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  ‘To a recipe from the Professor Giammatteo Ferrari in Pavia. The uncle of Dr Tobias, your company doctor. Dr Tobias has left you, I am told. Your Bank is dissolving?’ said the King. After the first glance, he had returned to his papers. He signed two, and handed them over his shoulder; one of his officers took them and left.

  ‘The reverse, monseigneur,’ Nicholas said. ‘It is too healthy to require medication. We can barely store the pledges which are offered us daily. We even have to refuse those we once dealt with most often.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the King. His hand did not falter, but as he completed his name, he laid down his pen and looked up. ‘M. de Ribérac told you my wishes. I hope he conveyed them correctly.’

  ‘As I understand them,’ Nicholas said, ‘they range, monseigneur, from the provision of privy information to the open transfer of my army and services from Burgundy to yourself. Including my financial services.’

  ‘That is what I told the vicomte to say,’ said the King. ‘There is, of course, scope for many permutations between. But the greatest honours are reserved for the man who makes the boldest move. The Constable of France and the Receiver-General of Normandy spring to mind.’

  ‘And monseigneur’s financial adviser from Scotland,’ Nicholas said. ‘That is the position, I must confess, that I would covet most. In fact, the only position.’

  The King smiled. Even his eyes smiled. ‘Come. Land, wealth, a vicomté, compared with the cares of a kingdom’s income and outlays? Leave M. de Ribérac to his burdens.’

  ‘Monseigneur, of course. But in that case – it pains me – I cannot serve you.’

  Behind the King, a man suddenly bent over and whispered. The King made an irritable gesture while pinching his lips. His eyes still rested on Nicholas. He said, ‘I am aware, of course, that there is bad blood between you and the vicomte. Do you really consider that you can replace him, or do you seek rather to shame and embarrass him? Is that what you ask?’

  ‘You ask me for information about Burgundy and Brittany and Lorraine. You ask me to cease making loans to Duke Charles, and to withdraw my army from his service. You ask me to counteract Burgundian influence in the Tyrol, and hinder Duke Charles from final possession of Guelders. You ask me to work for you in Scotland against the Burgundian influence of the Baron Anselm Adorne.’

  ‘Leave me,’ Louis said. He spoke not to him, but to the men around him who stirred and left the room quietly, in order. They had not looked surprised.

  The door closed. Louis said, ‘Do I understand that you would do all of this, in return for the degredation of M. Jordan de Ribérac?’

  ‘No, monseigneur,’ Nicholas said. ‘You understand that I shall perform half of what you ask. I shall not withdraw my army, because in the present truce there is no need of that army. I shall not overtly transfer to your service because I could not supply you with information if I did. I shall not refuse loans to Duke Charles of Burgundy, but I shall delay what loans I promise, and I shall reduce them. The rest I shall do, fully and unconditionally as you suggest, at a rate of payment that takes account of the fact that no public honours can be bestowed. And I shall not do it at all without an undertaking that Jordan de Ribérac will meet the fate of Jacques de Coeur, when I choose to supply proof of his errors.’

  ‘Is he cheating me?’ said the King.

  Nicholas smiled. He said, ‘Let us say that he is the last person monseigneur should have sent to persuade me to join you. If I joined you openly, I should be dead.’

  ‘So,’ said Louis. He rose and strolled to the bed. His knees, above the knotted calves, were bent slightly inwards. He turned. ‘So you think you are worth more to me than he is?’

  ‘I think,’ Nicholas said, ‘that monseigneur needs us both today. But tomorrow, when you have enjoyed the fruits of all I can bring you, you may find that M. de Ribérac is not the only numerate man in your kingdom.’

  The King was silent. Then he said, ‘M. de Ribérac’s advice was to make no agreement that would not involve a considerable forfeit if broken. He suggested I demand from you a lodgement of gold.’

  ‘Or my son?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘We have small use for what may be simply replaced by an active man attentive to his marriage. No. But suppose,’ Louis said, ‘suppose that our discussion had gone otherwise. Suppose that we demanded you openly serve us, and refused to let you depart without such a bond?’

