Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [115]
Kiaya Khátún saw Lymond say something sharply and, putting out a hand, grip Jerott’s arm. And everyone there saw the white anger on Jerott Blyth’s face as, turning, he chopped his arm free with the edge of his hand and stood, awaiting the pedlar. Then the horsemen galloped on to the arena, and the little scene dissolved, as men knelt and stood to see better. Satisfied, Kiaya Khátún sank back and watched.
Two hundred yards wide, the exercise-ground stretched on either side of her awning, and receded before her for much farther than that. In the middle distance before her they had aligned three markers of sand, a spear as mark stuck in each, with sufficient space between for six horses to gallop abreast. And in lines of six, level as beading, the riders dashed along the sand now, one line to each course, straight-backed on the small, high-saddled horses, bow at pommel, quiver at shoulder and lance, streaming its long scarlet gold-lettered pennant, held straight as the wires of a cage in each horseman’s grip.
For display, Güzel saw, the Aga Morat had given them identical clothing in Dragut Rais’s colours. Each rider, besides his white turban, wore a scarlet knee-length coat with wide gathered sleeves over white shirt and striped girdle and long, loose trousers of blue. Flashing past the three heaps of sand to the far end of the arena they had dismounted as one, and each throwing off his coat and quiver, unbuckled and flung down his saddle, remounted, and seizing a handful of darts, set off bareback at full tilt on the return journey, strung out along the four courses, mane, tail and girdle fringe streaming. One after the other the darts arched and tocked into the targets as each man, his horse gripped in his thighs, fled past, turned, flung and, whooping, galloped on up to the awnings and bending, scooped up the staves waiting there. For a second they were all beside her, jostling, shouting, steaming; then, assembled like mercury, they were lined up once more and dashing back to the mark, staves in hand, had struck it and, turning, had flung down the staves and taken up quivers and arrows.
The horses were beautiful: chestnut, golden bays, piebald and dappled, with the small tapering head and arched neck of the Arab, and the swift, free-shouldered gallop. And the speed, whether one cared for horses or not, was entrancing. Smiling her appreciation, Güzel glanced away for a moment to the other awning on her right, found what she was looking for, and watched, her brow creasing. Then, making up her mind, she turned and spoke to the Aga Morat. On the arena the bowmen, galloping from both ends, were passing and repassing in pattern, shooting at the mark as they went. ‘I should say,’ said Georges Gaultier with a connoisseur’s interest, ‘that that’s dangerous.’
He was, perhaps, the only interested party in the immediate vicinity who was not watching Jerott Blyth and Lymond. After the blow which had loosened the other man’s grip, Jerott had wrenched himself free of the crowd and, pulling out the few coins which were all Güzel had left him, offered them all to the harech-seller. Those whose view he was blocking shouted, and the guards, standing along the open back of their dais, murmured insults and watched with contempt. The harech-seller, unhooking his cup, filled it with raw spirit and leaned to give it to Jerott. Lymond took it, and quite calmly emptied it out on the sand.
It splashed a little over them both. The smell of it, reeking from his clothes, turned Jerott’s head: he had drunk nothing, after all, since his illness. As the pedlar scrambled for the fallen cup among the wet cushions, he turned on Francis Crawford, his face hollow, and brought up his hands.
Lymond said, very softly, in English, ‘This