NICCOLÒ RISING

A bumbling lummox turned business superstar in 15th-century Europe is the hero of the first volume of a promised historical series, by the author of several mysteries and the Francis of Lymond novels. Claes is an oversized apprentice in the dye-shops of the Charetty company; he's widely known to be humble, clumsy and hilarious, with a streak of inventive genius. His numerous pranks have incurred the wrath of the town leaders of the merchant city of Bruges, culminating in a near-fatal fight with the handsome and loathsome Simon of Kilmirren. Marian de Charetty, the widowed owner of the company Claes serves, offers her beleaguered apprentice the option of joining a band of mercenaries on their way to Milan. Claes counterproposes that the small army act as a courier service, carrying documents over the Alps. On arriving in Milan, Claes calls on the local branch of the Medici and on other powerful personages, tantilizing them with carefully gleaned information and trade secrets he's pieced together from letters he's carried and codes he's deciphered. He also drops a provocative hint: that the monopoly on alum (the scarce white powder used to bind dye to cloth) that this group enjoys is threatened by the so-far secret existence of a new, conveniently located mine. The Medici become a major customer for Claes' courier (and information) service, and they pay him well to keep quiet about the alum. Claes heads back to Bruges, where suddenly he's someone: dealing with all the businessmen who once rolled their eyes at his juvenile tricks, he wheels and deals, makes new contacts, and acts as the brains of the expanding Charetty business—and, always the lady's man, he has a top-secret affair with the spunky Katelina van Borselen, a young noblewoman. Then owner Marian makes a business proposition: she asks Claes to up his respectability by marrying her. For the sake of the firm, he accepts. Now known as Nicholas (or Niccolo), he heads back to Milan for more business triumphs. And brave new plans are in the offering. A knotty confusion of names, places and schemes, but overall an engrossing, often witty portrayal of the early throes of commerce, fleshed out with satisfying characters and complex alliances.