In their holds they carried Barbary wax and elephant tusks and brown sugar. They had gingers this year from Damascus, and violet camlets from Cyprus. There were forty caskfuls of currants. There were jewels, as always: rubies, turquoises, diamonds, and seed pearls to powder for medicine. There were wimple silks and lake gum and white comfits and thirty bags of good cotton. There were tabby silks packaged in Syria. Messina had sent astrakhan lambskins. There was also sulphur from Sicily and porcelain from Majorca and rosewater from gardens in Persia. There were Mass bells and missals and music books and glass drinking-cups of several colours, including pink. There was indigo from Baghdad, and oak galls and madder and kermes. There were one hundred and fifty butts of Malmsey wine; and a ballast of alum.
The commander this year, it was well known, was a Venetian nobleman named Piero Zorzi.
Marian de Charetty, with her household, was as usual in Bruges for their coming. Nowadays most of her interests were in Bruges, and now she had a good man at Lou vain, she spent less time there. Everyone said how drawn she had looked after the boy Felix went off in April, and of course the terrible fire. She hadn’t looked herself for a month or more, until word came in June that the boy was safe in Geneva with that young rascal Nicholas. And then four weeks after that had come this letter, brought to Bruges through the Medici.
Young Nicholas, the boy she married, had gone off somewhere in Italy and was not coming back as expected (or at all, like as not). And her precious Felix, who wasn’t even allowed to joust when he wanted, had ridden off to war, if you please: gone south to Naples to fight for King Ferrante.
Now who encouraged him to do that, you might wonder? And whether he was encouraged or not, what else could you expect, if you set aside proper womanly matters and thought you could run a soldier company? Sooner or later any boy worth his salt would want to put on armour and show what he was made of. She had only herself to blame. Herself and that terrible boy.
All the same, you missed Claes. She was probably missing him too, and the jokes. If nothing else.
She knew, of course, what was being said. She was helped a great deal by the need for hard work, and by the men Nicholas had chosen for her. Gregorio was her right hand. But she had the devotion also of Bellobras and Cristoffels as well as Henninc and Lippin. Everyone worked to restore and reshape the business in the way they had planned, in those early days after the fire.
To begin with, it was bitterly hard. But then, in the first days of July, Tommaso Portinari had come to her, bringing both good news and bad. With the letter which said that Felix and Nicholas had gone beyond her reach, to the Italian wars. And the package that contained bills drawn on the Medici bank for sums she had never expected. Money for the condotta: for the extra soldiers so skilfully raised and armed at minimal cost. And sums, unbelievably, which appeared to originate with the Fleury company. Somehow, Nicholas had obtained a reckoning of Fleury debts, and persuaded the Medici to pay them. At the time, it had seemed miracle enough. She hadn’t recognised the later visitor for what he was, because she didn’t deal with the Venetian merchants called Bembo. It was only when he was alone in her office that her visitor of that name had drawn from his pouch the paper that was more amazing than all the rest.
After he had gone, she had called in Gregorio, and shown him what Felix and Nicholas had sent. It held their signatures, as well as those of names Genoese and Venetian she did not wholly recognise. The sum of money it represented was enough, of itself, to clear every debt. The sums it promised would make them wealthy.
She realised that she had been looking for a long time at the signatures. That of Nicholas, black and firm and exact, because he had been taught very young, and then tutored in late months by Colard. Felix’s sprawl, because he had never wanted to learn, and wouldn’t be tutored by anybody. But the presence of his name showed that he had begun to learn now.
She said, “They seem to have concluded the alum deal. Even if some authority finds the Pope’s mine tomorrow, we have this.”
Gregorio hadn’t come near her since the word came about Felix’s destination. He was a considerate man. He said now, “It’s a good thing for the jonkheere, getting involved in the business. I’m not surprised either that he went off to Naples, or that Nicholas let him. Every boy should set foot on a battlefield once, and the risks are very small. They can’t afford to fight. And the season will soon be over.”
