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were still children in terms of diplomacy. The family Adorne had had nearly two hundred years of regional power in Flanders since they came from Italy to settle in Flanders with the Count of the day, who had married a daughter to the King of Scotland. A long, long sequence of Adornes, with their well-bred faces and quizzical eyebrows and fair, curling hair, had served the town of Bruges and the Dukes of Flanders, in that order. They never forgot, either, the other branch of their wandering family, which had served the republic of Genoa in Italy for even longer, as menof business and men of money and, very often in the highest post of all, as Genoa’s rulers, her Doges.
    To a man of family and of property like Anselm Adorne, trained in knightly skills and in letters, Latinist, fluent in Flemish and French, German and English and in the dialects of the country of Scotland, the three foolish young men who had overturned the Bishop’s new cannon were simply children. He did not rise when they were brought into the great room of his house, nor did his wife of sixteen years move from the far end of the hall, where she had placed herself with her visitors, her serving-woman and the older of their many children.
    The gothic chair in which Anselm sat, like the beams over his head, bore the entwined crests of his mother and father, Bradericx and Adorne, and the blazon appeared again, in coloured glass, in the tall Gothic windows. The notary had been here before. On the quayside at Damme, Adorne had recognised the slanting eyes and taking, blunt features at once. Meester Julius was a good deal more subdued now, in his proper collared black gown, with his hat-scarf over his shoulder, and the tools of his profession slung at his belt. But his soft-shod feet had a firm enough grip of the ground, and the inkhorn and pencase hung steady and still. The young man had the pride of the convent-bred clerk and the scholar. But escapades were for students.
    The others were common material. The boy Felix had bid fair to run wild after Cornelis de Charetty died, but he had a sensible mother. Whether he had the shrewdness of his father was another matter. It had been Cornelis who had kept his head in the panic two years ago when the Lombard pawnshops all failed, and had rescued his wife Marian’s father by taking over his trade.
    It was recognised as being good business, mixing pawning with dyestuffs. The Lou vain shop had flourished, and de Charetty had several houses there, it was said, as well as his Blauw verweij, his woad-dyeing workshop and house here in Bruges, and his excellent bodyguard. He must have had small enough time for his children. But a man like Cornelis should have been wiser: should have looked to the future; should have considered who was to follow if he died before his time. Now there was only his wife Marian, and the managers who were as reliable as managers usually were, and that maniac of a mercenary and the boy. This boy Felix, who enjoyed pranking with his apprentice friend Claes, and had no thought of the business at all.
    Anselm Adorne looked at the apprentice then, last of all, and made an observation. He said, turning, “I will not ask you to sit down, Meester Julius, for you are here to be sentenced. But tell me first. Has this fellow been chastised?” He spoke in Flemish.
    The youth Felix opened his mouth and, receiving a look from the notary, shut it again. The notary said in the same language, “Minen heere, Claes was beaten for the injury to the Bishop’s friend. He wasalso beaten for what was taken to be an impertinence. Both were unintentional.”
    “He was impertinent,” said Anselm calmly. “And he did cause harm to Messer de’ Acciajuoli. He was beaten for no reason concerned with the cannon? No proof or confession of guilt has attached to him?”
    “No, minen heere,” said the notary. He spoke with firmness. “Claes had no designs on the cannon. It was an accident. Nor was he steering when the