Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [61]
She heard him draw breath. It was a difficult place. Then he said, ‘I guessed. No, I knew. But I haven’t told anyone.’ He paused, and the ice rocked. He said, ‘Don’t worry. You’re doing better than I am.’ He had begun again to draw her across.
She followed, still talking in gasps. ‘Tobie knows. There is a paper, lodged with Tobie’s notary.’ Step, slide and step.
‘I see,’ Diniz said. ‘But you speak as if Nicholas is going to die, too. I’m sure he isn’t. Gelis, can you jump?’
They were in the middle, and there the ice was soft, with water spilling and lapping about it. For five feet, or six, perhaps. Beyond that, it looked firm. There was no guarantee. Diniz said, ‘I’ll go first, and catch you. If I don’t manage, don’t try to help me. Go back.’
‘All right,’ she said. It saved time. She wouldn’t leave him.
He withdrew his hand, and settled his feet, and balanced, and jumped. She saw him land on all fours, and slip sideways, and then thrust himself over and over, rolling away from the glistening gruel. She could hear him breathing harshly when he got up. He held his hands out, and she jumped as well, into his arms.
He hugged her and said, ‘On a tightrope next, with a hoop,’ and seized her hand and began leaping, this time, towards the far shore. And arrived there.
There was a little cover: some frozen bushes, the shanks of a sparse piece of woodland. They had already made their plans: he to race off to the nearest farmhouse; she to keep close to the road and make her way, fast, in the direction of the oncoming travellers, where he hoped to join her with horses. It was almost fully dark now, and the road glimmered hoar and white as its surroundings, defined only by the uneven cleared ground at its edge. The cloud had lifted, and there were stars in the sky, except over the town at her back, where the smoke haze had turned red from the massed torches.
Diniz said, ‘About what we spoke of. I shall remember. But Henry isn’t alone, you know. He does have the St Pols.’
So he did know. He kissed her briefly and went; she set to walking. When she felt safe even from the eyes on the battlements, she picked up her skirts and ran.
Her attackers crept up so quietly that she heard nothing until one sprang before her and the other seized her arms from behind. They were armed, with metal under their cloaks. One of them said, ‘And who are you spying for, jonkvrauwe? Or is it really jonkheer?’ His hands delved; she kicked him; he gasped, swore and hit her. She bit her tongue: through watering eyes, she glared at him, and then addressed him in vicious, clear French. ‘Listen to me, son of a pig. I have escaped from the town. I have urgent news for Monseigneur Louis de Gruuthuse. I am Egidia van Borselen, his wife’s cousin. Take me to him, and you may not be hanged. Indeed, you might be rewarded, if I ask it.’ Then she said it again, this time in Flemish. Far in the distance, she heard hooves. Diniz, with one horse from the sound of it, and about to rush up and be killed. And further off, surely, the rumble of a great number of riders. And wheels.
It was either Louis or the convoy. The men holding her were either scouts from one of these or two of the disaffected from Bruges, and whichever they were, they were very likely to dispose of her now. It was a gamble, but she had nothing much to lose. She drew a breath and screamed, ‘Diniz! Go and get Louis to help!’ and received another blow as Diniz came hurtling into view, saddleless on a horse like a carpet. He had his sword drawn. The two men released her and drew theirs. She kicked one, and achieved a lock on the other, her knife at his neck. She said, ‘Move, and I’ll kill. This is Diniz Vasquez. Friend of mine. Friend of Monseigneur’s. All you have to do is come with us to Monseigneur.’
‘I know you,’ said one of the