The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [292]
“Why?” said Catherine. She looked from Simon’s face to his sword. It glistened.
Simon said, “Untie his hands.” Her hair had fallen over her face and her fingers were trembling. She looked up at Nicholas for reassurance as she worked, and he smiled down at her, even as he felt her draw the dagger from under his jacket. He made a small move to try and stop her without betraying her, but it was enough to bring Simon to his side, his sword up. Catherine slipped between them and backed to the wall. Nicholas said, “May I also fight with my sword? Or if I lay it down there, do you think we might go back to talking about it?”
“What is there to talk about?” Simon said. “The law is on my side. If you won’t pay your debts, you must suffer.”
“Quite right. But first the law must prove I’m a debtor. So let us go to the law,” Nicholas said. “Catherine…?”
Simon stood at the door. Catherine, who had moved, sank back to the wall. Nicholas said, “Please. We’re not talking about round ships or Doria. It would help to know what we are talking about. Is it me? Or is it my mother? Or just that by being here I remind you of it all? If I knew, I could work out how to stop it.”
Simon had gone very pale. Nicholas was not sorry. It was his own fault that Catherine was still there. She merely looked anguished. Simon said, “That is why. You talk.”
“And you are going to stop me,” said Nicholas blankly. He was not sure if the other man did mean that, or if he thought he did.
Simon said, “Take off your coat.” And the moment he had dragged the sodden thing off and dropped it, Simon was coming at him, sword lifted.
He had never used his own sword since it came to him. He had never fought Simon equally before, except with poles, which had nearly been the end of him; and in a crazy chase through water where he had finished being bayed down by hounds. He could handle a polestaff well now, and had had himself taught to swim perfectly. He wondered, drawing the new, shining blade, what other skills Simon would force him to master. Finding a method of resurrection, perhaps. His steel jerked as Simon touched it, testing his grip and his speed; and then again, from the other side. Astorre had taught him, of course. He had been sent, too, to the ducal master-at-arms in Milan; for you can’t control mercenaries or ride on dangerous journeys unless you know what you’re doing. At Trebizond…at Trebizond, they had duelled against one another in the fondaco to keep their hand in, and taken turns to share the troops’ exercises. And he had kept in training with hunting, and archery, and ball games. He thought of his beautiful horses, and felt regretful. He was reminded, again, of what this was taking from his first, long-planned moments with Marian and became suddenly overcome with angry impatience.
It was not a good idea, for it happened so seldom that he didn’t know how to deal with it. Simon moved lightly as a good swordsman should; lunged and withdrew; changed sweep and direction, knocked aside and drove with his point. He appeared angrily content, and only displeased that results were not at once apparent. He was forcing the pace, as he thought, when Nicholas effected a collision of blades that filled the air with blue fire and sparks and jarred both the swords and the swordsmen. Simon withdrew, his eyes open, and suddenly swerved to one side, to avoid an extremely sharp blade in his shoulder. He looked at it as he fended it off. Nicholas hoped he had observed the inscription, which was in Arabic. Simon said, “Where…?” and had his arm jarred again, and again. He responded by lifting his own sword like a scimitar, and bringing it down like a headsman.
It was so fast that Nicholas caught it badly and late; but he caught it. Nicholas said, “The White Sheep,” and laughed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the face of Catherine, white in the shadows. He wondered what the time was, and if it were now really dark. He wondered why she had taken his knife, and what she thought she could do with it, with eight