  Nicholas pursed his lips. ‘Monseigneur, the situation could never arise. As I explained, to join you openly would destroy half my worth. The world must think I have refused what you are offering. That is why my other servants have gone straight to Hesdin, to inform Duke Charles of their anxieties over my whereabouts. Of course, as soon as I appear, the truce talks will continue without impediment.’

  There was a long silence. At last: ‘But how charming,’ said the King. ‘You expect a pension; you promise to serve me. But what guarantee do I have that you will do anything for me at all?’

  ‘As much as you have,’ Nicholas said, ‘from any other of your myriad pensioners. With this difference, perhaps. You will see results very soon. I am going to Scotland. I shall do all in my power to see that Scotland sends you all that you dream of. An army, led by her King.’

  ‘You will?’ said the King slowly. He came close, until he stood face to face, looking up. He said, ‘Yes, my friend. My ambitious, clever young friend. You do that, and France will be generous. Do that, and indeed, you will receive what you ask.’

  Freed, Nicholas rode out next day with his servants. A mile from the castle, he was halted by a small group of horsemen. Among them, vast in the saddle, was Jordan de Ribérac. ‘A word,’ he said.

  The forces were evenly divided. They made no attempt to attack or to mix, but waited facing each other while Nicholas and the vicomte moved apart. De Ribérac halted and spoke. ‘You are a fortunate youth. I hear you refused the King, and yet he released you.’

  Nicholas smiled. ‘Did he tell you why? I had sent ahead to warn Burgundy.’

  The fat man gazed at him thoughtfully. ‘You had no intention, when you came, of joining France. Or of sending your son. You can rout the Vatachino, you think, on your own.’

  ‘I should have been a fool to join France,’ Nicholas said. ‘Considering what was happening in the courtyard as you and I spoke. I never saw a more depressed set of couriers. Are all the members of the royal House of Lancaster dead, or merely in fetters?’

  ‘Was it so obvious?’ de Ribérac said. ‘I suppose, to a second-class sort of diviner, it was. Yes, the news had just come from England. Edward of York has regained the throne. Henry of Lancaster is dead; his queen Margaret of Anjou in prison.’

  ‘And the boy?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘Edward of Wales died on the battlefield. A fierce, silly child, mad for war.’

  ‘The news will have reached Angers,’ remarked Nicholas. ‘They will probably cancel St Vincent.’

  ‘You are going to the Duke of Burgundy now, at Hesdin?’ the fat man asked.

  Nicholas looked surprised. ‘Who in his senses would miss such an occasion? Fireworks, bonfires, rejoicing: York on the throne, and his ducal good-brother en fête? It’ll be like Negroponte. Of course I am going to the Duke. I have my wife Gelis to meet.’

  He rode off, and did not know how long Jordan de Ribérac brooded alone in the saddle, looking after him.

  Chapter 4

  ON THE THIRTEENTH day of June, ten days after her husband left Ham, the lady Gelis van Borselen completed her journey from Cologne to Bruges, which she had left sixteen months before in the train of Anselm Adorne’s so-called pilgrimage.

  From that extraordinary journey, Adorne had returned in April to his own grand house in Bruges, together with his son and his niece. Gelis had not seen him since he left Venice, and she avoided him now, not least because his home was sheltering the little royal lady she had once served, Mary of Scotland. Gelis did not want to meet the lady Mary at present, and have to answer her puzzled e
nquiries.

  She had had to decide, before leaving Cologne, where best to settle in Bruges, to wait out the interim until her husband chose to communicate. She made the choice on her own. For three months, Julius had helped her balance her life with his careless goodwill and ample energy and total lack of involvement, but she refused to yield to his insatiable curiosity. Fortunately his interests at present were deeply engaged somewhere else.

  On her own, therefore, she had determined to make no present demands on the courtesy of Adorne or invite the anxious questions of her former mistress by calling at the Hôtel Jerusalem, or risk the condemnation of her cousins by descending upon the Wolfaert van Borselens at Veere. She could have leased again the house she had shared with Margot and the child, together with Clémence de Coulanges and old Pasque, who had been so quick to desert her for Nicholas – or so she assumed. If they were not with Nicholas, no one had heard of them. If they were not with Nicholas, the child was lost as perhaps Nicholas wanted him lost, with everything taken away that was dear.

