Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [166]
“What then?”
“Up to the realms of this universal patron.”
“Dandy Hunter? Give ourselves up?”
“Unless like Hanno you wish to sail by streams of fire. Unbuckle your sword. The suicide impulse is very strong in the air.”
Lymond was already, left-handed, unfastening his own sword belt. He pulled it off complete with scabbard and dropped it on the rubble behind him. Mat’s followed. In his right hand Lymond continued to hold Scott’s sword. “The ten minutes are nearly up. You were saying?” he said to the boy.
It was the steadiness of the voice that shook Scott. He exclaimed, “For God’s sake: this is where she died. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“If I killed her, why should it? If I didn’t, I’m not likely to be goaded into triple suttee, even to enable you to expire in a spray of madder-fed milk.”
“You are willing,” said Scott harshly, “to give yourselves up?”
“We are waiting with, I hope, well concealed impatience to do so.”
“In that case, I’ll take back my sword.”
Knowing Lymond, Scott was well prepared. He expected a thrust or a cut, or even the heavy blade hurled in his face. Instead Lymond said briefly, “I’m damned if I’ll give it to you. This one wrote a betrayal. It can stay and sign it.” And he hurled it away from himself, far across the dark cellar where it spun with a little tongue from the torch flame, carrying the boy’s gaze instinctively with it.
In that one small blind instant, like the tiger of Scott’s own fantasy, Lymond jumped.
Too late to avoid him, Scott had all the time in the world to do what he wanted. The heavy torch, flung with all the boy’s strength, left his hand and soared high over the gunpowder boxes, jettisoning sparks. The shadows pounced after it; the new, rough wood of the boxes bloomed under its high star; then it fell.
Halfway to the powder it collided with the clogged, sodden wool of Lymond’s cloak, simultaneously thrown. Torch and cloak fell together; the wrap, batlike and sluggish, rolled over the lower boxes like a carpet and the tallow dip, upright, hit the topmost box, hesitated, bowed, and then halting in the surge of its own fire, toppled slowly forward and into the cloak. There was a flare of light, writhing over ceiling and uneven, web-clotted walls. Then Matthew leaped forward and Scott, borne to the floor by Lymond’s hard strength, twisted vainly to stop him. There was a shrinking of light; a stink of tallow; a hiss; and the shock of utter darkness seized them all.
There was no light; there was no air. Scott heard Matthew blundering about, seeking them. He could hear Lymond’s quick breathing, close to his face and his own raucous panting. He could feel cool fingers bending and turning, the weight of the lean, clever body and the steady leverage on his own limbs.… Kill girls! He could kill girls; but he wasn’t going to stop Will Scott.
He broke that hold, and the next. He knew some of Lymond’s tricks, but not all. The pressure on his ribs had gone. Now he needed only to get his right hand free. He twisted.
Matthew stumbled on them and laid hands on something. Lymond’s voice, breathless, told him curtly to keep away. There were men’s voices in the convent above, and someone shouted something, but the blood roaring in his ears deafened Scott. He crashed again on his side, bruising his hip agonizingly against fallen stone, gritted his teeth, and shifted his own grip again.
It was bitter delight: to feel Lymond, the cool, unassailable Lymond, wince beneath his grip. He pressed with all his weight, and felt the other man jerk. Then, brutally as Dandy Hunter had done, Scott felt a surge through their locked limbs; cramp gripped his legs, and he was raised in the air and smashed on the rubble.
His own grip weakened. “God … !”
The powerful muscles opened again; again he fell, and this time struck his head, his senses spinning with the pain. He had rolled halfway across the Master’s legs; he had no sort of hold at all; Lymond could do as he pleased … but he wasn’t going to. Scott’s right hand was free. Thank God, to be reminded in time. His right hand