It was what she told herself. She could understand, too, why Nicholas felt it necessary to go after the doctor Tobias. Without Tobie, his letter had said, they would have had no alum money. He hoped to bring Tobie back, and perhaps Julius.
Tobie. They must be on good terms. Now the yard, and her household, had got used to referring to Claes as Nicholas. They gave him no prefix, because he had no claim to the “Master” of the academic, or the “ser” of the better-born. She didn’t mind. It would be hard enough for him to conduct himself at all these levels without the artifice of a title.
She noticed that those close to Gregorio had taken to calling him Goro. Three months of working with people had taught him a lot. There had been no more disturbances in the yard. The nicknames people produced for Bellobras she pretended not to hear. She became, as the presence of money lightened her load, able to meet people and laugh again and sometimes take Tilde and Catherine on trips to other towns, visiting friends and finding small adventures which would give them pleasure.
The girls were beginning to be invited in their own right, and someone took Tilde to join a family sailing party out of the harbour. Every now and then, the thought of her son and of Nicholas weighed down her thoughts. In August, news came. There had been a battle south of Naples with heavy losses. For a day she thought about nothing else. Then, indirectly, she heard the details. The Charetty company, with Astorre, was quite safe. They had gone north, to join the Count of Urbino. She hoped they would be safer there. She hoped that Felix, now blooded, would be persuaded to come home, and Nicholas with him. She tried not to hope anything, but just to go on with her business.
Keep busy. The ultimate anodyne. Nicholas had been right. If she had given up, if she had sold off and gone to sit in some cottage, making lace and gazing out from the shutters, she would be dead.
By mid-August, the new property was rebuilt and furnished to their design, and she was stocked again with cloth, but of finer weave than before; and with dyes, but only those of high quality. She had increased the quality, too, of her staff, but not by releasing anyone. People who had bought from her out of sympathy continued to buy because they appreciated what she sold. Then they found that she was also accommodating in financial ways.
That, Nicholas had said, was the line the company ought to take, and Gregorio was best fitted to deal with it. Usury was forbidden. But loans on security was what pawnbroking was about, and it was very simple to adapt the same principle to the exchange of finished goods and raw materials. And from there, to other things. The ledgers never showed loans: only late payments. She found Tilde interested and let her sit beside her once or twice and listen.
The rest of August went by. She remembered it afterwards as a strange time; three-quarters happy. The hammering on the door, the hammering that ushered in all the change, fell in the last days.
She was in the new warehouse built behind the great house in Spangnaerts Street when it came. The porter who answered the summons went for Gregorio and Gregorio came through the house and into the yard himself, and saw where she was standing, tablet in hand, watching two of her storekeepers check over stocks. When the Flanders galleys were due, work was always heavy. The voice in which he said “Demoiselle!” was not a casual one, and made her turn quickly. He said, “May I speak with you? You have a visitor.”
He didn’t mean to frighten her, and she mustn’t be frightened. She spoke to the workmen and came out, the tablet still in her hands. Gregorio said, “The firm we used to do business with. Thibault and Jaak de Fleury?”
She nodded, mystified. “The Med
ici settled their bills.”
Gregorio said. “Yes, I remember. And Monsieur Jaak de Fleury is a kinsman of yours?”
“My sister married his brother,” she said. “I thought you knew that. There’s never been any love lost between us. Quite apart from his unpaid bills. So what is it? A message from him?”
“He’s here, demoiselle,” said Gregorio. “I left him in the house because I’m not sure if you should see him. He is not in command of himself.”
“Now that is something new,” said Marian de Charetty. “If ever there was a man in command of the whole world, including himself, it is Jaak de Fleury. What is wrong?”
Gregorio gave a hint of a smile. “I am not, apparently, fit to hear. I’m sorry, demoiselle. I couldn’t get him to tell me. But he has a dozen horses in front of the house, and two carts and a string of servants. Whatever it is, it must be serious.” He paused. “I thought perhaps – if you would allow me to say you were out, he could find a tavern and return alone when he’s calmer.”
