Niccolo Rising Read Free

the statutory can of Bruges beer to the lock-keeper.
    The man looked at him twice before naming him. Without the gown he wasn’t Meester Julius the notary; he was just another young pest in his twenties. In his more sober moments, Julius was aware that exploits such as these were unseemly. In his less sober moments, he refused to be bothered. The lock-keeper had no trouble recognising Felix or Claes. Everyone in Bruges and Louvain knew the Charetty heir and his slavish attendant.
    There were no other craft in the lock: another mark of the power of the Duke. The lighter entered, and behind it the tidal gates waded creaking together. The lock-keeper, stowing his beer, walked off to open the sluices. Perched high on the water, Julius looked ahead, beyond the shut wooden gates, to where the canal ran straight over the marshlands which led to the far spires of Bruges. Immediately outside the sluice another barge, seaward bound, lay double-moored to the bank, waiting for them to emerge.
    It, too, lay low in the water. It, too, bore only one item of cargo: a single thickly wrapped object some fifteen feet long which did not, like the Princenhof bath, project beyond either gunwale, but lay snugly within the barge well, hardly moved by the swell of the water.
    Above it, in a cleared and cordoned space on the bank, stood a group of undoubtedly very grand persons with an authentic steeple headdress drifting among them. From the superior height of the lock, Julius gazed upon them. So did Felix and Claes and the lightermen.
    There were banners. There were soldiers. There was a group of well-turned-out local churchmen escorting the figure of a medium-sized, broad-shouldered bishop with precious stones winking all over him. Julius knew who he was. He owned the Scots ship St Salvator , the largest vessel they had seen back at Sluys. It had already unloaded and had been taking on cargo for Scotland.
    Felix said, “That’s Bishop Kennedy, the King’s cousin, come to winter in Bruges. That’s the party he brought with him from Scotland: they must have been staying in Damme since they landed. What are they waiting for?”
    “Us,” said Claes happily. His feather waved slowly.
    “The lighter,” said Felix. Occasionally, the future burgess surfaced in Felix. “What’s that thing in the lighter? Cargo for the St Salvator maybe?”
    Occasionally, Felix was right. “Important cargo,” said Julius. “Look. It’s got Duke Philip’s own seals all over it.”
    Hence, of course, the escorting soldiers and the other overdressed dignitaries. There was the ducal flag, with the Duke’s deputy controller in its shadow. There was the banner of Bruges, with the Communal Burgomaster and a couple of échevins under it. Also the cleverest agent in Bruges and one of the wealthiest: Anselm Adorne in a furred robe, his long poet’s face wreathed by the scarves of his hat. His wife was with him, her wired headdress sensibly hooded, apparently brought in toshepherd the only female in the Bishop’s small party. The female, turning, proved to be a fine-looking girl in a temper.
    Felix said, “That’s Katelina van Borselen. You know. She’s nineteen. They sent her to Scotland to marry. She must have come back with the Bishop. And I may be blind, but I don’t see a husband.”
    Married or unmarried, the girl called Katelina was wearing the steeple headdress. The hennin had caught the wind and was furling and unfurling its veil like a flagpole so that she had to hold it with both tight-cuffed hands. She wore no ring, but there were two possible suitors beside her, presumably off the same ship. One was an elegant older man with a beard, wearing a draped hat and gown Julius would swear came from Florence. The other was some silly gallant.
    A good astrologer would, at that moment, have taken Julius by the arm. A good astrologer would have said, Do not look at the Bishop. Do not speak to the lady. Keep away from Anselm Adorne and the Florentine with the