Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [40]
Now, their faces swollen, suffused, streaked with blood, two men fought toe to toe in short bursts of energy, kneeing, pummelling, elbowing, crashing to the ground and rolling over and over, before they scrambled upright again. Once at least they had plunged into the water, although the pulsing heat had already half dried their hair.
You could see, on their bare upper bodies, the other tracks of the battle. There were the marks of impromptu weapons: the gouge of a marline-spike; the scarlet weals raised by a lash. They both bore burns in glistening patches, and the pitted imprints of scorching-hot grain. Both were limping; both were breathing explosively, grunting when the blows fell. The blows fell like the quarry mallets at Fontainebleau. Pif, paf, pouf: hard rock; softer; here it is crumbling. There was something wrong with Benecke’s arm. He saved it by kicking Nicholas, which brought them both down again, with Nicholas this time at a disadvantage. Robin saw his teeth close on his lip. Then he looked up, and caught sight of Robin.
No message passed. Nicholas drew a shuddering breath and, having filled his lungs, held it. The movements he then embarked upon were quite few, and to achieve them required an extraordinary concentration, it was evident, of his will and his strength. Robin did not see what they were. There was a sudden jerk. Benecke screamed. Nicholas broke free and, rising, lifted his hand. For a moment he held it quite still. Then he chopped it down on Benecke’s neck.
Paúel Benecke slumped, his body collapsed, his head rolled to one side. Nicholas stood where he was, one hand holding the other. The privateer did not move. After the first moment of shock, the spectators began to surge forward. Robin broke free and went with them, pulling his knife from its sheath. He passed Nicholas and stood over Benecke with the rest, looking down. Nicholas said, to no one in particular, ‘So finish him off.’
Someone said, ‘He’s still breathing! Tough little bastard.’ Nicholas walked away, handing himself off other men’s necks and shoulders until he was clear of the crowd. He didn’t look round.
Before Nicholas spoke, Robin had been going to do just what he suggested: puncture the throat of an unconscious person; kill the prey another man had delivered. Now, slowly, he put his dagger away. His eyes ached, and his body. He turned. Beneath white clouds of steam, the last of the fires crackled and hissed on the raft, and water flowed in and out, where the coaming had gone. The smell of toasted rye and burnt wood was chokingly strong: at least the bastard would pay through his purse. The bastard. The bastards.
Kathi was half-sleeping still on the bank, but Elzbiete was now kneeling beside her. Elzbiete said, ‘She was raped. Are they dead?’
‘I haven’t been raped,’ Kathi said, with excessive gentility. ‘I don’t know who it was.’
‘They drugged her wine,’ Elzbiete explained. ‘He has done it before. And have you killed your friend, Colà?’
She was addressing Nicholas, who had appeared from the darkness and was standing looking down, as he had looked at the felled body of Benecke. He didn’t answer. It was not obvious how he had found them, unless by some primitive instinct: he looked detached from mankind.
Elzbiete spoke again, with greater distinctness. ‘Colà? Is my father dead?’
He heard that. ‘He ought to be. I think not.’
‘Now you have to fight me,’ Robin remarked. ‘Or explain exactly what happened.’
Kathi frowned. She said, ‘Nicholas didn’t touch me. He wouldn’t.’
‘Well?’ said Robin. He, too, had to look up to Nicholas. His voice was steady; the tears of shock gone.
Nicholas said, ‘Are you asking me to deny it? You will have a long wait.’
Elzbiete said, ‘Tell him, Colà. Tell them both. Katarzynka, it was Colà who sent for your husband, and for Gerta and her friends. It did not save you, but no one can ever be sure you were there.’
‘And the fight?