Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [218]
‘He is on duty,’ Gelis said. ‘Today we buried the lord of this house.’
‘There speaks a dame of her child. I speak to the young man himself. The snow is deep. We are unlikely to travel today. When you are free of your duties, and when suitable privacy can be obtained, would you not like to engage my grandson in some better-matched bout? And if so, what would it be?’
His eyes held the boy, tight as wire, but Jodi did not try to glance to either side. He said, ‘Perhaps Monseigneur would choose.’ For some things, at least, he now had the language of royalty.
Kilmirren said, ‘Or your father? You have been practising at Greenside, have you not, Jordan? Perhaps you can excel Henry now at the butts, or in the list. What about shooting? Longbow, or crossbow? What does Nicholas say?’
Nicholas said, ‘I think my son means that Monseigneur should choose, avoiding those sports which might strain Henry’s injury.’
Henry moved. Before he could speak, Kilmirren said, ‘Really? I supposed you would have welcomed better odds. There are eight years between them.’
‘Then why not a competition in which the chances are even? A sledge race?’ said Nicholas.
Gelis’s hand slackened and fell from beneath Kathi’s. Nicholas did not look at either of them; nor did Jodi.
Gelis said, between her teeth, ‘Sometimes I think that if no one else kills him, I shall.’
‘I know,’ Kathi said. ‘Sometimes I feel like that about Robin. It’s called a healthy marriage relationship.’
It’s called love.
THE RACE WAS held at dusk, out of sight of the keep, at a place where the heavy oak trees of the Hamilton forest clothed the lower slopes of a long, precipitous hill. A crowd of the younger guests came along with them, some as spectators and some as competitors, hauling any old plank or piece of fencing they could find. Three or four had actual sledges. Since the only matched sledges were brought by St Pol and de Fleury, theirs was the only true race, to be run first.
Henry had assumed that the third matched sledge was for the brat’s father, the Bastard. It would hardly be for his fat grandfather Jordan. His fat grandfather, having blamed Henry for what he had started himself, was now back at the house, waiting at ease by the fire, since no one would expect him to climb up a mountain.
But the brat’s father, interrogated, had excused himself, surprised, from the race, contenting himself with packing the sledges for weight, which was fair enough. The race didn’t depend, then, on strength, so much as on quickness of eye and agility. Beneath the snow there were rocks. And lower down there were trees. Hit at speed, these could kill. And darkness was falling.
Getting ready, his cousin didn’t say anything, but he went about things steadily enough, pulling on his red fur hat and thick gloves, and the boots he would steer with. De Fleury talked to him, but showed no special emotion. Perhaps he didn’t care if the brat died. Perhaps in private he made out that he cared, and cuddled Jordan when the brat wept, and left him a drink late at night. Then, what else, he would stick a knife in his back. This was sticking a knife in his back. In both their backs: Henry’s and Jordan’s. Henry hated him.
Henry had sledged before, but not very often. It was not an art required of chevaliers of prowess. The sledges, however, were beautiful. He had heard de Fleury say that John le Grant had made them and he believed it: working with John himself, he had seen wood just like this, down at Leith. John wouldn’t have known what the sledges were meant for. John could be an overbearing bastard at times, but he was straightforward.
By the time they had finished the long climb to the top of the hill it was quite dark, and all the torches were lit, at the top and the bottom, and fixed lower down to