The Ruins of Lace (11 page)

There was a momentary scrape of wood against wood, the sound of a heavy footfall, and then the door was wrenched open. “If it’s not Klaas, who is it?” A man stood there, glaring at me from russet-colored eyes. Lace frothed beneath a precisely trimmed beard. Lace cuffs showed beneath the sleeves of a fine brocade doublet.

“Is it…De Grote?”

“
Nee.
It is not De Grote, because I am De Grote. It’s you.”

Feeling more than a little foolish, I nodded. “I am Alexandre Lefort.”

“And who are you, Alexandre Lefort? What do you want?” The words were almost a whisper.

“I’ve been told to speak to you about a…commission.”

His face relaxed. He smiled. Swept his arm wide in a gesture for me to enter. “Then please, come in.”

“He asked for you up front, De Grote.” The voice came from behind me: the clerk’s voice. “He asked about…you know…”

De Grote looked from the clerk back to me. “About what?”

“About…” The clerk mouthed the word “lace.”

De Grote turned to me. “You said the word?”

I nodded.

“Did anyone hear him?”

The clerk shrugged in a helpless sort of way. “Otto Stroobants.”

“Quickly—have him followed. See he goes home without getting me into any trouble along the way.” The orders were given in a hiss.

The clerk turned to go, but De Grote stopped him. “Does he buy much?”

The clerk turned back. “Who?”

“Stroobants.”

The clerk inclined his head. “A couple of bottles every month or two.”

De Grote folded his hands atop his froth of lace. Sighed. Shook his head. “Well. If there’s any trouble, if I have to do anything with him, it won’t cost us much in business.” He waved the clerk away, pulled me by the arm into the room, and shut the door. “About the lace.” He took a seat behind a counting table.

“I saw the abbess at the abbey in Lendelmolen just this morning.”

“And?”

“She said it would take two weeks, at least, for my lace to be finished.”

“Good. Fine. When it’s finished, bring it to me. I’ll have one of my dog runners get it across the border for you.”

“
Dog
runners?”

“I’ve a terror of the beasts myself, but I’ve never lost a length. I’ll need your money now, though, in order to do it.”

I pulled the purse from my coat and placed it into his hand.

He hefted it and then sent me a quizzical glance. After tugging the string loose with a finger, he poured the coins onto the table. “It’s not enough.”

“Some for now, to guarantee your services. Some for later, once the work is completed.” I had divided my remaining money among two pouches.

“That’s not the way I conduct my business. If you want me to help you, then you give me the money—all of it—now.”

I don’t know why I should have been surprised the count had suggested doing business with someone so similar to himself. Heeding the lessons learned from bitter experience, I decided not to ignore my instincts. Sweeping the coins back into the purse, I resisted an urge to blot away the cold sweat that had formed above my lip. I wrapped the thong around the pouch, knotting it once. Twice for good measure. “Unfortunately, this is not the way I conduct my business.” I nodded and then turned on my heel and moved toward the door with the insouciance of the urchin boy I once had been, he who didn’t care what others thought about him or what they might do.

I was expecting to be called back at any moment, but I reached the door without eliciting one word from the man. So I stopped.

Nothing.

Put a hand to the doorknob.

Nothing.

Turned it.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Damn, damn, and damn! I’d been so sure he would acquiesce. What was I going to do now? De Grote was my only contact in this city, and it was quite clear I couldn’t hope to smuggle the lace across the border by myself. If he wouldn’t take my commission then…? I opened the door. Stepped through it.

Nothing.

All was lost.

•••

“Wait.” The word was spoken with a sigh of resignation.

I nearly stumbled in my relief. But I did not turn. It would have been disastrous to seem too eager. That was something I was beginning to remember from my childhood: people always responded not to obvious hunger or to need, but to strength. “What?” I threw a glance at him over my shoulder.

“Come back, come back. I’m sure we can work something out.”

“I will give you a quarter of the sum now. And the rest when the lace is completed.”

“And what if you never end up paying for it in full?”

I smiled. “I am an honorable man. I deal in honorable ways.” I removed some of the coins from my purse and tossed them onto the table.

