Niccolo Rising (57 page)

Margriet couldn’t stop herself gasping aloud. Anselm looked up, in the way he had. He said, “My dear, this is their affair. The demoiselle has made up her mind. She wants the marriage contracts written and signed this very morning, and begs my help in arranging it. He says she hesitates to ask, but he knows that she would like the Church’s blessing. He asks if we would permit the signing to take place today in our hall, and Mass to be celebrated for them afterwards in the Jerusalemkerk.”

Margriet was silent for a moment, because he had reproved her. But she had to burst out with her thoughts in the end. She said, “He thinks he has put you in his debt, or he would never have asked you. This is the first ill consequence of your partnership.”

He put the letter by her side and sat down. “Of course that’s why he asked. But there is another reason. I know Marian de Charetty is right. He could run her business as no one else could, except that he has no status at present.”

Margriet van der Banck said, “But you know that isn’t all. To marry her own apprentice instead of looking about for a trained manager, instead of taking a second husband of her own age and rank, will make her a figure of fun in this city. Perhaps he is the finest manager she could ever hope to acquire. But in doing this, she is placing her business before her own dignity. Claes! A charming boy, but so unruly that he spends half his time being beaten. Every time he came back from Louvain, all my friends would lock up their housemaids. What is she thinking of?”

“He has settled,” said Anselm. “You let him take our daughters to the Carnival. Perhaps he’s ready for marriage. Perhaps, my love, they are fond of each other.” He hesitated. “Although the letter, I admit, says nothing of that. A business arrangement is how he presents it.”

“Perhaps
she
is fond of
him
,” said Margriet. “That is what rumour will say. There is a young, strong man with an attraction for women. It would be easy for him to trap her. A business arrangement! I’m sure it is. Felix disinherited, and those two poor young girls …”

“No,” said Anselm. “He is quite specific about that. The business stays with the demoiselle and her family. His own lawyer and the écoutète will draw up a contract which excludes him from all benefits. He wants nothing but the labour of controlling the company, which for him, he says, is reward and satisfaction enough. I believe him. It is that which has decided me.”

“You’re going to help him?” she said. “Yes, I suppose you are, because of the other business. You admire him. I, of course, shall do what I can because you are my husband and I’m sorry for that poor woman, who will need a good friend. As will her family. What will the son say?”

“According to the letter, he is not to be told until after the ceremony. That is by the wish of his mother, not Claes. Or Nicholas, as I suppose we should call him.” He rose, and crossing to her, put his hand on her shoulder. “You will stand by her, then, at the wedding Mass?”

“The church!” said Margriet, starting up. “We shall have to prepare the church! Yes, I shall stand by her. A matron would be better than an unmarried woman, although we could have done with someone of standing. Katelina van Borselen, for example. But she is on her way to
Brittany. This is going to put Gelis out, and a few other little girls who have been dreaming.”

“And bigger ones,” said her husband dryly.

When the noonday work bell rang out over Bruges that day, the Charetty fullers and dyers, the tenters and cutters, the carters and yardsmen and storekeepers and grooms took off their stained aprons under the monitoring eye of Henninc and went off to their homes or to the Charetty kitchens for their midday collation. Because Meester Gregorio and the Widow had gone off on unexplained business, their employees were a little noisier than usual, although they missed Claes, who was usually there to entertain them. One of them tried, when Henninc wasn’t listening, to imitate the Widow the way Claes used to do, but wasn’t nearly as brilliant.

Inside the single tall chamber of the Jerusalemkerk the bell made itself heard also to those grouped before the curious coloured altar, with its skulls and its ladders, the instruments of the Passion, where stood the short figure of Francesco Coppini, Bishop of Terni, concluding a marriage service. On the table, covered with a cloth embroidered by Margriet van der Banck herself, stood the silver-gilt cross containing the fragment of Christ’s cross, brought back from the Holy Land by Anselm’s father and uncle. On either side of the altar, a double flight of narrow steps led to the upper gallery with its white balustrade, lit by unseen windows far above in the tower; made by the Adornes to imitate and do honour to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the place of their pilgrimage.

