or certainly to win another. You’re now exposed to that risk, too, without a business to cushion it.”
Gregorio paused, and dropped his eyes from the drawn, set face of the Widow. At some time in the night she had twisted up the rather attractive brown hair, and had pinned a riding-cloak over her bedgown. He had wondered whether to allow her to retire, comforted by a young man’s fantasies, but he had seen that, in the long run, it would be kinder to face the reality. He said, “Demoiselle, I’m sorry to say it. But all you can really afford is to dismiss your workpeople, including me, and retire to Louvain, having resold all the new property and repaid some of your creditors. And, of course, Nicholas cannot now contemplate his alum project.”
He looked up, genuinely regretful, as he finished. The demoiselle’s blue eyes were fixed on him. Then she turned them to Nicholas.
Nicholas said, “Nicholas is not only contemplating his alum project: he is leaving on Tuesday to complete it. That one scheme alone will restore us. You would think a ship had never gone down, or there had never been a flood or a famine. This is a disaster to us, but not to the rest of the community. They’ll uphold us. They’ll extend our credit. And if they don’t do it from brotherhood, they’ll do it from self-interest. I’ll see to that. You forget the famous courier contracts. We may not be able to deal in very much cloth, but we can deal in information.”
He had forgotten those. Gregorio said, “The dispatches?”
“Here, in Spangnaerts Street,” said Nicholas. “I would be wearing rather a different face if they weren’t.”
“Tuesday?” said the demoiselle.
Nicholas turned to her. “The dye business was always under your management. You know the Guild, you know the problems better than anyone. We have tomorrow and Monday to plan it all, you and Gregorio and Henninc and myself. Cristoffels is on his way. And in a few days you’ll have Felix back.” He paused. He said, “It really is best for everyone if I go now. Not to Dijon of course. But I’ll take the cloth to Geneva, and go straight to Milan. I shall be back as soon as I can, depend on it.”
The demoiselle said sharply, “Geneva!”
Nicholas said, “The cloth was ordered. The money will be useful.”
Gregorio, his eyes drooping, sat up firmly. He said, “If it’s Thibault and Jaak de Fleury, they haven’t paid for the last delivery. We’d be better, surely, keeping the cloth for the Fair.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Nicholas said. He was looking at the demoiselle and reading, it seemed, something Gregorio had missed in her face. Nicholas spoke to her. “You’d forgotten Felix? We were lucky that he wasn’t here, committing acts of foolhardy bravery. He’ll tell you, when he comes back, just how badly we’ve handled everything.”
The demoiselle smiled, and soon, rising, made her way slowly to where a pallet had been made up in her small parlour.
When the door had closed, Gregorio turned on his companion. He said, “She owes you a lot. So does the business. But listen to my advice. Intelligence is not enough to steer a way through this mess. It needs experience, and it needs caution. These schemes were always risky of their nature. You still want to pursue them. You’ve learned fast. You’ve gained confidence even faster. But you still haven’t the experience.”
Nicholas looked at him. He produced, surprising Gregorio, one of his larger, more encompassing smiles. It ended in a jaw-cracking yawn. “Goro friend,” Nicholas said. “Do you think I don’t know all that? But if all you’ve said is right, and it is, we need a great deal of money from somewhere, quickly. And whether I’ve the experience or not, I’m going to get it.”
Chapter 31
STOLIDLY UNAWARE that the Charetty business lay smoking behind him and that, even worse, the Charetty widow was no longer a widow, Thomas her under-captain proceeded south to do battle, accompanied by four squadrons of lances and fifty men willing if not yet fully able to use the handguns wished on him by that young terror Claes.
With him also went the two fellows, Godscalc and Abrami, also chosen by Claes. Thomas found he was glad of them. Abrami, a Hungarian crossbowman trained in Germany, knew more than he did about handguns. And Godscalc was not only a clerk but quite a bit of an apothecary. When Thomas’s horsefly lumps went rotten, as they often did, Godscalc was a wonder with pastes and powders. Thomas quite enjoyed the journey south, in spite of the rabble of horse-boys and camp servants and the rest that always had to come along for a long campaign.
