Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [271]
The steel hissed as it swept down, angled to cut through his neck. Nicholas hurled himself to one side, taking the chop on his arm with a thud he could hear. The violence of the blow and his victim’s unexpected movement made the man stagger, and Nicholas, still rolling aside, kicked his legs from under him while completing the movement to draw his own sword. His left arm was numb. Behind, on the grass, lay the dead, bloody figure of his servant. The guide got to his knees, sword in both hands, eyes open and glistening. He was used to assassination rather than fighting, but he knew enough to get back from a wounded man and play him until blood-loss made him weak. Nicholas watched his eyes, guessed where the next blow would come; parried it; made a slash of his own which was rebuffed and, feinting, kicked the man again, but this time in the groin. The guide gave a whistling grunt but held on to his sword, his face yellow, scrabbling to back out of range. Both men stumbled to their feet. Nicholas glanced at his horse. The other man’s eyes followed, and he grinned queasily, shifting to block the way. He held his sword with two hands, Nicholas with one.
Nicholas threw his sword away. It arched into the air, drawing his attacker’s attention. Then the man screamed and fell, with Nicholas’s flying dagger sunk in his chest. Nicholas strode over and crouched.
It was over, or nearly so. The would-be assassin had no more than a few moments of life: enough to sneer up into his employer’s face and say, ‘You thought you’d escape if he dressed up as you. But they’ll all be dead by now. And you won’t get far with that arm.’
Nicholas clamped him by the elbow, but the man had gone. He recovered his knife and rose slowly. His own blood, swamping his sleeve, had left a random, sprinkled trail on the body, like a parting benison from a censer. For a moment, Nicholas stood. You thought you’d escape if he dressed up as you. He had suspected nothing. He had never set his mind, methodically, to thinking about Nicholai de’ Acciajuoli.
There was cloth in his saddlebag. He twisted it round his arm and knotted it with his teeth to stop the blood pumping. Then he gathered the reins, threw himself into the saddle, and set off, the horse tossing its head. He had demonstrated at Thorn that he knew how to shoot and control his horse with his body at the same time. Now, he might be unable to shoot, but if he had to, he could both ride and fight with one hand. He prayed that he would have to. Well paid, and well provided with weapons, the villagers ahead would have been lying in wait. Or perhaps it would have been a band of pseudo-robbers who pounced on the party that was known to be riding from Moscow today, with one of the castle’s own guides. He wondered if the Grand Duchess had anything to do with that, and thought not. Acciajuoli had been one of Sophia’s men.
He did not, of course, have a guide. The forest roads were in themselves unmistakable, but quite often divided, or were joined by lesser tracks. Twice, he had to rein in at a junction and scan the ground for recent hoof-marks and new-settled dust. The rest of the time he rode headlong, heedless of noise and of the blinding, battering pain in his arm. Then came the intersection of paths where his way was identified for him by a riderless horse, prancing