Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [119]
He realised he was lying in a mess of pulped olives. It would ruin his gown. He found he was smiling, and stopped. He was a doctor. A man lay dead behind at this moment. To want to hunt down his killers was natural. One should not, however, start to enjoy it. Tobie frowned, shifted, and prepared to make another contributory dash in the darkness. Then he stayed where he was.
A horse was approaching from the pine grove at a gallop. With it streamed light from a pitch torch. The rider, veiled, wore the flying white muslin of Guinevere. The horse fled across the flat ground to the byre. Trough, well, farm buildings stood illuminated in flickering gold. For an instant Tobie saw the byre window, with the archer standing, bow bent, aiming from it. Tobie rolled, flat on the ground, into shadow. While he was moving, he saw the first barbs pierce the rider. They struck without cease: veil, gown, the horse itself. Transfixed, the animal whinnied and reared. The torch, no doubt meant for the thatch, dropped to the ground and was extinguished. In the sudden darkness, little could be seen but the threshing bulk of the dying mount, and the shreds of white cloth lying under it. Tobie began to rise to run forward, and stopped, as his wits returned. Whatever had been on that horse, it wasn’t Nicholas. But seen for a single menacing second by the men in the byre, it was good enough to look real. The bowmen would assume one of their pursuers was dead. And they were the poorer for a great many arrows. He watched, entranced, as the drumming of hooves heralded a second horse.
This time, the rider wore Astorre’s glittering helmet but carried no brand. The unseen archer shot again, and the figure rode for a while, and then toppled. Its helmet rolled off. The horse swerved, hesitated, and cantered away. The sound of its hooves receded, leaving silence behind. Tobie rose and, forsaking the trough, crept to a position nearer the byre. He was close enough, now, to see the horseblanket stuffed into Guinevere’s dress. He was aware, too, of the glutinous smell of olive oil from the pulp stuck to his boots and his clothes. It made him feel hungry. He remained where he was, awaiting whatever Nicholas and Astorre were going to try next. While he waited, he received another whiff of the oil, this time from his right. The trough was not on his right. Someone else, therefore, had stepped on the olives.
The thought had just struck him when he heard a creak from the direction of the byre. One of the doors must have opened. A man’s voice, speaking in Greek, said, ‘Takis? There is only one left. We will take him between us.’
His voice broke off in a scream. Astorre must have been standing beside him. Tobie heard the sounds of a struggle, and saw the two figures, entwined, stamping backwards and forwards. Tobie began to run, peering through darkness for Nicholas or the mysterious Takis. Now he could see the heads of the struggling pair at the byre door, the bowman’s helmeted and Astorre’s grizzled and bare. He caught the glint of a dagger in the hand that had been holding the bow. It rose, and remained rigid as the man’s wrist was held by Astorre. Tobie saw Astorre’s right fist swinging back, with his sword in it.
If the captain remembered what Nicholas had demanded, there was no sign of it now, any more than there was a whisper of protest from Nicholas. Astorre’s sword came down with a whistle and took the other man clean in the neck. He fell, killed on the instant. Astorre looked round. Tobie, hesitating, began to move forward again, straining to see through the darkness. He experienced, once again, a whiff of oil that did not come from his own person. Then someone took hold of his arms, and wrenching them hard behind him, held something tight at his throat that both glinted and cut. A voice at his back shouted in dreadful Italian. ‘Gentlemen! Lukas is a fool, who doesn’t know a man from a dummy. I am one man against three, and I am not afraid. I have a knife at the throat of a bald man. Do as I say, or he dies.’
Tobie stopped struggling.