The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [240]
Tobie said, “But how did…?”
“Quiet. They’ve begun again. You know,” said Astorre, “I could have done something with that little girl Catherine. Look at that. It’s a pity she’s spending all her time hindering Nicholas.”
It was a pity because, all too clearly, Nicholas was not going to retaliate with the actions that would unsaddle her or bring her horse down; whereas she would try to do both whenever they neared one another. The game was fast, because most of the players were young and light and their horses were trained to think for their riders. The play streamed from one end of the stadium to the other and from side to side; and you could see how quickly the four girls and the four men were learning to read one another.
More than most games, this one exposed character. Violante ruled her team, giving no quarter to the princesses who were her equals. The widow Maria, compact and skilful, appeared to take no offence. It was a game, you would say, she had played very often but liked, perhaps, for the distraction it offered rather than any intrinsic pleasure. Anna, on the other hand, surrendered herself to the sport: hovering between ecstasy and despair, she would sometimes scream back at her team mates. Her horse was always the first to tire: she had replaced it twice before her team-leader needed to change her pony at all. The player who should have been worth watching was Catherine. Eager, child-boned, flexible, she moved her horse’s muscles with her own, without, it seemed, need for thought. Dressed in cloth of gold before thousands; playing with princesses at a sport in which she excelled, she should have been euphoric. When matters went well, you could see that she was. At other times, her whip, her mallet, her spur would be commanded furiously to her aid. Supremely, of course, against Nicholas. But quite often, it seemed, against her husband as well.
Oddly, despite her strictness with the others, Violante let all this pass. Nor did Nicholas change his temperate play, although he could hardly ignore what was happening; nor, of course, was Catherine his only opponent. The jabs, the cuts, the bruises, he withstood, it appeared, with his native stoicism. By the halfway mark, he had been thrown by a horse brought to its knees by another man’s blow; but others, too, had had falls just as violent, and even Doria, leaning to take a difficult shot under his pony’s neck, had collided with someone and fallen quite hard. You couldn’t tell, in such a large ground, who was to blame, or if anyone was, and so far no one had been crushed or kicked or rolled upon badly. It was not to say that they didn’t all show damage of some sort when the halfway mark arrived; and they trotted back to dismount, and take water and towels from the pages and throw themselves, panting, on the seats brought for them, while the ponies, drooping, were led away and replacements brought out. It was a violent game, even scaled down for women.
Tobie said, “Do you want to go down and speak?”
“To Nicholas?” said Astorre. “What could I tell him?”
“To watch out for Catherine,” Tobie said.
Astorre snorted. “That little madam could do with a thrashing; but she hasn’t the muscle to throw him. No. It’s two at once that he’s got to look out for.”
“The two older women? The Genoese and her son? You ought to tell him.”
“No, no. He knows. It was the Amiroutzes boy that brought him down that time. Basil. Neatly done, too.”
Of course. Doria had picked his own team. Amiroutzes and Alexios. A lethal combination. Leaving Doria to play like a gentleman. Indeed, to play as if he and Nicholas had been teamed together all their lives.
Astorre said. “And he’s lucky, whatever you think, to have that pretty bath boy on his side. It was him that got the good lord Doria down on his neck. He’s saved Nicholas once or twice.”
“Alexios?” said Tobie. He was unused to Astorre seeing more of any game than a doctor did.
“The pretty one. You’d