Free Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett Page A

sooner or later.
    At the lodging owned by Jehan Metteneye, one of the Kilmirren men had to pull the bell to have the courtyard door opened, and the lantern over the gate gave the porter an interesting view of my lord Simon’s appearance. The room he shared with Napier and Wylie and another couple of Scottish merchants was upstairs and usually empty at this hour, but naturally he met Bishop Kennedy’s factor George Martin outside the eating-room and Metteneye’s wife on the stairs, and fell over John of Kinloch, the Scots chaplain, coming out of the dormitory, having used the last of the washing-water. It was a good half hour before he was able to come downstairs decently groomed and eat his supper while he entertained the others with the more amusing parts of his adventures. John, the St Ninian’s chaplain, irritated him, and he forced himself to be especially charming to him.
    At the same time, he had no doubt at all how he was going to pass the rest of the night. He had already brought down, in a roll, the papers he required to study before his first purchasing mission. He asked and received from the demoiselle Metteneye permission to use the innkeeper’s office, with its lamp and its worktable, where Jehan kept his chests and his ledgers.
    She was fifty and her smile made him flinch, but he smiled back when she trimmed the lamp, and brought him a better stool, and asked if there was anything of which he had need. He said no, and then changed his mind. He asked whether Mabelie could bring him a flask of the wine she had put specially aside for him. It was a risk, but a small one. Jehan was unlikely to let his wife come running here twice.
    He unrolled his papers and opened the inkstand, but after the door closed, made no attempt to read or to write. As always, coming back to a town, he had run through his mind the tale of his past conquests and part conquests, and had arranged them, half in idle anticipation, half in amusement at himself, in descending order of attack.
    Mabelie this time stood at the head. He had found her in his last days at the Metteneyes, a virgin of splendid charms and piquant simplicity, from which status he had led her with quite unwonted enjoyment. She was a servant, of course: one of the myriads of poor cousins and children of cousins which provided the staff for every good burgher’s household. There would be no hurry therefore to find her a husband. He had hoped, when he came back this time, to find her still in the house. When he saw her with her pail on the quay, still bright-eyed, still blushing, he had been quite touched.
    Last time, she had come to him here, and later he had bribed the two other maids to sleep elsewhere, while he came to her attic. Sometimes, such were the pleasures of Bruges that the dormitory stayed empty all night, and they could take their ease there. It was the only way he could pass such a night, without leaving the house. Women were not permitted in the inns and halls of the merchants.
    When a quarter of an hour had passed and Mabelie had not come, he became impatient, and opened the door. One of the menservants was passing, and he shut it again. Five minutes he tried again, and nearly knocked over the demoiselle Metteneye, advancing to knock with his wine. He produced a brilliant smile, and detaining her chatting, asked after Mabelie. The girl, she said, was a trial to her at times, as all girls were, but a hard worker for the most part, and earned her keep in times like these, when everyone wanted service and didn’t care whom they ran off their feet. She would be off perhaps making up beds for the new gentlemen who had come in that day. She couldn’t say. But my lord Simon would no doubt see her about, tonight or tomorrow.
    He tried again ten minutes later, and this time found a maid that he knew, whom he avoided as a rule because of the leer with which she accepted his bribes. She giggled and said that, of course, she would tell Mabelie that the gentleman