She said, “You think he wants to stay here?”
Gregorio said, “I don’t know. But I think he would be better elsewhere. If it can be arranged easily.”
She stared at him, and then made up her mind. “No. I’ll see him. If I don’t want him to stay, I shall tell him so myself. He can hardly force his way in.”
Gregorio said, “Would you like me to stay within call?”
Marian de Charetty ran through her mind all she remembered of her sister’s unpleasant brother-in-law. Physical assault upon grown adults did not feature. Not unless they were servants, which she wasn’t. Mental cruelty was another thing. She had in mind that Nicholas had been brought up in his kitchens. And that, to Jaak’s mind, she had married his scullion. It was not going to be a pretty interview. She didn’t want even Gregorio to hear it.
“No,” she said. “If I can’t manage my own sister’s kinsman, I shan’t know what to do with Astorre and Felix when they come back from the wars. Tell me where you’ve put him and I shall go in. Have no fear. I am known for my speed with a fire iron.” She smiled at him and went in, rather slowly. The door of her small business cabinet was open. Jaak de Fleury was inside, seated in her chair at her table, with all her ledgers open in front of him.
“This is where I will sit,” he said. “And I’ll take the large bedchamber. That one. I told your man in the yard to find a place for my grooms and the others. They won’t complain. They’ve learned not to. So. You’re doing well, I see, my lady. We must see that continues. You know, of course, why I’m here?”
She had never seen him before other than well-dressed and lavishly jewelled. Now, although he bore himself like a prince of the Church, the gown he wore was marked and flattened and dusty with riding, and the plumes of his cap frayed and dirty. His face, too, had sunk about his large eyes and under his rounded cheekbones, and the narrow lips were blistered and dry. He wore rings. But the habitual gemmed chain was missing, and there were no pieces pinned to his gown or his hat. He looked like a man flying from battle.
Marian de Charetty said, “What has happened?”
“You have no idea?” he said. “Ah, me. Women. A different species. When it happens to you, there will be a crying and screaming such as no one has heard, as if no one had ever suffered treachery before in their lives, or envy or spite. What has happened? I have lost my business, dear sister-in-law. The Duke of Savoy has lifted from me – has stolen – a sum of money under some pretext which has left me unable to meet all the demands on me. And my creditors, strangely prescient, have taken the rest, so far as they were able.” Jaak de Fleury, smiling, looked down. He snapped shut, one by one, the ledgers he had been scanning and made two even piles of them and placed one shapely hand upon each.
“I have no business. I have no house. I have only the money you owe me and the chance to avenge myself on those who thought I was finished. To bestow on the Charetty business my wisdom and my experience. To regain my capital and return and show those beggars what a successful businessman is.”
His smiling gaze remained on her face, blandly confident. She felt her heart beating. She said, “I am sorry, of course. But you’re mistaken. This business owes you nothing. The debts were on your side. I received payment for them from the Medici.”
The lustrous eyes flickered once. “Ah,” he said. “From young Claikine your husband, perhaps? He collected them in Geneva, after he had successfully half-killed and kidnapped your son. He did not, perhaps, tell you that the amount you were in credit was less than half the sum owed by the Charetty to me?”
Marian de Charetty walked forward. She rested her hand on the tall chair she kept for her visitors, and then moved round and sat on it. She folded her hands. She said, “You had better speak plainly. I have already heard from my husband that he and Felix were in Geneva. And I have since had papers signed by Felix himself in Milan. I am not therefore inclined to believe you.”
“Oh, you may believe I am bankrupt,” said Jaak de Fleury. “The news will be all round Bruges in a day or two. And you may believe that your son called at my house, and that your husband drew a weapon and felled him, rather than allow him to come home to you. Any of my men will confirm it. Even those who fled home and deserted me. Even the friends of this rascal you married.”
“And the signature in Milan?”
