Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [52]
He realised he had seen them before, on opposing sides in the battles, one in red and one in yellow with casques made of buckram and satin. Now they had feathers as well, and light lances of which they never let go, but which they used to threaten and prick at each other as they jumped in and out of the saddle, and knelt, and ran, and achieved fearsome misses and occasional spectacular hits.
The horses were jennets, trained for dancing round the young bulls to enable the picador to plant his garrocha. They had seen some of that already, but these two had not taken part. Now, you would say they were playing double roles: each the beast and the picador also. And the young bull in yellow was Nicholas.
As the idea entered his head, Gregorio realised it was preposterous: suggested by some similarity of height, a width of shoulder, a type of inventiveness. Then he saw the expression on the priest’s face beside him; and turned back to the arena ín horror. It was Nicholas.
Of the two, he had the better seat on the horse. Or that was not exactly true: what he possessed was a bodily control of his mount which he must have learned in the East; a trick from Persia, Turkey, Byzantium, where men played games on light horses like this. It left his arms free for whatever he chose. And what he chose was pure comedy at the expense of his opponent.
There could be no doubt, now, who his fellow mummer in scarlet must be. One couldn’t imagine how the prison governor could have been persuaded to let him out to be mocked at, or how he could have brought himself to agree. But the other man, there was no doubt, was Michael Crackbene.
They had been told, presumably, to entertain, and this they did. But Nicholas, wielding his spear, was also wielding his anger, and knew very well how to make a strike hurt. And Crackbene, though more at home on the sea than in the saddle, was none the less an athletic man, with the blood of Vikings in him, and determination, and anger. Vaulting, running, whirling his spear, he fended Nicholas off, and sometimes managed a strike, upon which Nicholas flung his arms open and bellowed. When hit, Crackbene also, clowning, lamented. The spectators cackled and cheered, while Gregorio saw the spots of blood on the yellow, and the spots of black on the red, and knew it wasn’t all mime. Then the thunder of hooves drowned the laughter.
A running of oxen. The burly man had tried to explain, in the bright afternoon when the sun was high and hot. Now it was low and yellow, and the arena was half in black shadow, and the drumming of hooves came from behind the Genoese casa and then from the paved street beside it, from which boys and men, running in comical terror, debouched screaming into the marketplace. After them poured a torrent of animals.
Oxen was the word they had used: an innocuous word to do with watermeadows and ploughs and slow, lethargic beasts which had no connection – no possible link – with a herd of gleaming, terrified, frothing young bulls being forced through the streets of Sanlúcar and finding themselves now in an open space, surrounded by crowds and occupied by two vulnerable men on two vulnerable horses.
It seemed to Gregorio that Nicholas shouted something to his opponent. Certainly, ramming his spear into its slot, he galloped across, and, seizing the other man’s reins, attempted to race with him from the arena. He was halfway there when the beasts were upon them, muzzles dripping, horns ducking and goring. Crackbene’s horse staggered and fell. The herd crowded about it. Exclaiming, the crowds beyond the barriers parted.
Crackbene stood for a moment, bleeding and buffeted, and then, twisting