The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [179]
Guthrie opened the cage.
The bird darted out while Vishnevetsky, still watching Lymond, grasped suddenly what was happening and, whirling, strung and nocked his first arrow. Lymond, holding back, had restrung and nocked his in rhythm. Both bows swung expertly upwards.
In its first beat, the bird had risen above the swirling blaze of the cressets. Rising, darting, hovering in the night, it fanned its desperate wings like a humming bird, sometimes flushed, like a fragment of cloud, by the fires down below, sometimes only a space, a dark scrap of sky against the stars of Aldebaran, whose flocks pasture the luminous grass of the night.
The arrows hissed into the air; and hissed; and hissed; and curving fell where the crowd, talking and shouting, were moving like weed to and fro, to let the archers take aim. But it was, as Best knew it would be, an arrow from Lymond’s bow which pierced the fluttering fragment and brought it down, a morsel in someone’s rough hand, and Baida’s tent to which they all marched, laughing and singing, for the prize to be apportioned as had been agreed.
They walked past the flap of the tent, Lymond, Best and his officers, and the noise of the crowd was cut off. The silence inside, after the first moment, was quite as decisive. Within Baida’s tent were no maidens, or valets, or camels. Shackled each to each, their rich clothes torn, their turbans broochless, their dark eyes filled with a world of contempt, lay a group of kidnapped Turkish pashas.
Lymond lost his temper. With furious joy, exacerbated by the evening’s aggravations, Dmitri Vishnevetsky also lost his. Lymond’s words, of intent, even at the height of his anger, did not penetrate beyond the confines of the tent, but what he said turned Best’s stomach, and the rolling voice of Vishnevetsky, replying, gladdened the hearts of the avid listeners crowded outside.
Even so, it was in a white heat of rage, the blood mantling his skin, that the Starosta of Kanev and Cherkassy saw wantonly freed five men who embodied thousands of roubles’ worth of Turkish gold pieces, and saw them given horses, and food and weapons, and turned south out of his power. Indeed, when the first order was given, Baida lifted his arm, his head tilted, his eyes on the Voevoda’s empty hands and bare head.
Then Lymond said, ‘If you strike me, there will not be a man of your Cossacks alive to speak of it tomorrow.’ And Best, for one, knew without doubt that he meant it, and that he could do it, and would.
Vishnevetsky knew it also. He said none the less, breathing hard, ‘You would lose every Cossack in Russia.’
Lymond’s cold voice remained steady. ‘And what use would they be, to me or to Russia, once they knew that one of their leaders could strike me with impunity? If you have a private quarrel with me, pursue it off the field, privately. You cannot challenge me here and now without challenging the Tsar and his army.’
The black eyes glittered. ‘I do challenge you.’
‘With five thousand Cossacks?’ said Lymond.
‘With the army of Sigismund-August, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania,’ said Dmitri Vishnevetsky, with fair clarity and a great deal of venom.
There was a short, weighty silence during which the unfortunate fatuity of this became expansively clear, and Lymond recovered his temper. He said dryly, at length, ‘The Tartars, I am sure, would be delighted. I am not sure what we are disputing about. Did we not make a wager, and did I not win it?’
Prince Vishnevetsky grunted.
‘Then your prisoners are mine, to do as I like with. I choose to set them free, because Russia is not yet prepared for full-scale war with the Sultan.’
His dignity salved, Baida’s tone became again smoothly caustic. ‘And this of course, is what the Tsar sent Mr Best here to learn.’
‘Mr Best is very well aware,’ Lymond said, ‘that we have neither the men nor the munitions so far to fight Suleiman the Magnificent. Our first objective is to drive out the Tartars. You