  It was four months since she had seen her son, and he had only been two. She tried not to think of it, for even though she believed she had wrung her throat dry, fresh rivers still came. And because the house would have cried for the child, she did not want to go there.

  Which left the married home she had never occupied: the great Charetty–Niccolò house in Spangnaerts Street. This, besides the apartments of Nicholas and his staff, held the bureau of the Bank and the offices of the Charetty company, and was also the home of Tilde de Charetty, the step-daughter of Nicholas, and Catherine her sister, and Diniz Vasquez her husband who managed it all. The message which had reached Gelis in Cologne had been sent from there: it was to this house that Nicholas was communicating. Whatever it demanded from her in terms of brazen defiance, that was where she must go, for this channel was the only channel, she had long recognised, that would lead her, perhaps, to her son.

  She had written therefore to Diniz, proposing herself. Nicholas would expect it, and for his sake they wouldn’t refuse her. She would not be welcome. Since the events of last year, all that masculine coterie at the Bank had become aware of her war against Nicholas, and after the kidnapping of the child, they had felt no call to continue to shield her. It was common knowledge by now that she had lain with Simon, Jordan de Ribérac’s son, in an effort to bastardise the legitimate child she was carrying.

  The response of her husband, whom nobody blamed, had been to trace the child and take it away from her. Simon, who had thought the baby his own, had found himself a laughing-stock and a dupe, and had been dispatched quickly to his Portuguese property before he could harm her or himself. His spoiled brat Henry had been sent with him. Despite their absence, however, Bruges would not be a friendly place for Gelis van Borselen any more than Venice had been, where indifference and distaste had surrounded her. Adorne had shown her courtesy, and Gregorio pity, that was all.

  It would not stop her from entering Bruges. Nicholas had come close to breaking her this time. She could think of nothing, attempt nothing against him until she knew the child to be safe. Meanwhile she still had her pride, and her courage. And later, they would find out, all of them, what she could do.

  Nicholas forced her to wait for a month, during which he sent her two messages. The first told her that he was in Hesdin. The child was elsewhere. If she moved without orders, she would not see him. The second summoned her, at last, to the Burgundian camp.

  By that time, even Tilde de Charetty had begun to lose her aversion for Gelis van Borselen, two years older than herself, once the plump, wilful child who had been so enchanted by Nicholas the apprentice. As she, Tilde, once had been, before she met and married her beloved Diniz.

  At first, learning that Gelis proposed to come and stay, Tilde had refused point-blank to have her. Her sister Catherine shared her view. In vain, Diniz had argued that the house belonged to the Bank, and that Gelis had at least as much right to live there as they had. In fact his arguments lacked some conviction. They all knew, now, what Gelis had done. It was Adorne’s niece Katelijne who, dropping in at the height of the dispute, changed their opinion.

  Since returning from pilgrimage with her uncle, Katelijne Sersanders had occasionally called on Diniz and Tilde de Charetty. The attraction, naturally, was Tilde’s baby – a daughter called Marian after Tilde’s mother. Adorne’s wife sent it presents. Paying her first visit in May, Katelijne, seventeen, single and active, ate the cakes her aunt sent, talked to Tilde, talked to the baby, folded napkins, mended a fringe, finished some sewing, offered to make a straw basket and dispensed news.

  Some of it, but not very much, concerned her recent pilgrimage, during which she had briefly run across Tilde’s stepfather Nicholas de Fleury, who had taught her how to weave baskets. Having disposed, without detail, of the pilgrimage, Katelijne entertained Tilde with an account of the present war being waged in the Adorne household, currently lodging a branch of the Scottish royal family together with fifty attendants. They had been there for over a year.

  ‘Officially,’ said Katelijne, unpacking three papers of powders, ‘the Duke of Burgundy doesn’t know they are there, because the Princess’s husband has been condemned as a traitor in Scotland, and Burgundy shouldn’t be sheltering him or his children.’

  ‘When is the second one due?’ Tilde enquired. She brought a bowl, and watched Katelijne start mixing.

