Niccolo Rising Read Online Free Page B

glances. And knew, as if he’d been told, that the lightermen would not give the same assurance. They couldn’t afford to. His legal training told him it was all entirely unfair. His experience of courts ducal, regal and churchly told him that fairness had nothing to do with it. He hoped his employer, Felix’s mother, would keep her head. He hoped the Bishop was less vindictive than he looked, and that some god would stain, tear or even drench the taffetas of the exquisiteSimon, who was still murmuring to Katelina van Borselen, watched, as they all were, by the devouring gaze of the onlookers.
    The serving-girl with the pail was also still there. She had stopped courting the glance of the taffeta, and there was concern on her round face, not blushes. Perhaps Claes felt her eyes on him. He looked up, and found her, and gave her one of his happiest smiles. Mary Mother, thought Julius. He doesn’t even know what is happening. Should I tell him? That the Duke’s cargo that sank was a gift – a gift from Duke Philip of Burgundy to his dear nephew James, King of Scotland. A fifteen-foot gift of some import. To be plain, a five-ton war cannon, grimly christened Mad Martha.
    Someone cried out. It was, perhaps, thought Julius, himself. Then he saw, to his surprise, a mass of dishevelled brown hair dart past the Bishop, and recognised the athletic figure of the girl Katelina. And behind her, also running, was Claes, followed by an increasing number of soldiers.
    At the lock edge, the bearded man in the long robes had turned. He saw the girl coming. He tried, stepping hastily, to move out of her way. Then he saw what she was after and stretched out a hand. Her hennin, blown off by the wind, rolled and skipped at his feet. He stooped, just as Claes, sprinting, passed the girl and started to pounce in his turn. The two men collided.
    The bearded man fell, with a sickening crack that could be heard all round the basin. Claes, his feet trapped, dived over the body and plummetted, with a fountain of unpleasant water, back into the canal. The girl stopped, threw an annoyed glance at the water, and then stooped with a frown beside the prone, convulsed form of the Florentine.
    The grip on Julius had gone. Felix, also free, said, “Oh my God,” and rushed to the water’s edge. Julius followed him. Between heads, he could see Claes splashing about in the water. When the apprentice glanced up, it was at Katelina van Borselen, now come to the edge, and not at the soldiers lined above him at all.
    “It’s buckled,” said Claes, with regret. He referred, you could see, to a soaked steeple headdress captured firmly in one powerful, blue-fingered hand. He coughed, examining it, and water ran out of his nostrils. He paddled carefully back to the steps and gazed up, with apology, at the hennin’s dishevelled owner.
    Katelina stepped back abruptly. Claes climbed the steps. The soldiers seized him. Claes’ circular eyes opened wide, winking as water ran into them. He gave his attention to the soldiers, and to Katelina, and to the hennin, which was no longer a snowy cone, but a battered scroll mottled with indigo. She accepted it in a dazed manner.
    The generous lips widened in that marvellous smile which had bewitched every servant in Flanders. “I took the weeds out of it,” said Claes to Katelina von Borselen. “And the mud will wash off in no time,and Felix’s mother’s manager will get rid of the indigo. Bring it to the shop. No, send a servant. A dyeshop is no place for a lady.”
    “Thank you,” said Katelina van Borselen, “for troubling yourself. But perhaps you should save your concern for the gentleman whose leg you have smashed? There he is, over there.”
    The way his face changed made it clear that Claes had been unaware of the other’s misfortune. He was a good-hearted boy. He made to move to his victim, but the men at arms stopped him instantly. They buffeted him as they did it, and went on striking him every time he