The company did some honour in its attire to the exquisite building. Margriet herself wore her good brocade dress with its high belt that met the point of her wide ermine collar, and her two-horned headdress. Anselm and their friends from the city council and from the guilds had come in proper robes, falling to ankle-height, with lapels or tippets of satin or fur, and sturdy felt hats of all sizes. Of intent, there were no women among them.

The bride wore what she had worn that morning, for lack of time to do anything else: a padded headdress which concealed all her hair, and a stiff little gown with neatly-tied oversleeves and a square neck to which she’d added a very fine pendant. The skin displayed for the first time under her chin was, Margriet saw, fair and smooth and perfectly acceptable. She had good blue eyes and sound teeth and usually, one could say, a fine colour.

The boy, too, was dressed as he had been when he had arrived to make the arrangements. Not, at least, the blue working clothes of the Charetty, which would have made the occasion not just comedy but outright farce. The dark serge doublet fitted well enough to be his own, presumably bought with his wages in Italy. Over it he wore a sideless tunic of the middle length that a clerk might have, but in dark green
cloth instead of black, which would be too expensive, one supposed, for his pocket. His hair, well flattened, was struggling against the confines of his tilted cap, which was without ornament. His hose, also dark green, were the only unpatched pair Margriet had ever seen him in. She had never seen him, either, without a smile.

Afterwards, there was a difficult wedding-breakfast at a table laid for them all in her hall. Then someone mentioned the Flanders galleys and the conversation flowed as if it would never stop, because it was the subject nearest the heart and purse of every merchant in Bruges. So Alvise Duodo, the fool, had taken the Flanders galleys to London on his way home to Venice. And of course, the English king had impounded them, needing ships for his war against his kinsmen of York. Angelo Tani and Tommaso were fainting with horror. Not only over the loss of the cloth. Would the London branch get its tennis balls? Doria had sent trumpets and clavichord wire. Jacopo Strozzi had put in toothpicks and playing cards. Would they be unloaded at all, or spend their days in the hold while the ships were turned round and sent out to the Narrow Seas to fight other Englishmen sailing from Calais?

Bishop Coppini said very little. It was his task to proceed to Calais and reconcile the Englishmen there with the Englishmen in England who had impounded the Flanders galleys. A good idea, granted. But the moment that was done and peace declared, the Pope would be able to launch his crusade to recover Constantinople, and the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy and the King of England (whichever lord won the disputed succession) would have no excuse but to launch a fleet or an army and aid him. Then the Flanders galleys might well find themselves impounded next time at Sluys by Duke Philip, along with all the Scots barges, the Portuguese hulks, the Normandy balingers, the Breton caravels and the heavy ships from Hamburg. How was a merchant to survive these days? One needed an astrologer.

“You could corner fish,” said the bridegroom, who had up to that point been deferential in his few comments, and not grossly stupid. “Fishing boats are about the only ships you can’t send on a crusade. But it’s too near the end of Lent, perhaps, to expect much of a backing.” It was not too bad a joke, and they had drunk enough of Meester Anselm’s Candian wine to laugh quite heartily. Indeed, one or two of them began to think, privately, that the boy might have touched, unwittingly, on something worth looking into.

When they left, they were all in good humour. When they reached home they would be inclined, from the share they had been pushed into taking, to be defensive about the marriage rather than to attack it. And they all knew the terms of the contract, why it had been drawn up, and whom it favoured. In this way, the only way it could have been done, the most powerful homes in Bruges would at least know the facts.

When the Bishop had gone, and the Burgomaster, and the lawyers, Margriet van der Banck put her arm round the bride’s plump, pretty
shoulders and drew her into her chamber to prepare for the journey home. Their new notary, the alert Meester Gregorio, had already left to go back to the Charetty house. There, as soon as they returned, the news about the marriage would be broken to her employees by the demoiselle herself, her partner by her side. After, that is, she had told her son and her daughters.

A daunting prospect, after a difficult morning. The demoiselle was white with weariness. There was nothing one could put into words. Margriet hugged her, and tried to tell her, silently, that she was a friend. She was a proud woman, Cornelis’ small widow. She had not given way, but had clung a little, in Margriet’s embrace. Then, drawing off, she had stood alone and thanked her quietly.

