Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [133]
He had offered her marriage and rape both, in her own house. After she had passed an evening with him. After she had invited him, warmly.
Of course, he had deceived her. The name he had shown her was not his own. He had not sought the approval of her parents. She must tell her parents, for she required their protection. But there was no need that anyone else should know. As it was, she saw in her mind’s eye her mother’s expression. The son of the seigneur of Courtrai, her mother knew also, was six inches shorter than Simon’s father.
She found she was trembling, and walked more quickly, helped by the pull of the crowd. It must be time for the fireworks, and the bonfire. Somewhere here, very likely, would be the lord of Veere’s party with Charles and Gelis and a reassuring circle of servants. And there, sure enough, was Gelis herself in the distance. But Gelis alone, with only a white-faced manservant behind her. Gelis with her shrill voice upraised and her plump face wild with distress, pleading vehemently in a swirl of indifferent, frolicking carnivallers.
Katelina picked up her skirts once again, and began to run towards her small sister. She called her name, and then opened her arms as the child fought with her elbows towards her. Without tears, without shrieks, Gelis said, “They won’t believe me. We saw it from the tower. Two men came up and took Claes away. And I think they killed him.”
With the child Gelis and her servant on his hands, it had seemed to Claes that he was already involved in the strenuous conclusion of a particularly strenuous day. Life being what it was, he would not have been greatly amazed to be faced with still more complications. Danger he did not think of at all.
Indeed, the time with the girl had been no hardship. He had found friends to circle-dance with them both and got her a place from which to watch the jugglers and found an acquaintance who would take them all up the tower of St Christopher’s chapel, ready to witness the fireworks. Once she had got what she wanted, she was easy to handle. They all were.
After that, he was no longer in control of matters.
He settled Gelis and her man in the tower. He ran down to find and thank his acquaintance. He turned to come back, and a surge of sightseers all but swept him off his feet. When it slackened, he found he had travelled halfway to the Waterhalle and moreover was propping up a couple of drunkards who would not let him go. And finally, one of the drunkards raised a groggy arm which must have had something other than a hand at the end of it, for when it descended on his head, Claes experienced only the first flash of pain, so sudden was the oblivion.
He woke to the sound of harsh gasping, and realised it was his own, and that his chest was shuddering and groaning because there was almost no air. His other senses, slowly returning, advised him of a crashing pain in his split face and head, and then of the likelihood that he was not only blind but fully paralysed.
Intelligence, as he struggled for air, dealt with this nonsense. He was not paralysed. His limbs were cramped because he was huddled in a very small space, and he could not see because it was dark. He unfolded numb fingers and found the walls of his prison, which were wooden.
A coffin, presumably. Or intended to be. His mouth was open, wide as a fish. He could feel his lips stretched, his nostrils scoured and distended. There were pains in his neck and his chest. A wash of faintness bedevilled him, and receded. Wood. He could break out of wood, if it were thin enough. If it was not in fact a coffin. If it was not in fact a grave, with earth above and around it.
Try.
His knees were already up to