Niccolo Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

opened his mouth. The biggest mouth in the country, and the best-beaten back. Julius looked at his young master Felix. Felix said, “It’s all Claes’ fault. He never seems to grow up.”
    Echoes of Felix’s mother. If they crucified Claes, would she blame her notary? There was no one else to worry about him. Claes was the sort of unfortunate bastard (Julius sympathised in a way) whose relatives were either dead or indifferent. Julius said, “The man whose leg he broke. Who was that?”
    No one knew. A Florentine. A guest of the Bishop’s, come from Scotland with the Bishop himself, and the beautiful Simon, and Katelina van Borselen who, if God had been kind, would have found a husband in Scotland and stayed there. Whoever he was, they would find out soon enough, when he or his executors demanded Claes’ hide for his injuries.
    They watched as Claes was dragged off. He went unregarded by Anselm Adorne, which was a bad sign. But Adorne was occupied, like the rest, in anxious ministration to the man with the beard.
    Like most of the rest. The exquisite Simon, taking off his blue taffeta doublet, had offered it rolled like a bandeau to the lady; and was now binding it round her loose hair. It looked very pretty. He fastened it with the ruby, still talking. After a moment she smiled, in a cursory fashion. If you were interested, you might have wondered what the girl Katelina had against the young lord. Perhaps, on the journey from Scotland, he had ignored her, and had now changed his mind? Or had he once gone too far? Or had she selected a rival, and he was trying to lure her back to his company?
    Julius considered these things, watching Simon. Then he turned his back on him with decision. But for that sportive nobleman, he and Felix and Claes might have escaped without notice. It did not occur to Julius then that the fair Simon’s interventions could have been other than idle. And yet he knew the practices of the city.
    And he knew, as the fair Simon knew, which of the three would suffer for it most, in the end.

Chapter 2
    W HATEVER PROFOUND legal argument Julius had with the commandant on the way back to Bruges, it was ineffectual. It didn’t save himself and Felix from prison. Before noon, they were locked up.
    By divine intervention his employer, Felix’s mother, was away at Lou vain. Julius sent a soothing message, wrapped in money, to Henninc, her dyeshop factor in Bruges, and three others to people who owed him a favour. Then he hoped for the best. It seemed to him that no one was really interested in himself or in Felix. If one person was going to be blamed for everything, it was going to be Claes.
    It was late afternoon when they got the first news of him. The turnkey, bristling through the bars, mentioned that their young friend had been put to the question. The lad, who wanted a tile or two, had talked for a turn of the hourglass about nothing else but the rabbit hunt. Of course, he had done himself no good, although he was a great comic, everyone said: as good as one of Duke Philip’s dwarves. Maybe Duke Philip would take him on as a jester, if he got over the beating. They’d made a better job of it than they usually did, hoping for a confession. Julius was sorry for Claes. Fortunately, Claes took this sort of setback philosophically; and in any case, he had nothing to confess.
    Then the news came that he had been brought into prison. Naturally, he was lodged in the famous Dark Chamber. Julius (also philosophical) paid for warm water and cloths and wrote a promissory note for the bailiff, stolidly counter-signed by the town notary, to buy Claes the right to the upper floor, where his masters had bedding and sustenance.
    The idiot was dragging irons when he arrived, and Julius had to pay to have these taken off also. He added this to the careful running note of his expenses, which in due course would reappear, neatly itemised, as student equipment for Felix.
    Naturally. Methodically honest himself, Meester