Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [156]
Silence followed. Bel panted. Not far away, several men started to cough; and the same sound, but fainter and mixed with muffled shouting and moans, began to emerge from under the dome of the roof. Sharply, the roof itself broke into sound, became a buzzing, squealing, rustling city of frantic wildlife. Birds whirred. Something swarmed over the tail of Bel’s skirt, and she heard Gelis exclaim.
Bel of Cuthilgurdy sat up and, groping within the arsenal of her shift, pulled out a tinder-box and made a torch of her kerchief.
Gelis was standing beside her. Diniz, a stick in either hand, was running howling towards her through rushing streams of brown rats. Behind him, a pair of feet were advancing which she took to belong to da Silves, behind that were many more legs and feet whose upper parts were wholly concealed by a deep, powdery cloud of dirty saffron which arched over the clearing and rose into the indigo air until it expired in faint columns of verdigris.
The legs were running forward, bringing their owners out of the blanket of chaff, and the coughing and wheezing, now tremendous, had become charged with whoops of what appeared to be excitement and triumph – indeed, both emotions were plain on the battered faces that now emerged into the clear. The rodents proceeded to vanish.
Diniz said, ‘They meant to do that to us. Did you see? They’d weakened all of the pillars, and connected them with the rope. Saloum saved us. Saloum and Nicholas. Saloum had a knife in his hair. He freed the crew and they dragged the soldiers inside. Oh glory be, did you see?’
‘Is anyone hurt?’ Gelis said.
‘Oh yes,’ said Diniz madly, ‘but we’re all out. Here he is. Here’s Nicholas. It was Godscalc who warned us, you know.’
‘And Gelis who put out the lamps,’ Nicholas said. ‘Three to be carried: Diniz, go and help Jorge. Saloum says every man needs a torch. We form a column, the wounded in the centre, Saloum in front and Ahmad in the rear: they both know the way back to the ship. What weapons do we have?’
What they had concealed or picked up were distributed. Da Silves said, ‘The men under the roof?’
‘They can breathe,’ Nicholas said. ‘They’ll cut their way out in time. I want to get to the anchorage.’
‘Why leave it to chance?’ said Jorge da Silves, and lifted his torch.
A vast hand closed on his arm. ‘What?’ said Godscalc. ‘Are you no better than the Genoese brute inside there? Throw that torch and I’ll have your head off your neck – you and any other who tries it.’
No one set fire to the thatch. No one knew, either, the condition of the men under it: how many might have taken the weight of the rim; how many lay with limbs snapped below the tumbling trunks. A fate meant for themselves, and devised, as Nicholas had already said, wholly from injured vanity.
They would be released by the morning, or sooner. They would be alive, all or most of Doria’s men. Alive and beaten and vicious, and free by the morning, or sooner. Trudging in the midst of the hastening column, Bel found herself shivering. Then she found Filipe beside her, teeth chattering, and asked him to hold her hand tightly.
They couldn’t hurry enough to suit Nicholas. The journey from the ship had taken an hour, even omitting their rest-time. Now, returning, Nicholas allowed them no rest, but despite his merciless harrying the uneven ground and the darkness and their weariness made them slow. Twice, they were stalked by glowing green eyes, and were made to chant, and bang sticks, and wave their flaring brands. Halfway there, hoarse with goading, Nicholas fetched Ahmad to the head of the troop beside Jorge and, taking Saloum, set off at a lope into the darkness. Diniz, attempting to follow, was