The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [238]
Tobie said, “This is what you’ve been planning, then? The only way you can put Doria out of action and get Catherine away?”
Nicholas said, “Well, he needs to put me out of action. It was the only thing that would coax him out of his foxhole, so far as I could see.”
Tobie said, “But you’re on the same side.” He was aware that the others were looking pityingly at him. He said, “And what’s more, Doria’s been riding from birth.”
“And look what it’s got him,” said Nicholas. “Bandy legs and Violante of Naxos. Tobias, my friend.”
“Yes?” said Tobie guardedly.
“Heads come off at this game. Opposing teams are surrounded by medical gentlemen whose duty is to bind, sew, saw or otherwise minister. Your services will not be needed. Understood?”
“Put your hat on,” said Tobie. Loppe was carrying it. It was tall, and white, and had crane’s feathers coming out of the crown. Nicholas sat it on top of his head and Tobie surveyed him. At length Tobie said, “Yes. I agree. I don’t think I could bring myself to come near it.”
Nicholas gave a wide smile, and went off.
It became apparent, before the major games were half over, that tzukanion played in the normal way between teams of powerful men was one of the noisiest games in existence. The players, once roused, roared, cursed and snarled in between trying to dislodge one another from the saddle in order to improve their stroke. Hooves thundered, harness rattled. In case silence should fall, the stadium was surrounded by buglers and drummers. The drums set up a war beat that made the horses lay their ears back and roused the spectators to frenzy. The orders to end the phase, or the game, were conveyed by wild and elaborate outbursts of trumpeting. Added to the continual roar of the crowd, it produced something very close to the sound of a pitched battle, which, Tobie thought, was probably the original idea. He was moderately surprised when the heavy games came to an end with only two horses dead and eight injured, and a few broken limbs here and there.
Attendants came on to the ground and raked and sprayed the dust till it caked and went dark. There was organ music, and some flutes, and a scattering of dwarves came out and tumbled and threw dirt at one another, and a Saracen girl, nearly naked, stood on a great coloured bladder and danced on it from one end of the ground to the other, while the dwarves beat her with feathers. Grooms bustled in behind the rails with strings of fresh ponies, and pages took off the broken sticks and, running back, resumed their places all round the stadium with replacements held ready. The bamboo they were made of was whippy, and the mallet head was fixed to the end like a foot. In the stadium, they had repainted the gold lines at either end over which the ball had to be driven, to score points of credit. The ball was also bright gold.
The women’s team, riding on first, was received by a modified silence, which represented, it would appear, the customary mark of respect. As was court practice, the noblewomen rode astride, but without the enveloping mantles with which it was customary to make seemly their mounting and dismounting. Instead, they were dressed like the men’s team in short-skirted tunics, but worn over trousers and boots in the Persian style. Like the men, too, their horses had their tails ribboned and tightly bound, and their own hair was the same; braided and tied back with laces under gilded, winged helms like those of classical heroes. In the left hand, each girl grasped a riding cane, with her pony’s reins wrapped round her fingers or over her elbow. In her right, the bamboo stood, slim and straight as the lance in a phalanx. The little, deep-chested horses paced under them; the cloth of gold burned and twinkled like armour, and it was hard to know which of them to look at: from the exact beauty of Violante, the leader, to the olive skin and dark hair of widowed Maria the Genoese princess; from the haunted, imperious face of fourteen-year-old Anna to