Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [180]
Diniz sat in the stink, coughing and choking. He said, ‘To kill you.’
Vander Poele said, ‘Or did you mean the copper to do your work for you? It’s there, above you, still warm. I have only to pull out the plug, and let it flood into the gutter. The liquid would scald, and then drown you.’
‘Do it, then,’ Diniz said. He saw, in the depths of the tub, a glint of metal and remembered what it was, and how it came to be there. A piece of carelessness, the previous day, followed by a childish unresolved brawl between coopers. You climb down and get it. It’s your fault. The article they had dropped was an axe.
The Fleming, he heard, was still talking. ‘Why should I kill you? You haven’t harmed me. You couldn’t harm me. I have no reason for wanting you dead. I have bought you: I told you, because I prefer to see you here, in the salubrious air of the dyeshop.’
Someone was laughing – the Venetian, strolling up. He said, ‘My dear, I said fight, not dip the poor child like a sheep. I think you should tie him until he becomes a little less angry.’ There was a hank of blue wool in his hands, still attached at one end to its winch. Zorzi said, ‘You drop it over his shoulders, and I’ll wind him up like a moufflon. Christ God, he stinks.’
Diniz gave one choking sob. The hook dragged his belt and his body began to leave the filthy water. The heavy wool dropped over his shoulders and then gripped round his waist, trapping one arm and leaving one free. Vander Poele thrust the stuff into place and held it firm with one hand, while the other assisted the pull with the wringing-hook. The Fleming talked over his arm to his winch-man. His attention was fully engaged and so was that of Zorzi, who was laughing harder than ever. Diniz began to rise free of the bath.
He had already taken hold of the axe. As he came waist-high to his tormentor, he whirled his arm round with the implement. He let it go just short of its target, which was the vein in vander Poele’s neck. The flash of silver was all the warning the other man had. He began to move, but there was of course no way he could avoid it. Diniz heard the thud, and the other man’s gasp. The Fleming half staggered. The stick fell to the ground, and the wool ran through his fingers. The axe, jarred by the movement, detached itself and fell beside Diniz. He felt the handle under his hip as he dropped back to the vat edge and sprawled, half in and half out of the bath, blinded by the dash of the liquid, and by the crimson spray of Niccolò’s blood. He saw, through the blur, that the other man had fallen quite slowly and was lying, his head turned away, in pools of bright blood and urine garnished with wool twists of Imperial purple. He couldn’t see the extent of the wound. He said, without getting up, ‘Is he dead?’ He started to shiver.
The Venetian Zorzi looked up from where he was kneeling. He was perhaps pale, but his expression was not one of horrified anger. He said, ‘Well. Neither of us expected you to do that. No, he is not dead. But he could be.’
Diniz stared at him. Zorzi said, ‘If you wanted him dead, you have only to leave him. He will bleed his life away in ten minutes, and you would be perfectly safe. It was a fair fight, and the cut of an axe or a sword can look much the same in a corpse.’
Diniz lifted himself until he was sitting. He said, ‘You would do that? Support me?’
Zorzi knelt back, one hand comfortably on his knee. He said, ‘I don’t see why not. I’ve no axe to grind – ha! – over the rights and wrongs of your case, but you seem a good trainee, and vander Poele himself recommended you. This was