  ‘In the late summer, they think. They ought to leave now, while the Princess can travel, but they won’t know where to go until the English succession is settled. The Earl of Arran can’t go back to Scotland, and the Princess his Countess won’t leave him.’

  ‘A fine-looking man,’ suggested Tilde, with all the complacency of one married to another such.

  ‘It wouldn’t matter if he looked like a boot. She worships him. It makes Jan puke,’ Kathi said. Jan was Adorne’s son, her cousin, who had returned from his pilgrimage with the offer of a good job in Rome, and was not at all pleased to be stuck in Bruges with a household of foreigners.

  ‘And you?’ Tilde had said. ‘Do you want to stay with the Countess, or go back to help with her sister in Scotland?’

  Kathi’s eyes, as sometimes happened, had lost focus. She concentrated again. ‘I liked Scotland,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t mind going back. There’s your mixture.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Flea paste,’ the girl said. ‘I wondered if I remembered how to make it.’

  ‘Dr Tobias,’ said Tilde. ‘Of course, he was with you as well. Do you know he has gone? Back to his hated uncle the physician in Pavia. No one knows why.’

  ‘He keeps doing that,’ Kathi said. ‘He’s waiting for his uncle to die, so that he can get hold of his books and his printing press. I don’t think it’s an omen. Master John and Father Moriz left as well, but just to see to the mines in the Tyrol.’

  ‘I wish we knew where Nicholas was,’ Tilde said fretfully. But she was certain by then that neither Kathi nor the Adorne family knew.

  The next time Kathi came, Tilde did know where Nicholas was, because he had sent to tell them. He had also sent to have his wife directed from Cologne to Bruges to await orders. ‘She wants to stay here, but I’m not having her,’ Tilde had said flatly. As a solid, narrow-faced matron of twenty-three she was acquiring something of her mother’s authority. At first, Tilde and her sister had bitterly resented Nicholas when he had married their mother. Now they resented his present wife, who had cheated him in ways no woman should.

  Tilde de Charetty seldom talked about Nicholas, and never to Catherine, who had learned to deal with life at second hand through a shifting circle of suitors. Tilde supposed that every girl child in Bruges at some time had dreamed of receiving the merry, loving, undemanding attentions of Claes, the Charetty apprentice. A sweetheart for the season, not a lord to preside at your table, however gentle his manners.

  But then, building upon the Charetty business, a lord was what he had become. To Tilde, he had
always behaved as a member of the household as much as a stepfather. It was his planning which had brought her Diniz Vasquez her husband. Tilde thanked God for that daily, even if Nicholas often occupied the rest of her thoughts; Nicholas whose ability had always been there under the generous, inconsequential demeanour. Hidden there.

  But for Gelis to marry and cheat him had been unforgivable. Tilde inadvertently wakened the baby, slamming down the basket which Katelijne had brought, and had to march up and down with the child over her shoulder declaiming, while Kathi unpacked the pannier. There were two oranges in it, which Kathi set out and peeled. She said, ‘I keep wondering why the lady Gelis did what she did.’

  Tilde put down the baby, which was annoyed but no longer alarmed. ‘I thought you’d know. Didn’t you help get the boy away from her in Venice? She hates Nicholas.’

  ‘Everyone helped. It was time, for the boy’s sake. But if she hated M. de Fleury, why keep the child?’

  Tilde held a section of orange and thought briefly. ‘She wanted a baby, she didn’t want Nicholas. Or she hoped the baby was Simon’s.’ She ate the orange.

  ‘She knew it couldn’t be. Margot told me.’

  ‘So what do you think?’ Tilde asked. She knew from report that Adorne’s niece had been popular on the pilgrimage in the way a mascot was popular: small, spry and ever willing to help, with her hazel eyes and brown hair and air of perpetual eagerness. Only Jan Adorne had found her tiresome, but Jan Adorne was a plodding student who had over-celebrated at Venice and disliked everyone who knew about it.

  Katelijne considered. She ejected some pips. ‘I think that some ladies like freedom, and resent it if a child comes too soon.’

  ‘So she didn’t want the child? She certainly left it a lot.’

  Katelijne shook her head. ‘I think she fell in love with it, when she couldn’t have M. de Fleury.’