She had wanted a husband. She had hoped to make up her mind here in Brittany, free of family pressures. And she had certainly been free of those. No letters had reached her since she left in April. In the early weeks, indeed, before she was sure where she stood, she had enjoyed the sort of life she had envisaged: of undemanding companionship to the Dowager; of becoming acquainted with the dramas, the actors in yet another court; of choosing her own role to play in it. She learned to evade the Duke, and to make friends with his mistress. The first visit of Jordan de Ribérac had been therefore doubly unpleasant.
Later, she was to be glad that she had then been ignorant of her condition. She had had no warning. He had arrived on an April morning in the Dowager’s audience chamber. The room, which was small, became simply a shell for his bulk and his height. His robe was of Lucca velvet. The scarves of his hat were embroidered with gold. His face with its many chins was fresh and smiling, but the eyes scoured her naked.
The last time the seigneur de Ribérac had visited Bruges, Claes had nearly died in the fire at the Carnival. The last time she had met the seigneur de Ribérac, he had proposed, placidly, to requisition her virtue on her kitchen floor, preparatory to marrying her. What she had denied him, she had presented, the same night, to Claes. But that Jordan de Ribérac couldn’t know. Or he wouldn’t just scar his face, or order his death by two inept assassins. He would personally kill him.
Now, it appeared, he was merely in course of a courtesy call on the Dowager. He spent half an hour and spoke to all the ladies of honour. She couldn’t leave. She hardly believed he would address her but he did, his eyes cold, his smile delightful. “What, mademoiselle! No suitor yet for your charms? Or none we know of in Bruges, where they keep their fools in barrels like fish, so I’m told. You are wise to come to Brittany. Make your choice here. Wait until the air is clearer and fresher before you venture to Flanders again.”
She said, “Even in Brittany, monseigneur, the air is not as fresh as I would wish.”
It was childish. It made no impression. He merely spread his smile blandly among all his audience. He said, “Bruges! A place for small artisan businesses and coupling servants. A wise man would clear the city of both. Forget Bruges. Wait until you savour Carnival evening in Nantes, my dear lady. Whatever your past experience, I promise you this will exceed it.”
He had turned away before she could reply. He knew. He knew something.
Afterwards, when he had gone and the Duchess and her kittens were sleeping, Katelina left the Dowager’s suite and went to the reception rooms where she might find the Duke’s mistress. The King of France, it was clear, was satisfied that no French secrets could leak through to Flanders from the Dowager’s court. That a Flemish secret might leak through to France ought to give him great pleasure.
Antoinette de Maignélais, when she found her, naturally knew all about Jordan. France was full, my dear, of these Scots who came and fought in her wars and then stayed on to become rich. Grateful kings gave them seigneuries, like this Ribérac. A clever man with a good eye for trade didn’t take long to make connections, acquire fleets, amass property. And the reward? The King of France’s ear, my dear, on all matters financial, and some of the darker little secrets of his treasury. His present Majesty often sent him to Brittany, to disentangle the affairs of his first wife’s sister. Personally, said Antoinette, she preferred men who were not quite so obese.
Katelina agreed, as most people did with this lady. When Agnès Sorel, the French King’s great mistress, died ten years ago, her place was filled by her cousin Antoinette, Madame de Villequier: some said before she was widowed, some said after. When the King’s taste became jaded, she found him younger bedfellows. She still did so, and was as often at the King’s side as at the Duke’s. She had carried to the Duke, rumour said, the King’s ulcerous leg. She was sharp-witted, forthright and practical.
Katelina said, “It’s not so much the fat. Is he trusted?”
The lids fell, in mock pain, over the bright, painted eyes. “My dear, you know better than that!” said Antoinette. “If there is one person to be trusted at court, we do not rest until we have changed him. But, having the strings of the Mint in his shirt, I suppose our dear Jordan has all the money he wants. But, let us think, now you mention it. What else would attract him?”
“The same position under the next king?” said Katelina.