“Under duress, I dare say, poor fool. Now, of course, your husband has sent your son Felix to Italy, but so far his efforts to remove his rival have failed. The boy, I am told, survived Sarno. He may not, however, survive life in the Abruzzi alongside Monsieur Nicholas. You will permit me to ask your kitchen for food and hot water? I have ridden, as you might think, a considerable distance.”
Marian de Charetty got up. “I know a tavern that will suit you very well,” she said. “And will give you both food and hot water. I am sorry your business has failed but you are not persuading me, I’m afraid, to rush to help you. You have a brother in Burgundy. I suggest you shelter with him.”
He remained, smiling, where he was. “But Thibault, dear lady, has no money either,” he said. “And a wild daughter to provide for. No. If I have to earn my living, it must be in Bruges. If you won’t help me, I must go elsewhere. To the dyers’ guild certainly. I hear they supported you after the fire. They may find loans for me. Or they may hesitate, when they hear how their gold found its way out of the country in the purse of the servant you married. Until he saw the proofs, your poor son could hardly believe it. He protested most bravely. He was protesting when he fell. The dyers of Bruges will be proud of him, although it may worry your clients somewhat.” Jaak de Fleury shook his head sadly. “After such a fire and such thievery, public confidence in the Charetty company will not encourage investors. You would do better to make me your partner. You will make money. And no disagreeable rumours need ever upset your friends or your business.”
She stared at him.
He said, “You still find it hard to believe me? Take an hour. Ask my men what you like. I shall be here when you come back. Perhaps, on your way, you could bring yourself to send to the kitchens, as I suggested, for some hot water and food? With reasonable speed. Like your little company, your staff does not inspire confidence.”
She said, “I am not only going to question your men, I am going to speak to my man of law. When I come back, I shall have several men with me. You may therefore take one hour, sitting here. I shall have someone bring you a refreshment. I shall remove, if you have no objection, the private ledgers of my company. And I have to remind you of this: that whatever threats you think you are holding over my head, they will vanish the moment that my son and my husband walk through that door.”
“My dear woman,” he said. “They are not coming back. One is at war and the other has money to spend. Your Nicholas dare not return and face what he owes me. My ledgers may be burnt, but who will take his word against mine? Make up your mind. You have no heir and no husband, and will have to look out. If nature cannot now provid
e you with the first, at least the second is here to hand.”
She saw then the full extent of the plan, and her touch on her chair became a broad clasp. She said, “Your wife? Esota?”
“Oh, they killed her,” he said. “I think your husband had left when it happened, so the hands which did the deed were not his. In any case, she would never have survived the journey. She needed to pack so much, poor Esota.”
He was smiling when she left. She went downstairs, and found Gregorio, and together they questioned the men who had come from Geneva. They confirmed, as she had expected, what Jaak de Fleury said. They confirmed it, as she had not expected, with anger and sullenness, and every appearance of truth. When she finished, and went with Gregorio into her parlour, she was shaking.
Gregorio said, “Put him out.”
“I’ve told you what he will say. And these men saw Felix and swear that Nicholas felled him. Do you think they’re lying?”
“No,” said Gregorio. “But I can think of good reasons as well as bad for silencing Felix.”
That was when, for the first time, her fear was checked. She stared at Gregorio. Then she said, “Let me leave you in no doubt. There is no one on this earth, far less Jaak de Fleury, who can shake my faith in Nicholas and his loyalty. What we are talking about are ways of protecting Nicholas as well as this business. Not everyone knows him as I do.”
Gregorio said, “You would allow this man to install himself in your house until they come back, rather than spread rumours?”
“Yes,” she said. She thought he would protest again, and when he didn’t, she said, “You agree, then.”
Gregorio gave an impatient sigh. “No man in his senses would agree,” he said. “Except that I think you’re not mistaken in your trust. I think Nicholas will come back if he can, and the jonkheere with him. But there’s another thing. You say M. de Fleury saw all the ledgers?”