Read Niccolo Rising for Free Online Page B

was sorry, but not very sorry that he had failed to take the boy’s entire measure. He said, “Claes – that is your name?”
    The boy had the open smile of the child, of the idiot, of the aged, of the cloister. He said, “Claes vander Poele, minen heere.”
    The surname had been given him. He had none of his own. Anselm’s steward, who could nose out anything, had known all about Claes. The youth had come as a boy of ten to serve in the Charetty dyehouse. Before that, he had lived at Geneva, in the merchant household of Thibault and Jaak de Fleury, being Jaak’s niece’s bastard. He had never gone back to the de Fleury family, who seemed to have discharged their duty towards him when they paid his apprenticeship fees to the dyers. It was a common story. A servant of one household or the daughter of another made a mistake, and the mistake was reared thriftily, and appeared with blue nails in Flanders.
    Minor gossip didn’t interest Adorne, but Bruges and its business life did. One day Felix de Charetty would belong to that community, and it was the duty of the community to see that he came to it without prejudice or unworthy companions. Anselm’s steward said this apprentice was sweet-natured and simple. Such things were easy to test. Anselm said, “You should understand then, Claes vander Poele, that a lady does not apologise to an apprentice.”
    “Why, minen heere?” said the apprentice. “If I offended her, I should apologise to the lady.”
    “Then apologise. You have offended me,” said the Borselen girl.
    “Because my lady’s hair came down in the wind in front of my lord Simon. I know it. I am sorry, my lady,” said the apprentice.
    Anselm Adorne was conscious of his wife’s twinkling face in the background, and of the sharp stare of the girl he was talking to. “And you brought me under your roof to suffer an encounter with him ?” said Katelina van Borselen. “Scotland was more civilised.”
    “Perhaps it will be better in Zeeland, my lady,” said the apprentice. “The winds may moderate. Or if my lady would like, I could bend her a framework that wouldn’t blow off. I make them for Felix’s mother.”
    “Claes,” said Julius the notary. “With the permission of Meester Anselm, I am sure you could retire.”
    The sunny smile turned on Adorne. “May I retire? May I first, minen heere, speak to your children? We know each other.”
    Adorne knew that, from his wife. He had not finished yet with this particular rascal, but to allow matters to take this course might be interesting. He inclined his head.
    It was not his oldest son Jan and his cousin the youth made for, he saw, but the little ones: Katelijne and Antoon and Lewijse. The lady Katelina watched him pass her with well-bred amazement, and then turned to talk politely to her host and hostess, waiting patiently from time to time if Meester Julius were invited to speak. Little bursts of laughter came from the children at the end of the room. They seemed to be playing a board game. Later, he saw the boy Claes displaying his hands, with some sort of pattern of thread held between them. Later still, he heard voices he could have sworn belonged to people he knew, such as Tommaso Portinari, and the Scottish Bishop and Meester Bladelin the Controller and the guild-dean of the fruiterers, who had two upper lips, may God give him comfort.
    Then all the voices stopped, and he knew that Nicholai Giorgio de’ Acciajuoli had, as if on cue, entered the hall. He was dressed as he had been yesterday on the quayside at Damme, with the draped hat and the silk brocade robe, created in Florence. He dominated the room. His combed black beard was Italianate, but the quality of his skin and the close-set dark eyes were Levantine. His lips, edged with red, revealed fine teeth. A Greek of Florentine origins: the guest from the Scots ship whom the apprentice Claes yesterday had sent flying. Whose leg Claes had audibly broken.
    Beside him, Adorne saw the