The painted eyes wandered. “Ah,” said Antoinette. “Tell me. Is this hearsay?”
“No,” said Katelina. “He has been seen at Genappe. He has information about the Dauphin’s chamberlain which could only have been learned at Genappe. He takes with him one at least of the Scots Guard of archers.”
“How do you know?” said Antoinette.
Katelina said, “He has no hold over me or my family. But he is trying to persuade me to marry him.”
“Why?” said Antoinette. “Of course, you are very beautiful. But he is a rich man, with many to choose from in his own country.”
“To oust his Scottish son from the inheritance,” Katelina said. “He wants heirs. Once he has them, his present son may not long survive.”
“And he chooses a Flemish, a Burgundian lady,” said Antoinette. “How fortunate that he is fat, and did not attract you. Doubly fortunate. Fat men are noticed, when gossip starts.”
“Gossip is none of my business,” said Katelina.
“I am aware,” said Antoinette. “But, my dear, you know very well that in Bourges, where the king is, gossip is what makes the walls and the ditches and mans the embrasures. Gossip, my dear, not bricks and mortar.”
That was when Katelina wrote her letter to Gelis, to be passed on to Claes. To a casual reader, the missive appeared mostly concerned with the astonishing shipwreck of an ostrich. In the weeks that followed, Antoinette didn’t return to the subject of Jordan. Later, when Katelina knew she was pregnant, she did nothing to correct or cancel the rumour she had started.
From what Claes had said, there was truth in it. Antoinette would report to King Charles. And King Charles would have his own way of testing the loyalty of the vicomte Jordan de Ribérac. If the rumour was correct, if he was the Dauphin’s man and a traitor, she would be amply revenged for his treatment of her. And for what he had done and tried to do to Claes.
Claes. She had wished to call him Nicholas, and he had shown her that the wish did her no credit. Now, when she had even more cause to slaughter her pride, she found herself resisting. She remembered what Claes the man and the lover were like, and he bore no badges of servitude, and many of joy. In his own right, he was Nicholas.
From there, she was moved for the first time to wonder what he would make of the child. He had no reason to expect this would happen. She had convinced him otherwise. He had said, and she believed him, that he had no wish for marriage. He had dismissed, with finality, the alternative. But if there was a child coming?
If its coming were interrupted, what would he feel? But to dispose of it was her right, as it had been her decision to risk conceiving it. If she bore it in secret for fostering, would he want to know? He might not. Or he might, if told, take the child. Even proclaim, for the child’s sake, who its mother was.
What was his own rearing? She knew so little about him. He had had his mother, she thought, for a few years. Then he had gone to some distant relative, who had been harsh. No. A man brought up like that wouldn’t see his child given away. He would have, then, to be made to believe that it was not his. Unless …
Unless. The second month passed, and her eyes became large and profound, and her cheekbones sharpened a little. Sometimes she was late for her morning duties, but she never missed one. She met many men, but none she liked. She took no lovers, but kept thinking of the one she had had.
In the second week of June, when she knew she must do something, Jordan de Ribérac returned. This time, the Dowager was closeted with her astrologer and her companion on duty was absent. But for the page at the door, Katelina sat alone in the ou
ter chamber. The fat man, with sketchy formality, sat down beside her.
The eyes again stripped her naked, from fichu to high waist and below. And this time, there was something to see. Jordan de Ribérac said, “Well, demoiselle. Where is your husband now?”
Katelina said, “You think I should have one? Are you proposing yourself again, M. de Ribérac?”
He smiled. He said, “The number of suitors is not so great, is it? The Duke, I am sure, would make an accommodation, but he cannot marry you, and the state of his leg, I am told, is truly distressing. As for the others, you know the situation, I’m sure, as well as I do. You hear the news from home?’
The tone of his voice urged her to say that she had. Instinct kept her to the truth. She said, “No. Letters seem to have been lost.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I see. Then perhaps I can give you first news of these promising friends of yours. My son. Let us begin with my son. Simon, it appears, is on the verge of a most advantageous alliance with a lady called Muriella, the daughter of John Reid, the Staple merchant. Will she be fecund? I wonder. Simon is not fond of children. But you must, I am afraid, dismiss the charming illusion that once we shared. My sweet Simon will not run to your call.