Later, when the bride and bridegroom had gone, Margriet said as much to Anselm but, although she waited, he didn’t say what happened when he, in his turn, took the young man Nicholas off. Indeed, there was nothing to tell. After his guest, Adorne used the offices of his house and, returning to his room, had been in time to see the bridegroom, hitherto entirely composed, shiver and sit, as if a bolt had come through the window. Then, hearing Adorne cross the tiled floor, he had turned round.

Stopping, Anselm had looked down on him. “How much sleep did you have last night, friend Nicholas? None, I should think.”

Suspended in battle, men inflated their lungs in this way, and expelled the ache, suddenly, with the air. Nicholas smiled as he did so, and shook his head, smiling still. Anselm wondered where or how the lad had passed his last night of freedom. Of youth, in a way. He said lightly, “Every bridegroom is allowed a night with his friends.”

He had hoped the boy would take up the vein. Instead, his eyes strayed elsewhere, as if he were already distracted by other things. He said, “Oh. No. I spent it in my room.”

Anselm Adorne looked at him. Then, drawing up a stool, he had sat on it, looking at the withdrawn profile. He said, “Nicholas? But you wouldn’t wish to go back, if you could? To getting up to the work bell, and stirring cloth in the dyevats, and keeping company with simple people and children? It would be a sin, with what you can give the world with your talents.”

“Money?” said Nicholas, to the window ledge. “I was fairly happy with nothing. And I could make other people quite happy as well.”

“Of course,” said Adorne. “But that was the work of your youth. You needed more. You left of your own accord.”

“Yes,” said Nicholas.

Anselm Adorne watched him. There was no point in saying: You chose this. Didn’t you anticipate what it would be like? Didn’t you realise that you weren’t yet ready to manage it? He thought: he’s going to have to manage it, for the sake of that poor woman in there. What would help? Not to drown it in drink, that’s for certain.

Adorne said, “I expect my wife and the demoiselle will have something to say to each other. While you wait, will you let me see if Marie and Katelijne are free of their schooling? They would never forgive me for letting you leave without seeing them.” He paused, and added, “Of course, they know nothing, and would care less.”

Anselm Adorne was a man who tried to understand the feelings of others. Sometimes Margriet had warned him,
You can come too close. Anyway, Anselm, sometimes you are wrong
. He wasn’t wrong this time, although the young man did nothing more than say, after a moment, “I should like nothing better.” Anselm Adorne rose, and left, and without overmuch haste found and brought back his children to where their friend Claes, smiling, was waiting for them, a puzzle of wool already half threaded on to his hands.

By the time his bride was ready to leave there was no flaw, Adorne saw, in the bearing of her new partner. Nicholas offered well-considered and, he thought, genuine thanks to himself and to Margriet. With practical ease he lifted the demoiselle’s cloak and laid it round the demoiselle’s shoulders. She looked up at him, her colour returned, you could see, with her courage.

Dear God, what a marriage. What a marriage.

Adorne stood with Margriet and bade the demoiselle and her husband Godspeed as their barge left for home. Thus occupied, Anselm Adorne didn’t observe that his student son Jan had strolled into the house. Ravenous as all student sons, he quizzed the servants while filling his mouth from the ruined feast on the table, and received an unbelievable answer. An answer which wild horses could not have forced him to keep to himself.

Chapter 27

T
HE CLANG OF
the noonday work bell didn’t even penetrate the hearing of Felix de Charetty who; smarting from the double loss of a lot of money and a girl, had salved his pride by inviting himself into the Poorterslogie, the club house of the White Bear Society. The Society whose emblem, perched in the outside coign of the building, had once been embraced by that silly fool Claes, so the story ran, just after he had swum the canal and hacked to death Simon of Kilmirren’s expensive dog.

That was when Claes, though a fool, had been amusing to be with. Before he started telling him what he could or couldn’t do with girls like Mabelie. To be truthful, Felix hadn’t been sorry to get rid of the Mabelie embarrassment. As it turned out, she hadn’t wanted to leave John Bonkle anyway, and John Bonkle hadn’t wanted to get rid of her. He and Jannekin had both been a bit drunk.