De Grote gave me a long look. “Why don’t you tell me where it is you are staying? In case I need to send word to you.” He was looking at me just a bit too benignly.

“I don’t know exactly. Not yet.”

“Where are you staying right now?”

Right now? My best protection during my youth had been that no one knew exactly where to find me…until the night when the village priest did. To keep myself from shuddering, I shrugged, fixing to my face the look of a gentleman who is finished speaking with one deemed inferior. “Nowhere. The place I found has far too many fleas. I plan to move tonight.”

“Too many fleas? I don’t know that you’ll find any place with less. But there’s an inn on Ramen at the very end. It’s run by a good man. That’s where you should stay.”

“On Ramen.”

“
Ja.
Turns into Stovestraat.”

I nodded and determined to avoid Ramen in the future. De Grote reminded me too much of the priest of my youth. I didn’t want to be anywhere this man could find me.

•••

While I had been inside the shop, the rain had become finer, filtering into a mist. I tugged my hat tighter down around my ears and gathered the tips of my cloak’s collar up toward my chin. Passersby had done the same. Most of them. We walked the streets, wraiths of a kind, made more ghostly by the weather.

As I passed an alley, a hiss made me turn.

In that dim and uncertain light, I could not see into it clearly. As I stood there squinting, someone pushed me from behind, causing me to stumble toward the darkness. Obeying my rapidly reviving instincts, I pulled my dagger from my belt. I tried to free myself from the confines of my cloak, but a man had somehow got round me, and he kicked the weapon from my hand.

It dropped into a puddle as I was assaulted from the front and the back.

Though I anticipated where every blow would be placed, and though I tried to defend myself against them, I was always too late. My movements were too slow. Eventually, I could only stand there, like some stupid beast, head swaying, peering at my attackers through vision gone red with blood.

A blow to the gut finally felled me. When I sunk to my knees, gasping for breath, a hand grasped the collar of my cloak, pulling me to standing. Another hand snaked inside my doublet and pulled the purse from my gusset. “De Grote says he’ll take the rest of the money now.”

De Grote? “But—”

“Be a good lad, and don’t go crying to the sheriff.”

One of them bent and fished the dagger from the puddle, pushing it into his belt with a sneer at me. “He’ll like this, De Grote will. He favors fancy things.”

Bloodied and beaten, I lay there, ear in a puddle, watching as people splashed by out on the street. A mist gathered on my eyelashes and made the world go grey at the edges.

It took a sniff and a nip from a passing dog to rouse me from my stupor. I waved him off and cried out as pain pricked holes in my vision. The dog gave a bark and then trotted away into the street.

As I pushed up on an elbow, my shoulder seemed to collapse beneath the weight. I bit off a cry and gingerly rolled to my knees. From there, I slowly gained my feet, pausing now and then to keep hold of my senses.

Staggering, I groped for my hat, but it looked as if it had been stomped into the mud by a horse and then shit upon for good measure. I left it there in the sludge.

•••

When I got to the inn, they would not countenance my presence. The mistress of that place stood, arms crossed over her chest, as I staggered into the hall. “We don’t serve your type here.”

“You already are.” A swollen lip and slit cheek made tough work of speaking. I licked my lips and tried again. “I’m a guest here. Came last night. Lefort, Alexandre Lefort. I was given a room up the stairs.”

The mistress pierced me with her narrow-eyed gaze. “Dirc!” She called the name over her shoulder without hardly turning her head.

A man turned from serving one of the tables.

“You recognize this scoundrel?”

He looked me over. “
Nee
.”

She tossed the corner of her apron toward me as if she could not be bothered to touch me herself. “Out with you, then.”

“But I’m the… I’m an heir. To the viscount of Souboscq!”

They both exploded with laughter. “Viscount! It’s a wonder you even know how to pronounce it. Out with you, now. Be off.”

“But I—”

“Out!”

If I’d had my dagger, I would have dared her to mock me. But if I had pulled it out, I’m sure she would have accused me of stealing it. As I lurched through the hall toward the door, I caught a reflection of my face in the glass hanging on the wall. My cloak sat askew my shoulders. One eye was blacked, and the other had almost swollen shut. There was a gash on my cheek, and muck clung to my hair.

