Niccolo Rising Read Online Free

thinking of picking up money. It was Felix who said, “We’re going backwards.”
    “Sideways,” said Claes. He said it thoughtfully.
    “Forward,” said Julius.
    The lock gates continued to open and the Duke of Burgundy’s bath prepared, giddily, to emerge into the canal. The lightermen jabbed with their paddles. The leaden rim of the bath rose, sank and rose. The slop in the bath flowed backwards and forwards, soaking their sandy boots and their hose and the rabbit-bag and cleansing the Kilmirren crest as it rippled. The bath-rim struck the wall with a clank and drove itself and its barge swirling out of the lock where it bounced off one gate and bucked off to visit the other. The dog, staggering, barked.
    From the corner of his eye, Julius saw the Scotsman make his way quickly down to the group on the bank. There, every startled face was turned to the lighter. The dog redoubled its barking, and on the shore men began to shout very loudly.
    Julius could see what they were shouting about. He could see – everyone could – what was going to happen. He had time to wonder what was in the ducal parcel so handsomely stowed in the long barge at the side of the waterway. He had time, even, to examine it as the Duke of Burgundy’s bath leaped towards the shuddering outward-bound lighter containing the Duke of Burgundy’s personal cargo. The two boats collided. The lighter, held by its ropes, had no way to escape as the boat containing Julius, Felix and Claes pitched into its planks and sheared its side off.
    The bath tilted, ejecting Claes and Julius briskly into the waterway. It sluiced Felix down to its deep end where he wallowed, his submerged hand firmly clutching its coping. Then it righted itself.
    The crippled outward-bound lighter tugged its mooring ropes, burst them, and shed its cargo with languor into the watery gloom, capping it with its own weedy bottom.
    As it went, Julius rose to the surface. His eyes opened on horrified faces, Burgundian and Flemish. His ears, streaming water, caught the first ejaculation of moment which did not come from the Flemings at all, but from the Scottish Bishop. “ Martha! ” exclaimed that figure in a voice of bronchial protest. “What have you done? What have you done? You have sent Martha, you fools, to the bottom!”
    No one laughed. Especially Julius didn’t laugh. For now he knew what had been in the barge, and what they had ruined.
    There was no one to warn. Claes, his feather lost, was floundering over there and Felix, swimming briskly, had nearly got to the bank, neck and neck with the dog, which scrambled up past him. The boat with the bath was tied up, and the lightermen already stood, a sheepishgroup, on the towpath. Dripping, Felix got out and, commendably, went off and joined them, shadowed by Claes. Feeling old, Julius climbed up and squelched after them. The dog shook itself, and its master’s man, scowling, got it warily by the collar.
    From the circle of eminent persons, severe voices had continued to rise. The Bishop’s demands could be heard: “Will you take some action, my lords! Get your engineers, your dredgers, your seamen!” And later: “Unless, of course, the insult is deliberate. My cousin of Scotland is promised a gift, and the gift is lost by the Duke’s own officers in the Duke’s own waterway. What am I to think?”
    The commandant hurriedly spoke, and the Burgomaster. Then at last came the calm voice of Anselm Adorne, who had held, in his time, the highest office in Bruges and whom Julius would trust to smoothe anyone’s feathers. “My lord, you have lost only a wind and a tide. The Burgomaster will escort you to Bruges. The commandant will take these men into custody. The canal will be dredged and the object retrieved or replaced. It was, I believe, purely an accident, but the city will pursue its enquiries and make you their report. Meanwhile, we can only offer our humble apologies.”
    The Burgomaster said, “That is so. That is so.