The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [20]
Their handgun looked straight into the mouth of another, already set up in their sleeping chamber, with half a dozen fully armed men crowded about it, and more climbing in through the windows. Then Guthrie said, ‘Fire!’ And in that first shattering moment of surprise d’Harcourt’s hackbut exploded, blowing up the Muscovite weapon in a roar of red flame, and hurling the helmeted Streltsi back shouting against the walls and the beds. Then Guthrie sprang through the doorway, and, followed by the small silent team from St Mary’s, set upon the intruders with dagger and sword.
They were trained to kill. They were trained to fight at close quarters against curved swords and straight; and against no weapons at all. They were trained to study other men’s minds; to watch their eyes; to forestall their actions. They fought, guarding each other’s backs, with heavier swords and faster dagger hands: they trusted one another to fight, choosing and passing on victims as fitted the chance of the moment; and reached and cleared the window in the first three minutes of action, thrusting down the tall ladder which scaled it and sending the last climbers shouting into the yard. And at the same time, they watched and listened behind them, so that when Plummer called they were ready for brisk part-withdrawal, leaving four of their men fighting the dwindling numbers in the bedchamber while the rest raced back into the dining hall.
‘Another dozen, perhaps, on the steps,’ Plummer said, his face quite composed. ‘And a group of archers have appeared in the yard. Waiting for us to rush out with our foreign tails burning.’
The sound of fighting was less in the inner room. Fergie Hoddim appeared, with the clacking of swordblades behind him, and said, ‘That’s them all, just about. The other two jumped out the window. Danny Hislop’s getting the hackbuts.’
And so it came about that when the Streltsi swept up the steps and launched their first open attack on the main first-floor doorway, they were met with the thundering mouths of St Mary’s hackbuts at each casement window, followed by the whistling flight of their arrows, so that they withdrew, pulling their wounded men with them, and reformed out of range for the next move.
They had a dozen handguns between them, and a fair store of matches and powder; their swords and a bow each, with arrows. Alec Guthrie recharged the hackbuts and set bows to guard every window, pushing the Muscovite dead and wounded out of the way and clearing the shattered remains of the hackbut, while they reviewed the situation between them.
They had suffered no serious casualties. Unless the Streltsi brought heavy-bore cannon, they could hope to beat off meantime any attack from the front or the rear. No attempt had been made to enter from below, and there seemed no point in trying themselves to descend to the kitchens: it was certain death to step into the yard. And even if they could fight their way to the horses, there were still the streets to get through, and three sets of gateways, all of them guarded. How well, they had good reason to know.
‘So?’ said Danny Hislop. ‘Our powder and arrows are going to run out on us some time. And so are our food and water and joie de vivre and good books and everything. Why not walk out now and get made into somebody’s favourite slave?’
Alec Guthrie said, in his brittle, lecturer’s voice. ‘It’s simple. If the Tsar isn’t going to accept us, then we’re expendable, and nothing can save us. If, on the other hand, he is not yet decided …’
‘Then the way we act here will decide him,’ said Danny Hislop. ‘We’re on exhibition?’
Guthrie’s craggy, grey-bearded face looked at him. ‘Pray,’ he said, ‘that we are on exhibition. And that when the time comes, someone out there has authority to declare the demonstration concluded.’
‘Lymond?’ said Danny Hislop. ‘No, of course; he’s spending the morning with Adashev. After we’re dead, will they keep him, do you think, as