Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [167]
Wodman looked at him. Beside Gelis, Tobie also had come to a halt, his gaze sharp. She couldn’t see what was wrong. The cressets guttered. The stairway above was now dark. Below, dim in the powdery air, there swam the rose-coloured ghost of some window.
The reason why they had stopped she now saw. Unlike all the rest, the door they were facing was shut. Wodman started to move, but Nicholas was quicker. Before he had taken a step, Nicholas had closed his hand on the knob and pressed the heavy door open. When it was wide enough to admit him, and no wider, he entered.
A voice said, ‘This is a knife, my lord. Come in, alone.’
A soldier’s voice: unknown; peremptory. Nicholas halted. Wodman put his hand on his sword.
A second voice spoke. ‘I am afraid you are too late, Nicholas. Dawn has come.’
The dulcet voice of the owner of Beltrees, David Simpson.
Henry, also, had silently drawn his sword.
Then the third voice made itself heard. A voice of authority, faintly amused, faintly languid, wholly contemptuous. ‘It has been a night of disappointments, has it not? My good Claes, come in and give up your sword, unless you want to be killed. I shall also accept my grandson and Andro, disarmed. Your lady and the doctor must wait. My men will show them where.’
The silence of the castle was broken. Running down the stairs from above there came men in light armour, with a familiar crest on their sleeves. The crest of the speaker, Jordan de St Pol, lord of Kilmirren.
There were too many to fight. Driven back to the stairs, Gelis eventually did what she was told. So did Tobie. Then the door closed on Nicholas, and Andro, and Henry.
Chapter 20
Oftsys in perrell and oftsys ar thai tynt,
Slauchter is wrocht and landis braid ar brynt.
SIXTY MILES THROUGH the night without sleep is no particular feat for a fit man, such as Nicholas de Fleury, who has been careful to eat and drink little, and who has prepared himself for most things, even this. This had always been possible.
The door closed, and he stood still, assimilating the room. It was not full of soldiers. There was no one before him but Simpson, standing alone in the centre, and Kilmirren himself, ensconced against the far wall in a chair by a brazier, sipping wine. Even the man who had disarmed them had gone. Nicholas remained, with Wodman and Henry behind him, and wondered, mildly, what the odds really were.
The hall before him was familiar enough, but not its contents, which glittered under the sconces. There were so many lights that the growing pallor outside hardly showed; and the exquisite David stood illuminated like a small, revered object, of the kind generally attached to a basin of flowers. That he was also a murderous swordsman must not be forgotten. Unlike Nicholas, he had had time to change from travel-stained court dress, and wore a quilted tunic and shirt which did not quite hide his muscles. His hair was uncovered, and his lips curled above the dark, dimpled chin. He said, ‘You did want Berecrofts dead? I was counting on it.’
Nicholas said, ‘Naturally. I counted on your counting on it.’ He could tell where Henry was from his grandfather’s eyes. Wodman also stood without sound, but close enough to a table for his reflection to shimmer across it.
Nicholas couldn’t decide whether the helpfulness was deliberate or not. He had mostly considered it genuine, the enmity between Andro and David: the ugly black man and the beauty, both of whom had once fought side by side in the King of France’s Royal Guard; both of whom had once worked for the fat man now watching and sipping, watching and sipping over there.
Jordan de St Pol had expelled David, who had exceeded his orders and entertained hopes of usurping his business. David had briefly recruited Gelis to the same company, and no doubt once hoped to share in her wealth. David had not enjoyed her rejection, or her cleverness, or the fact that Wodman had kept St Pol’s trust when he hadn’t. David could not comprehend