Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [246]
‘I believe you,’ Nicholas said. He was becoming tired of it all, or he wouldn’t have said it. It referred to a piece of history about which Julius was ignorant. To him, therefore, it was quite amazing that a simple remark should goad Simon into swinging his sword and, abandoning all his point of vantage, launching himself over the room against Nicholas.
Unfortunately for Nicholas, he was exactly as unarmed as he appeared. He escaped the first swipe by vaulting over a trestle and keeping it between himself and the swordsman. He said, ‘Julius. Untie Jodi,’ and ducked. There was a crash and a splintering of dishes above him. A gelatine slid down his shoulder and he could smell sauce in his hair. Simon tugged his sword free of the wood of the table and was lifting the blade when Nicholas rose, picked up a ham and rammed it on the point of the steel. Then, as Simon lunged, he slid to the end of the table where the pewter cups were, and began to throw them. Simon fended them off with an arm, shook his sword free and advanced.
Further off, there was another crash. Either on his way to or from Jodi, Julius had slipped on the tiles and now lay groaning where he had fallen. The groans sounded more liquid than painful. Simon’s sword, glittering, drew Nicholas’s attention suddenly back to the matter in hand, and he jumped aside just in time. A chair back exploded in splinters as he wheeled round it and snatched up a stool. Simon’s swordpoint drove straight through it, and Nicholas dropped it just in time, backing. The second trestle, which he had feared to find barring his way, turned out instead to be close to one side, with a selection of puddings. He missed with the first one, but the second joined the dried ale on Simon’s face and blinded him just long enough for Nicholas to snatch up a tray and another stool and get out of the way as Simon cleared his eyes and thrust forward. He stumbled over a chest.
The chest had not been there before. Nor, Nicholas realised, had the trestle, not quite in that position. A candle-snuffer, travelling rapidly from one end of the room to the other, caught his attention just before he heard Julius’s cry and the whistle of air that meant the sword was in action again. It clanged on the edge of the tray, jarring his shoulder, just as an entire stand of candles went out. ‘Ha!’ said Nicholas, and was answered by the same exclamation, by a much younger voice, from under the table.
He could hear Julius being sick, and Simon gasping and swearing, and a lot of other sounds he didn’t immediately pause to identify, being happy enough as it was. He wondered if it was a regression to childhood, or something he had forgotten in Bruges that made everything seem wonderful as soon as it was smashed up or spilt. He was aware of being covered in sauce, and could trace Simon’s passage in terms of sweet milk and almond and cinnamon. It was almost the only way he could trace it, as most of the lights had gone out. Then he saw the cauldron of soup.
He couldn’t have tilted it quite by himself, but a pair of younger hands helped. The soup fell on Simon, and Simon fell over Julius, and Nicholas took the sword from Simon’s hand. There were two muffled rounds of applause from two doors which appeared to have unlocked themselves from the inside.
Nicholas paid no immediate attention, being engaged in a solemn ceremony of self-congratulation with Jodi. Julius, wiping his mouth, clambered to his feet and joined in. Both doors swung fully open and someone carried in lights. Simon, whether conscious or not, had the wisdom to remain where he was, on the floor under the cauldron. Nicholas left him to other people and walked to the nearer door with his tall son who, breathlessly explaining, carried Simon’s great sword at his shoulder.
In the doorway loomed a vast and familiar figure. Nicholas and his son stopped. Turned towards Jordan de St Pol of Kilmirren, the two pairs of grey eyes,