“Who else? The Gruuthuse family, I am told, have begun actively pressing young Guildolf to make his final choice. He is young. But he would, I think have swallowed his rebuff and come to you, except that he and his parents are in Bruges and you have abandoned him to come here. Poor Guildolf.”
Jordan de Ribérac sighed. “And there is really no one else, is there? You disliked your parents’ other two candidates, so that you won’t be sorry to hear that they have each made a contract with the girl of their choice. I know of no one else who has been able to pierce the magic circle of your maiden reserve. Unless, of course, you count the young workman Claes.”
Katelina said, “Hardly.”
“Hardly?” said the fat man. “After you and your sister took such trouble to lift him – twice? – out of our canals? An act of mercy I commend, of course. If he had actually killed my son with his shears I might have felt differently.”
“I thought the fate of your son was the least of your worries,” said Katelina.
“No. No!” said the fat man. “I concern myself with him very much. I may not wish him in health, but I should like to be consulted as to the time and manner of his departure from it. I do not like to have my paternal rights in this matter pre-empted. Not that Claes, I believe, would have given me much concern. Claes is the underdog. He has beneath him the treadmill of perpetual ambition and perpetual failure. Look at his latest contrivance.”
She wouldn’t answer. She raised her eyebrows. The fat man sighed.
“Would you believe that he has induced his employer to marry him? Witnesses bribed, the son kept safely in ignorance, notarial documents prepared for all her property. With her loving acquiescence. I am told she is besotted. And that the only heir has now been tempted south, where he might discover a warrior’s grave. A scheme worthy of modest congratulation save that he made the error, in his excitement, of burning down his bride’s business, her house, her money and every one of her ledgers. It seems unlikely that she can rise to her debts. All is lost, save the marriage.”
Her stomach rose to her throat, and with anger, and hatred and fear and pride, she controlled it. She knew, from his face, that he could identify all these emotions, and was not abashed. She said, when she could speak, “I congratulate you. It’s a skill, carrying small items of news from one place to another. I trust your accuracy. I’m only surprised that the Charetty fire was an accident.”
He considered that, his face earnest. “You think it may not have been? Certainly, the young man had rivals. The pawnbroker Oudenin. Perhaps others. She’s a pretty woman, if no longer young. They made a touching picture, I’m told: the young husband, half-clothed, embracing his wife in her bedgown outside their shrivelling love-nest. So you understand why I say to you, Where is your husband?”
“I have no difficulty in understanding you, M. de Ribérac,” Katelina said. “And I repeat. Are you proposing marriage again? Perhaps I should be interested.”
The pupils of his eyes, sharply black, pinned themselves to her face. “Would you now?” said Jordan de Ribérac softly.
“But on the other hand,” said Katelina, “I might prove to be barren, or you might prove to be incapable, and all your plans would come to nothing. No. On mature reflection, I really cannot imagine the circumstance which would bring me to stomach it. Now, what shall we talk about? Or perhaps there is nothing more we have to say to each other. Let me find out if the Dowager will see you now.”
He rose when she did and stood, without moving, looking down at her. For a moment she wondered what she would do if his hand rose, as it had done to Claes, and the ring cut its way down her cheek. But he simply turned on his heel and crossed the small room to the door, where he took up his courtier’s stance, prepared to be led to his audience. Afterwards she didn’t see him leave the rooms, or the building.
Antoinette de Maignélais found her later in the room she shared with the others, and taking her to a window seat, embarked on a harmless discourse. Halfway through she observed, “M. de Ribérac contrived to see you alone. Does he suspect you?”
“He wondered if I still wished to marry him. No. He showed no suspicions,” said Katelina. “But I trust him less and less.”
