Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [60]
Diniz, his arm in hers, was half running now. They had faced death together before, but with Nicholas sharing it with them, and sharing the sense of exhilaration, of comedy, of high adventure which he brought to everything he did. She thought of a dangerous, exuberant piece of play-acting on an enemy ship in an African anchorage, and the sheepish joy in the eyes of Diniz and Nicholas, lurching on board from a night at Tendeba. Diniz said, ‘I wish Nicholas could be here,’ which made her look at him, beginning to smile. Then, ashamed, she saw that her mind had been seduced into a dream, while he was facing reality. They had to cross out of the town. They had to get horses. They had to waylay and stop everyone on the road, beginning with the slow convoy from Nancy, so near home at the end of its journey. And at best, in the darkness and cold, to turn it aside to find shelter while the battle between the town and the Duke’s former men played itself out. She did not speak, and neither did Diniz, for soon they were leaving the crowds and turning into the dark, by the water.
There were few people there, and those who laboured past, going home, were the elderly or the disenchanted or the cautious, who preferred not to see a protest escalate into a killing. She and Diniz were not the first, obviously, to try to cross the waterway since the gates had been blocked: the frosty grass on both banks was well trampled, and the canal lumpy with re-congealed blocks and a frozen litter of planks and random possessions. In war, the town employed men whose sole duty was to break up the ice to preserve the town from invasion. This drop in temperature had come too quickly for that, and in any case the ice was still soft. You could see black water swirl in the centre It was seven feet deep.
Diniz said, ‘Where?’ and Gelis said, ‘Follow me.’
You learned, as a child, which bits froze first; where the eddies were. The nearest place, the shallow pool that lay still, was not here, but far down the bank, where there were no people or lights. She had brought, tied in her apron, two pairs of footed leggings in wool from the sickroom, to drag over their footwear and offer some purchase. If there was enough ice, they would help. Diniz took her wrist as they stepped from the bank, and held it as they edged forwards.
One step; two.
At the first sign of a crack, they could help one another. Lucia, his fair, silly mother, had been riding, unaware that there was ice under the snow. When it gave way, the weight of the horse took her straight down, and the cold of the water had ended it. At first, they had thought Nicholas had driven her on to the river, thinking her to be Simon, her yellow-haired husband, but it was not so.
Two steps; three. How close was the convoy with Robin? It might arrive when they were still in mid-river. But no. In this flat country they would see it. They would hear, far away, the shouts from the watchers on the gatehouse battlements, who would certainly see it. She realised that John, the other prisoner, would be with Robin, and Dr Tobie, Clémence’s husband.
Three steps; four. Five steps; six. She slipped, and Diniz’s hand tightened and held her, and she steadied. She had been thinking of Jodi. If she died, he had Nicholas. If Nicholas died …
She slowed. If she and Nicholas died, and Tobie didn’t survive, there was something