Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [9]
She had seen those assailants outside. They were encased in helms and plate armour, with no markings to tell who they were. Brigands wore a patchwork of armour if they could get it, but more often jacks of light leather. Knights who could afford complete harness could afford, as a rule, to be identified. So these must be mercenaries. But paid by whom? The Genoese? The Milanese? The Venetians? She grew impatient with the snivelling page and striding to the front of the house, found and grasped Thomas Pardo. Pardo the Cypriot, whose skin was so dark that he never looked frightened. He said, ‘Go back, madama. Every now and then, they try to storm the gates, climb the walls. We will pick them off.’
‘So long as you have arrows,’ she said. ‘What then? They could set fire to the buildings.’
‘Then they would lose what we carry,’ said Pardo.
‘They could demand our goods for our lives,’ said the Queen. ‘If they know who we are, they may demand our person in return for your safety. Have you considered this?’
‘Others have made the same offer,’ said Pardo. ‘I know none of your servants who has been tempted, or ever will be. Madama, they come.’ She looked out of the window. The farm was ringed by blurs of fast-moving steel whose human outlines had faded under coifs and surcoats of snow. Their faces looked purple. She wanted to stay, but they persuaded her to return to her women.
The fools stood as she had left them, hugging each other. The candles guttered, and a brazier smoked. She eased back a shutter an inch and saw that new snow had already covered the wheel-ruts that led to the barn. There was a sledge, and a painted barrow, and a child’s spade stuck by a well. Beside the barn, the snow had been rolled into boulders and given eyes and noses and buttons. A household of brats. In two years, she and Luis had managed no children: another failure of Luis’.
It would be remedied. She would emerge scatheless from this, as she usually did. She was afraid of dying through mishap – one had always to reckon with that. She might be robbed for a second – a third time. Her women were right to fear rape. But as Queen, she was sacrosanct, unless attacked by ignorant riff-raff, and these men were not that. So who were they? That was what was important. That and saving, with God’s help, what lay in the chests on the wagons.
They brought her a chair, and time passed. She sat with her chin in her fists, hearing the whine and whicker of arrows and the explosion of hackbuts; the thud of metal and wood, and the barking voices of men. She heard fighting orders from her own men in Greek and Italian and French, and thought – but she must be mistaken – that she heard the enemy respond in much the same languages. The snow fell. A door opened and shut and Primaflora knelt at her side.
She had been out of doors. Her cloak was soaked, its hood fallen back from the immaculate golden hair inside its immaculate coif. A wisp plastered her cheek, her tinted cheek, below the pellucid eyes and the winged nostrils and the rosebud mouth with its dimple, above and below. It was natural that Ansaldo should have been mesmerised. Primaflora said, ‘Forgive me, madama. It is the chests they are after. Ansaldo says they are cutting a ram for the gates. To make an assault, they will require all their men. He says that when they begin their attack on the front, he will try to drive the wagons out of the barn, across the yard and out the back gate, and make his escape to the woods. The enemy may force their way in, but you will be safe, madama. In the field, an arrow might kill you. And if the carts are secure, you have something. When they discover their loss, they might give up.’
‘When they discover their loss, they will follow him,’ Carlotta said. ‘Where could he hide? And does he think they are deaf, even when fighting?’
‘The snow will muffle the sound,’ said the girl. ‘The snow will cover his tracks. He is willing to try. And if he fails, he will have drawn them off, and the illustrious lady can fly.’ She hesitated. ‘Madama, time has passed. It