“You have an instinct,” said the Duke of Brittany’s mistress. “And you are correct. Discreet enquiries have been made. Messengers have been followed. Banks have had tales to tell. The story is not yet complete. Records have to come from Burgundian sources, and time and money are needed. But in two months, I fancy, it will not be a new wife that my lord of Ribérac has to think of.”
It helped, a little, to know that he might suffer some of the devastation that he visited with such ready artistry on his fellows. He had been angry, she thought, that Claes had aspired, even briefly, and to a small widow’s hand. But the anger had been soothed by the pleasure of telling her of it. He couldn’t know, surely, the use she had made of Claes. Of course she had used him, and should expect nothing more from a servant than this, that he should jump from her bed into that of the first person who could help him into the bourgeoisie, even if she were an old woman with a grown family.
Half-naked, he had embraced the widow. Perhaps she, too, had drawn him his bath, and kept his clothes from him. However old she was, however ugly, he would perform for her. Every girl in Bruges knew that. Mabelie. Herself.
And his name was Claes. It had never been Nicholas. Her firstborn had Claes for a father, the bastard workman with the beguiling tongue and the vast and innocent gaze which concealed a cunning, a ruthless ambition. The treadmill of ambition but not, surely, of failure. There the fat man was wrong. Building carefully, woman by woman, man by man, Claes was raising the staircase that would take him from apprentice to merchant and from merchant to whatever pinnacle his self-esteem demanded.
He hadn’t needed Katelina. Her name and rank without money were useless to him. He needed what he had got: the owner of a small business whose standing, however minor, now became his. Arson might check him. There might be other attempts to hinder his rise. But unlike the fat man, she could judge Claes from many aspects. News of his marriage had completed the picture. Now she knew him. Short of death, nothing now would hold him. He didn’t need her, and still less would he want the baby she carried. The problem was solved.
Katelina van Borselen went quietly about her business. Those who knew and liked her noted that she was a little withdrawn, and spent more time in her room than had been usual. They had to call her from it to act, as she often did, as interpreter for one of the interminable talks about the Dowager’s dowry.
There was to be a meeting in France. The Scots commissioners, assembling their claims, were calling to discuss the King’s case with his sister. Sir William Monypenny, of course. Bishop Kennedy later. Flockhart, pe
rhaps. And the handsome, yellow-haired man the Dowager claimed to favour, who had not called since Katelina had come, but who would put the roses back in Katelina’s pale cheeks.
“Come, Katelina!” said her friends. “Come and meet Simon of Kilmirren!”
June was then in its second week. All over Europe, forces already set in motion, like a game in a wooden box, began to hop and roll to their destiny.
Before June ended, Felix, heir to the Charetty company, arrived in Naples and joined his mother’s troops under captain Astorre and the notary Julius. With him as personal servant he took a magnificent negro called Loppe. With him also came a gift to the King from the Duke of Milan: eighteen hundred horsemen destined to reinforce the Pope’s army and help King Ferrante clear his foes out of the land about Naples. Emboldened, King Ferrante moved out of Naples and challenged the enemy.
It wasn’t wise, but the king of Naples was fortunate. Duke John of Calabria, with unusual caution, refused battle. When threatened, he fled with his army to the small town of Sarno, built on a river-girt hillside just thirty miles south of Naples, and allowed himself to be besieged. The army of King Ferrante, aided by the troops from the Pope and the Duke of Milan and their many hired companies, including that of captain Astorre, settled down to starve them out, as was usual.
They would have succeeded. It was unfortunate that King Ferrante’s mercenaries, in particular, had not been paid for quite some time, and that King Ferrante, at that moment, had no prospect of paying them. Attractive offers began to arrive from the enemy camp. Men began to desert.
King Ferrante decided, with a certain amount of regret and a greater amount of reckless optimism, that instead of prosecuting the siege, he ought to attempt an attack. He meant it to be a limited one, or so he said afterwards. But, bored and unpaid, his soldiers thought otherwise. That was in the first week of July. That a decisive battle had been fought at Sarno was unknown for some time.