Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [80]
It started to rain.
Chapter 11
BY THE TIME Anselm Adorne made his entry into the field of the Confrérie of St George at Thorn, every man in the ground knew that he had failed in his mission, and had been recalled by the master who sent him. His intention, alone and against odds, was to deliver a performance that would remind them, when he had gone, that he was Genoese, and Burgundian, and a knight who remained loyal, no matter what his lord chose to demand. Honour required him to demonstrate moral and physical courage against three perfidious men, two of whom had cause to harm or remove him. What he had not expected was that the elements, too, would be his enemy.
There had been a time when rain won or lost battles. It still happened. When, long ago, the gods had given immortality to the man who waterproofed the first bow, they had not ensured that the recipe was infallible. At Crécy, in the war against England, the shrunken strings of the Genoese crossbowmen had earned them the contempt of both sides. It was not by coincidence, Adorne knew, that the strings and weapon loaned him by Zeno were not proofed. The rain which he now felt on his cheek might fade away. If it grew worse, he could expect accuracy for a short time, but that was all. He did not make a complaint. There was mockery enough in the occasion: in the ceremonial ride into the field, two by two, the Venetian at his side followed by de Fleury and his lawyer. De Fleury who had inclined his head with drunken languor when they met, and smiled in conspiratorial greeting at the man Julius. The applause itself was a sham.
The bow served him for the first shot at least, which had to be taken, moving, on horseback. The mast was a hundred and twenty feet high, and the ball that topped it was much harder to hit than the papingo, which he had carried off with his crossbow so often at the St Sebastian meetings in Bruges. Then he had been shooting on foot; but he was a first-class horseman, with strong nerves and an accurate eye. He circled, once, twice, and then shot. Against the dark sky, the golden ball burst into bright flying fragments: the unfeathered dove. The rain beat on his back. The crowd applauded as he cantered to the side, and Julius took his place as the fresh ball was hoisted.
The bow of Julius, one could guess, had been proofed, and the hundred-pound pull was no trouble to a stalwart man trained by the Bank’s own mercenary captain. An exuberant combatant, Julius was never the most guarded of performers: his first arrow glanced off the post; and his second made Nicholas duck. The third halved the ball, and his audience, disarmed by his unselfconscious good humour, cheered as he trotted back, grinning. Caterino Zeno took his place.
The rain was now becoming unpleasant. At this late stage, there was no question of closing the games; those who could not tolerate it had left, and the rest, used to brief soakings, simply pulled up their hoods and huddled closer. The water ran down Zeno’s magnificent cloth of silver, drenching the two splendid white plumes in his hat and rendering brighter still the gold, the silver, the turquoises of his quiver, and the shining, safely waxed strings of his bow. His horse, twirling, frisking, curvetting, was foreign as well, and Zeno rode it with the short stirrups and forward-leaning seat of the Persian who is trained from birth to ride without reins. As he set to circle the mast, gaining speed, he tossed the bow into the air and caught it.
‘Charlatan!’ Robin muttered, watching.
‘But also a marksman, I’m afraid,’ observed Anna. Since Julius’s competent performance, she had shown herself willing, in a resigned way, to comment. And she was right about Zeno. Having put his small speedy horse through its paces, the Venetian set it into a gallop and, riding faster and faster, rose in the stirrups to shoot. He hit the ball. But he made the shot backwards, over his shoulder. Then, amid uproar, he cantered back to take his place by the other three.
Adorne saluted him, as did