Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [20]
‘I’m desperate,’ Wodman said. ‘You wouldn’t have any food?’ In France, he had been a royal Archer, and they were all hearty drinkers and trenchermen. Turned merchant, he made a good, conscientious Conservator, who just happened to know some dangerous people. Nicholas handed over the flask, and dropped his horse’s gait to a saunter. The rain rustled down. There was no one on the road at the moment, and nothing to attract anyone either. Between themselves and the river, there were three wattle cabins with smoke drooping down from the heather and childish voices disputing inside. The noise drowned, at first, another sound from behind them, which gradually emerged: he automatically identified it. Allah-u akbar, la ilaha illa’llah; the afternoon summons to prayer.
No, of course not: wrong country. Women, singing. Fisherfolk, calling their wares. Sellers, calling buyers to Paradise. Allah-u akbar.
Wodman took his mouth from the flask. ‘I heard it,’ Nicholas said. ‘Do you really want food?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Andro Wodman. The warbling voices were clearer and closer, and there was a rumbling basso beneath. ‘Unless they’re selling bowls of seethed meat with onions. What are they selling?’ They had both turned and stopped to look back. Toiling up the rise was a group of sturdy young people, their faces bright in the rain, hauling sledges behind them. Walled sledges, crowded with hampers.
The wind was from the east. Even without that, you could tell what was in them.
‘What about oysters?’ Nicholas said. Wodman handed over the flask and jumped down before he did.
There were three sledges, each with two fellows hauling and another couple striding behind. The girls rode with the creels, singing and holding them steady. The men wore skin caps and tunics, with rough over-mantles of felt for the rain. The women were hooded and bundled in hessian and stopped singing as they came up. One of the men delved in a creel and came forward, his hollow hands weighted and dripping. The oysters in them were the finest Nicholas had ever seen: the sensitive shells, thin as a porcelain roseleaf, slowly closed as he watched. ‘They like to be serenaded,’ the man observed. ‘If you will sing to them, they would surely re-open, my lord.’
Nicholas laughed a little, for the voice was educated, and the discreet device to attract them was plain. A clerk, a servant of Church or of state, had at last arrived to collect them. The girls, who remained crouched with the creels, were no doubt genuine.
Wodman had realised it also. Dismounting, amused, he was accepting the gift with bravura. Nicholas gathered his reins to do likewise. The same well-spoken man smiled, and stepped round to help him, still speaking. ‘But you will need something to open them with.’
The something was naked steel, flashing from under the felt and driving expertly upwards.
It was so fast that only instinct could help. As Nicholas swerved, he shouted to Wodman. They hadn’t indulged in an escort, but they weren’t crazy enough to have come on this ride unprotected. The swordpoint bit into his cloak and grated across the cuirass underneath, bringing the swordsman close for a moment, his face blank with surprise. Nicholas kicked him under the chin, so that he blundered back and hit someone else while Nicholas dragged out his own sword. The horse wasn’t his, but it was a powerful beast and alarmed enough to be ready to rear. Nicholas wrapped the reins round one wrist and hauled, using the bit to drag the horse threshing on to its haunches, and then allowing it to plunge forward kicking again. It couldn’t last very long, but at least he didn’t fall off, and enjoyed the whistling sound his blade made as he slashed it down on one side, then the other as the oystermen mobbed him. He could hear Wodman making loud breathless noises, but couldn’t see him, which meant he hadn’t managed to remount. He tried to steer towards him, but it was like jousting in a cone of molasses. Too many men. And he was not at his best.
It was now very noisy, with a lot of