Flowers and rushes on the walls of rooms (painted with oils or size) gave way to tapestries which could ‘be made from all sorts of material, such as velvet, damask, brocade, brocatelle, Bruges Satin, caddis’.
The Structures of Everyday Life
Fernand Braudel
It was a normal business day and Frau Margritte Cornieliuszoon was attending to her correspondence in her counting room. A letter of credit for Donati et Cie. The bill of lading for the last shipment north to Amsterdam to be checked against a coded invoice. On her desk, the pile of items to be dealt with grew smaller while the pile of items dealt with grew larger as time passed. The sunlight through the window moved across the room. The movement of the sun was accompanied by several different sounds. The rustle of paper, the click of an abacus, the scratch of a quill, ‘gritte’s breathing, all were audible as the sunbeam made its progress across the room. Its light made the bright colors of the tapestry glow for a time. Then the polished doors of the cabinet gleamed brown as the light traversed them. Henryk felt the warmth on his shoes and enjoyed how the light contrasted the brown leather with the green tile upon which he stood. He waited for the right moment and then cleared his throat.
She was in the midst of writing a letter to a group of bankers in Bruges, checking her latest intelligence on the position of the English pound against the Spanish escudo, when her majordomo, Henryk, cleared his throat. She put down her notes, finished writing her sentence, then looked up to where he was standing in the doorway.
“Yes?”
“There is a man asking to see you, Frau. Well dressed. Polite. Possibly from the Court. From the British Isles, by his accent. He says his name is Hugh Owen.”
She carefully set the letter aside and gathered the loose pages of her notes together. She took care to make sure that they were all facing down. She thumbed through the letters and memorandums in both piles, double checking that none of them referenced overtly illegal business. She was pleased to note that her fingers did not tremble despite the apprehension gathering in her stomach.
So now is the time for me to make my decision. I was hoping I might have had longer. Continue reading “(Broken Instrument) CHAPTER 11: ‘GRITTE: THE FRIGHTENERS” →
