Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett [52]
‘I only accept it,’ said Philippa, ‘to avoid cavillation.’ A large, portly horse cantered out with, affixed to his back, the six-foot sweep of the shoemaker’s other spar, containing thirty right-footed shoes. Pinked by the awl he neighed, bucked, and pranced his way into the traboule’s low-ceilinged corridor. Then head down, he charged along its black length to the entrance.
On each side of him the spar, sweeping the walls, hissed and whipped and let fly smartly from time to time with a boot or a patten. Within six paces it had hooked a yelling man under the chin and carried him a fair way, his teeth sunk in his tongue, before dropping him. At the same moment it fired off the companion of Philippa’s footgear, which she had been hopefully watching. She caught it, galloping. A man somewhere ahead shouted, ducking, and then was sprawled on the ground by a chopine. The entrance burst upon her, a vaporous dazzle of yellow. She aimed for the horse’s right haunch and jabbed the awl in it.
With a squeal and a snort, the horse hurtled out through the entrance and turning left, thundered off up the quay, with the sound of running men’s steps dwindling after it. Two shadows on her right became a pair of men advancing on her brandishing axes. While she looked, they lay down; chiefly because someone had cut and let fall a fishing net on them. Philippa said ‘Ha!’ and set off, scampering, across the Chalamon quay to the riverside.
Below her was a short wooden jetty whose steps led to a cluster of rowing-boats. She stood on one leg, momentarily, to put on her new hard-won foot-gear and then slid down the steps and into one. The quay lamps showed her Francis Crawford, his sword in its scabbard, arrived on the jetty and laughing at her. ‘In Moab I will washe my feete, Over Edom throw my shoo … Meditate, O Bhikshu, and be not heedless. There aren’t any oars. Your place and mine is under the jetty. Your cloak, my child. Quickly!’
He took it, but didn’t follow her. Clambering out of the rocking shallop and along the rotted cradle of timbers that upheld the jetty, Philippa heard him shouting behind her. ‘To the boats! Quickly! Quickly!’ There was a thud; then another, and a splash as the boat she had just left was cast off. From her refuge under the planks she saw him thrust the tenantless boat until it was caught by the current. It swung a moment and then turned twisting into the flow of the river. There were two huddled sacks in it, one of them draped in her mantle. He was busy a moment longer and then, ducking, began making his way along the dark scaffold towards her. Then reaching her, he signalled for silence.
Armed with knives, their pursuers had not taken long to slash through the fishing nets. And with their whistles they had summoned all those who could move within earshot. The thud of footsteps sounded over Philippa’s head as she clung to the timbers, accompanied by a good deal of shouting and swearing and a series of dull thumping noises, followed by a splintering as if someone was forcing a doorway. There was, she remembered, a ferryman’s hut by the quayside. Bowman and Jowler were going to have oars therefore. Then followed a trampling, and voices, and the creak of laden boats settling, and the splash of loosed ropes, followed by the rattle and groan as the oars made their first sweep in the water. The sounds faded away, and silence descended.
The fog, it seemed to her, had become rather thinner. The lamplight, striking down through the joints in the planks, showed her Francis Crawford’s ruffled fair hair and open shirt and the filthy brocade of his pourpoint. He was doubled up, laughing. Philippa poked him. He unfolded, still laughing, and scrambling out from under the jetty, gave her his hand