•••

I set my cloak straight as I left the inn. Using the pump in the courtyard, I cleaned the dirt from my hair and the blood and filth from my hands and arms, scrubbing at them with my nails. Angry, bulbous welts soon rose on my skin, but I did not care.

Clean at last, I went into the stables, intent upon retrieving my horse. But when I moved to take him, the stable hand blocked my way.

“The likes of you has no business in here.”

“This horse belongs to me.”

He began to laugh. “To you! As if you’re some kind of gentleman. You haven’t even got a hat for your head!”

“I’ve been accosted by a band of rogues.” And my entire body ached damnably. Shouldn’t it be obvious I’d been waylaid?

“A band of rogues! Maybe that’s what I should tell my wife next time I stop by the tavern on my way home. A band of rogues…”

“I shall take my horse and be gone from here if you would just move out of the way.”

“I’ll move just as soon as you pay for its board.”

I couldn’t. Every coin I’d brought with me had been stolen, and those few things I’d left in the room were as good as gone. But he didn’t have to know that. If I just acted like the gentleman I’d become, I was certain the man would do as I asked. I tried to straighten and square my shoulders, but that piercing pain returned. I winced. “I’ll pay you. Just as soon as I recover what was stolen from me. In the meantime, you can mark the account to the viscount of Souboscq. I promise the debt will be honored.” Just as soon as I could manage it.

He had been speaking conversationally, but he suddenly lunged toward a stall and took up a pitchfork that was leaning against the door. He brandished it at me. “You can have your horse when you pay for it.”

“I told you, I’ve been robbed!”

“Of what? Your fleas? Or your lice? I can believe you’re French, but I never seen a gentleman so pitiful as you. Get out!” He thrust the pitchfork toward me.

•••

I left the place, cursing as I went. It was just like the Flemish, those sanctimonious and self-righteous people, to disrespect nobility. In any other country, those ruffians would have been detained and my claims believed. Expecting to find sympathy if not respect of the law from the city’s officials, I went to the sheriff to file a complaint.

“De Grote?” He looked at me, brow raised, in seeming amazement. “
Arne
De Grote?”

“The very same.”

“He can’t have.”

Now it was I who looked at him, brow raised. “He did.”

“He’s an upright member of the city council, and he’s having a chapel constructed at the church in his wife’s honor.”

Honor? The man had none!

“And you say he accosted you?”

“No. I say he sent his men to accost me. They stole my purse and the coin inside it. A substantial number of them.”

“I’ll have to know why you were walking the streets with such great wealth.”

Ah. My reply would require great care. To admit to my reasons would be to identify myself as a smuggler. “I was sent here to conduct business for my cousin, the viscount of Souboscq.”

“Nothing good can come from a man walking around with a fortune in his purse. Of course you were robbed!”

“Yes. Of course I was robbed. That’s what I’m saying.” Couldn’t these Flemish understand anything? “I was robbed by Arne De Grote.”

“That’s impossible. He hardly ever even raises his voice.”

“What’s impossible is your insisting it’s impossible!”

“If you’re a gentleman, then show yourself as such.”

Show myself—!

“You haven’t even a hat to your head.”

“It was lost in the fight, and I—”

“Ah! The fight. So you admit it, then. You picked a fight with some men of Kortrijk, and you can’t stomach the fact that you lost.”

I took a deep breath, which had the unfortunate effect of causing my ribs great pain. “I came to make a complaint and ask for help in recovering my purse.”

“Why are you here in Kortrijk?”

“I am on business for the viscount of Souboscq.”

“And your business is with…?”

“Arne De Grote.”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, hiding his thumbs in his armpits. “I see. You came here to do business with Arne De Grote, and now you accuse him of waylaying you.”

“Yes!”

“And why would he do that?”

“Because…” I realized I had very nearly walked into a trap of my own making. To admit to the sheriff I had contracted with De Grote to smuggle lace out of the country was to turn myself into a criminal. I wondered how many men, just like me, had lost their gold to that man. If I admitted to my reasons, then I might as well have simply handed the lace to the mercenaries who haunted the borders, trying to confiscate it. “Because he is a dishonorable man.”