Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [124]
Watching, Margaret became aware of yet one thing more. Whenever the Cornishman’s attention was free, the white-lashed eyes turned towards Thady. In them was very little of intelligence and nothing of amity. They expressed scorn, she thought, and excitement, and something else she could not properly name. Only Lymond, close by the two men, plainly saw in the pale, pink-rimmed eyes a pleasurable anticipation of murder.
The present bout was soon ended. It had been reasonably exciting. The mild applause, the circling wine, the little stir of gossip and change filled the moment that was suddenly on them, on all those that knew and were concerned, like a burden of unbearable weight. Then the floor was clear, and on it was Thady Boy, portentously solemn, stripped to creased shirt and fat, silk-puffed haunches, club and shield in his hands. Long ago, the stuffed and elaborate clothing he wore had let him dispense with additional padding; his way of life was bringing illusion near enough reality, for the rest. Opposite him now, loosely bent, waited the supple-skinned ox of a Cornishman, the fire red on his skull and his eyes and the silver spike of his shield.
Margaret, feeling her face grow cold, and therefore white, looked away quickly. Beside her, the square, short-nosed profile of Richard Crawford showed no kind of change. No muscle altered; no apprehension showed in his eyes. Margaret wondered briefly if he felt any warmth for his brother or only a sense of duty, doggedly preserved.
The bout began at great speed, because the Cornishman wanted quickly to disarm his opponent. The rubbery hulk of him pattered in, lightfooted; but there was less still of Thady Boy. He blew like a wind ball, vagrant on the periphery in untraceable patterns, and the heavy cudgel, thrashing hard through the air, whined empty on the place where the ollave had been standing. Behind him, Thady Boy whistled; and as the Cornishman turned, hit two melodious notes from the wrestler’s own shield and set words to it, before he had to skip fast to shelter.
He was busy then for quite a few moments, for the Cornishman, annoyed, was impatient. The cudgels cracked, on the shields and on each other, but adroitly missed flesh and bone. That would come. They were fresh as yet, although the ollave’s breathing was thick and fast; and Erskine, who had seen him, weightless, fight his brother tempered like a sword, watched with a troubled face all this blunted skill. Then Thady Boy ran backwards, his round shadow swift before him, and without an instant’s warning hurled his shield away from him with all his strength.
You could hear the impact of the blow. It hit the wrestler’s leather wrist, fell, bounced, and wheeled straight to a dark corner, skidding the Cornishman’s dropped cudgel with it. Thady now had his club only; and the wrestler nothing but his shield.
The wave of comment stopped in mid-flight. The circling had begun again, but this time more slowly. The wrestler’s white-lashed eyes had narrowed. He moved, crab-legged, his right hand splayed and his oil-sleek muscles shifting until he had the other within reach. Then, like a snake striking, a foot flashed upwards to Thady’s groin. As the pounded flock filling his preposterous breeches took the blow, Thady’s cudgel swung out. The wrestler jerked his head—in vain.
For the club was aimed, not at his head, but at the uppermost rim of the shield. It landed. And splitting it with a high crack from end to end, it drove the spike underneath into the Cornishman’s own shin, With a sharp, strangled grunt the wrestler hopped back, clutching his leg, and Thady, the sweat sparkling on his face,