The Spring of the Ram - Dorothy Dunnett [293]
“Is she?” said Simon, and laughed. His blade came down very quickly, and was parried and parried. He was fit: his breath was still coming easily.
Catherine said, “Can I go?” and laid her hand on the door. If they let her through, she could get help. Someone surely would know the Medici house.
Simon said, “If you like. You won’t find her.” His blade pierced. Listening to the tone of the other man’s voice, Nicholas felt nothing of it. He fought forward and back for a moment, his eyes moving from Simon to the uncertain girl holding the door. He bought time by increasing his speed, and then spent it on a brief question.
“Where is she?”
“Your wife? Your wife is dead and buried,” said Simon.
Chapter 42
THE GIRL CATHERINE cried out. No one else spoke. The fight came to a halt very slowly, as if someone had poured water over it, and Simon contented himself with a parry or two while he watched the other man’s face. Under the bruises, it was two-coloured, with the scar in the pale part. Compared with the girl’s, his reaction was remarkably sluggish. All the same, Simon kept up his guard, prepared for a new, awkward onslaught. The news he had just given Nicholas must be the best the fellow had ever heard. He blamed himself for his rashness in breaking it. It was bad policy, too. Fortified by his new power, Nicholas was liable to think he could do anything. Simon waited, but no attack followed. His point dropped, Nicholas was standing as if the fight had never happened.
Nicholas said, “Marian?” In the silence, Simon could hear a sudden trampling of feet below stairs, and upraised voices, and the clashing of metal. He frowned. The girl at the door suddenly screamed and went on screaming. In front of him, the apprentice stood without movement, except for the tremor that follows violent exertion. Presently, he said, “Is this true?”
Simon looked at him. He perceived, to his surprise, that he had nothing to reproach himself with. He lowered his sword. He said, “Of course it’s true!”
Anger died, replaced by dawning amazement. By some fluke, he had made his point with something sharper than steel. The news was clearly calamitous. Why, didn’t matter. Simon, still looking, put up his sword. There was no need to go on with the fight. The fight had been won.
Gregorio, flinging open the door, caught that moment. He halted, discerning only the men in the lamplight and straining to see their condition. Behind him, Astorre and his men thumped up the stairs, sword in hand. A girl in black flung herself at him from behind the door and he fended her off without looking. Although St Omer was a long time ago, he recognised Simon at once. You don’t forget a man who has put a sword through your shoulder—although Simon’s sword, he saw, was in its scabbard.
Opposite him was a young, tired-looking man with blood on his doublet, and an unsheathed sword, point down and forgotten. Gregorio said in anger, “You have told him.” The girl beside him, crying, pulled at his arm. He glanced at her. The child Catherine, he supposed, who had caused all the trouble. He wouldn’t have known her. Behind him, he could hear her sister Tilde’s feet on the stairs. He thought, I can’t manage this. And then was glad that he was alone but for Astorre’s band and the girl. As soon as he heard of the fight at the bridge, he had slipped from Martelli’s house, and had found Astorre, and brought him here, the girl Tilde running after him. He had known it would be Simon who had planned it. He had guessed what he might do.
He walked in, and Simon turned. He was smiling. “Ah, my