Niccolo Rising Read Online Free Page A

The lightermen will answer to the dean of their guild, and if negligent, they shall be punished.”
    “They were not all lightermen,” someone said. “Those three. Those three wear no badges.” The voice of Simon of Kilmirren, newly arrived from the lock, negligent in blue taffeta, his fair face perfectly bland. Someone gripped Julius hard, from behind, by the arms. “And,” continued the same amused voice, “they owe the lock-keeper money.”
    Anselm Adorne turned his head, glanced at Felix and Claes and remained studying Julius. His hollow-boned face, deceptively monkish, was non-committal. He said, “I am acquainted with Meester Julius. Any mistake over money was, I am certain, an oversight. But I must ask. How did you three come to be on this boat?”
    “We were asked,” Julius said. “With so many ships in the basin, crews were pushed to serve everyone.”
    “The Duke cannot command a lighter crew when he wishes?” said the Bishop. He had pushed back his hood. He was not very big, but he had the chin of a fighter.
    The man in the Florentine gown had lost interest. Turning his back on the Bishop he had strolled to the quay, to watch the water lap at the lock. Adorne’s wife was still present, and the girl Katelina, picking her way down from the lock, chose to stand between her and Simon, looking pensive. Then she turned towards Julius, who was pouring water from doublet and jacket and hair, and she smiled. It was not a smile of sympathy; and when the fair Simon murmured something in her ear, she broke into a low laugh that was even less sympathetic. Returned without a husband, they said. With Simon, who had neverhad a refusal. The rich ones think he’ll marry them, and the poor ones don’t care.
    “My lord, there were enough lightermen,” Julius said. “But none who could care for the bath. An officer asked us …” He heard himself, a well-schooled, responsible notary, stumbling through his explanation. Rolling back from the rabbit-hunt, full of good wine from the grateful dune-herder, ripe for novelty, heading in any case seven weary miles back to Bruges – who would not have taken the chance to travel in the Duke’s bathing basin?
    He ended as best he could. “And indeed, minen heere, neither we nor the lightermen are to blame for the accident. The walls leaked, and the basin became uncontrollable.”
    The man called Simon drifted to the Bishop’s shoulder and stood there smiling. “Uncontrollable! To Bruges lightermen, conveying such property! Who was steering?”
    No one had been steering. Everyone had been steering. One of the lightermen, pressed, admitted suddenly that that apprentice called Claes had been steering.
    All eyes on Claes. My God: goodnatured, randy, innocent Claes, who knew nothing but how to make jokes and mimic his betters. Claes, with the biggest mouth in Flanders. Claes who, standing in a pool of light mud, opened his eyes, large as moons, and said, Of course, minen heere, he had been steering, but not inside the lock. The osprey feather would have been an improvement. His hair, darkened to the colour of gravy, hung in screws over his eyes and coiled over his cheeks and dripped into the frayed neck of his doublet. He shook himself, and they all heard his boots give a loud, sucking sound.
    A liberal smile crossed Claes’ face, and faded a little when no one responded. He said, “Minen heere, we did our best, and got a ducking for it, and lost our day’s sport and our crossbows. And at least the Duke still has his bath.”
    “I think you are insolent,” said the Burgomaster. “And I think you are lying. Do you deny, Meester Julius, that the youth Claes was steering?”
    “He was steering,” said Julius. “But –”
    “We have heard. But he ceased when you entered the lock. That is, you saw him stop. But he may have started again.”
    “He didn’t,” cried Felix.
    “I know he didn’t,” affirmed Julius stoutly. And uselessly. He saw the lightermen exchange