That was the bad side of it. The good side was the women. The Widow always left that bit of it to Astorre and him, and didn’t often query the bills either. After all, you’d never expect a fighting man to forage for food, or grind his own corn, or wash his own linen. That was women’s work. And when a man had stopped fighting, he wanted more out of leisure than a game of dice and a drink.
There would, of course, be no shortage of women in Naples. An army waiting to fight attracted them like those God-damned horseflies, and they bit you as bad – or if they didn’t, the fights over them did. So it made sense to bring along a few good girls of your own. There were even one or two wives in the carts, one of them giving suck. Hers was the only infant he’d seen, but sometimes others turned up. That was up to the father. A man only got one lot of pay. It was up to him if he wanted to feed more than one mouth with it.
Thomas, and his cavalcade, crossed the Alps without incident.
In Milan, he picked up the handguns. He also received a surprise, but one that didn’t distress him unduly.
He reached Naples at the end of April, after a fair amount of tactical dodging, and found the city nearly invisible behind sheets of clammy rain. He had sent a runner ahead to warn Astorre he was coming, and hoped there were still some reasonable billets left with dry floors and no more rats in the thatch than a man might expect to deal with.
The castle was big enough to hold all the commanders and captains as well as this bastard Aragonese king called Ferrante. But lodging the men was another matter. Some towns put you outside, between the walls and the outer defences and built wooden huts for you. Sometimes you had to use your own tents. Sometimes you were shoved in with any family they could force to take you.
He was glad to see Julius, the Widow’s notary, waiting at the gates when he rode up, with a well-dressed man who turned out to be the Neapolitan commissary. Thomas watched with some satisfaction as the man rode briefly along the neat file of troops and carts and baggage and, returning, nodded. Then Thomas was given a clerk and a man-at-arms and, with Julius, started the work of getting everyone settled.
During all that, you couldn’t chat. Astorre, his captain, was off on a raid. That he learned. Then the notary asked him how the journey had gone, and if things were all right in Bruges, and Thomas had said they were, and was captain Astorre still the same old bastard. To which Julius, smiling briefly, had said yes, he would recognise him all right.
Glancing at him on and off, Thomas saw quite a change in Julius. A well-set-up man for a clerk, he’d always been, with the sort of thick bony face you’d expect in a professional fighter. Astorre had said more than once that he wouldn’t be surprised if t
he Widow didn’t take him to her bed one of these days, and then they’d all be under Meester Julius. But if that was so, she’d made no fuss about sending him off to Italy, and he’d made no fuss about going. And if there was a woman in Bruges who’d got any nearer to Meester Julius than the inkpot on his desk, he’d yet to hear of her.
So what had changed now? He’d lost that glint of devilment, that’s what. The spark that got him into all those scrapes with Claes and young Felix. Perhaps he was missing them. Or perhaps he was jealous of Claes, in his decent blue courier’s clothes, and bankers giving him the nod instead of old Henninc clipping him over the ear. Or he could have got himself on the wrong side of Astorre, which wasn’t hard, especially if you weren’t a soldier. Or perhaps he was just tired of Naples and rain. You would get tired of Naples and rain, if you weren’t a man who liked women. Thomas, who had run through all the girls in the carts twice over on the trip from Bruges to Naples, was sorry for Julius.
So was Julius. He was tired of Naples, tired of rain, and especially wearied of the ferocious company, for three months, of Syrus de Astariis, showing him how to keep his senior men on their toes while waiting for the rest of the company to arrive.
Like the rest of the King’s motley army, the nuclear group of Astorre’s bowmen and cavalry had spent most of the winter inside Naples, apart from the occasional sortie to dog the very few movements of the enemy, who were led by Duke John of Calabria and the Orsini fellow, the Prince of Taranto.
When they were inside the walls, they took their share in the various violent inter-company engagements, not to mention outright brawling, that kept them in training. From time to time they were counted by the powerful gentlemen who controlled the various armies fighting for King Ferrante. None of the byplay bothered Astorre, who simply got on with controlling his own little group, a matter in which he was extremely competent. But through the weeks Julius found himself longing for the arrival of Tobias, who was supposed to come south when Brother Gilles was cured, and who had not so far come south at all. In three months.