Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [330]
Still, there were those who were quick enough to turn as a man was expelled from the front door of old Kilmirren’s house and, losing his footing, tumbled down the steps to lie sprawled in the dung at the foot, where Wattie’s Pate was minding a big, well-fed horse. The next minute, the beast was stamping and clattering, because a much bigger bairn, emerging from the same doorway, had come down the stairs in three strides and facing the first just as he got to his feet, had knocked him staggering up to the height of the causeway. Then, following up, he hit him again with such force that the smaller one spun and half fell, with barely time to get his own fists up. Then he did, and blocked the next blow, and found his proper footing in time to pack in two shrewd dunts of his own, which fairly sent the big fellow tumbling over the stones. And it was then, as he got up, that you could see that the big man, bless my soul, was Nicol de Fleury, his face covered in bruises, and the man he was attacking was the lawyer fellow that everyone’s wife was slavering over except yours, although you wouldn’t altogether mind if the lad lost a few teeth on some such occasion as this.
After that, busy and worried though everyone was, you would need to be blind not to crane about as you passed to see those two going at it like beings demented, or like one being demented, for the lawyer was fighting to defend himself. And it was all fisticuffs, too, although both were wearing good whingers, as if flesh punching flesh was the only satisfaction that was wanted. And it was as crazy a ruffle as anyone would ettle to see, with the pair of them rolling and staggering and ducking and swinging from the Butter Tron down to St Giles, up and down steps, into and out of closes, under the bellies of oxen and barrels, toppling crates and diving into the lapping basins of conduits and rolling down, down, down until they came to the steepest vennel that led to the Nor’ Loch, and tumbled down that, fighting still.
There were those who followed them all the way, although others stood at the top, saying what a disgrace it was, surely, for two skilly, braw men to be wasting their powers on each other when they should be away killing Englishmen for their King. Nevertheless, when the lawyer, Julius, crashed into the water and floated there, there were enough well-meaning folk to haul him out and receive their due reward for collecting his horse and helping him, when he recovered, back to the Canongate.
By that time, Big Nicol, who had foundered on land, next to the leeks, had been picked up by somebody else, which was a crying shame, for he would have paid well. But you didna argue with Crown Office men.
• • •
THE CEILING OF Archie Whitelaw’s uncomfortable guest-room was the first thing Nicholas saw when he woke, forced into teeth-shaking consciousness by a sequence of regular slaps to his bruised and misshapen face, delivered by someone he didn’t know. By a servant. By a servant of the same Archibald Whitelaw who, he now saw, sat ensconced in the one chair. Nicholas uttered a protest.
‘Ah! Some sign of life!’ said the Secretary. ‘That will do: he has deigned to awake.’ And to Nicholas: ‘What were you thinking of?’
‘Idiotry and furiosity,’ Nicholas said. It was an effort. He added, making another one, ‘Necessitating actio tutelae contraria. I apologise.’
‘Actio tutelae directa,’ said the Secretary. ‘Get up. Get up and come down. We are waiting for you.’ His spectacles twinkled, advertising service by proxy. They had not expected him to survive York. Since he had, they did not wish him to slacken. Vehement medicine.
Tell the world he was legitimate, and honour him and yourself.
I forgive you nothing.
I wish you were dead.
Whitelaw left. Nicholas gathered himself, and got up. The same servant brought him clean clothes and steered him, presently, to join the others below—Avandale and Whitelaw, Scheves and