The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [17]
‘There you all are,’ said Julius of Bologna, the handsomest manager of the Banco di Niccolò. ‘We heard you were coming. Tedious, isn’t it? We ought to be finished soon. Where are you staying? John Lamb’s? I’ll tell Nicholas.’
‘Your Nicholas?’ said Adorne civilly. ‘Vander Poele? Is he here?’ His niece Katelijne, below general notice, noted that he betrayed none of the amazement that her brother showed, or Master Metteneye, who nine years ago must have been acquainted with Nicholas, apprentice to the Charetty company, which – she had been told – employed Julius, too, as its lawyer.
The same Julius produced a casual grimace. ‘Do you think I’d be here unless Nicholas was? That’s him over there. Bonkle bought him a house, and he likes it. He’s out of his mind. If you had what he has, would you come here to spend it?’
Adorne said, ‘It depends. Perhaps Gelis wanted to come back to Scotland. A bride enjoys meeting old friends.’
Julius glanced over his shoulder. ‘Oh Christ,’ he said. ‘He’s gone and picked up a ball. Excuse me. We’ll have to go on.’ He pulled a face and, wheeling again, tipped his feathered red hat at them all. Then he spurred dashingly off.
Metteneye said, ‘Those were rubies.’ They were speaking, as always, in Flemish.
‘They were not, certainly, sprays of honesty,’ Adorne said. ‘The man in black must be Nicholas. I thought him thicker. And certainly black is far from his usual choice. Or, indeed, his usual pocket. What ball? Katelijne!’
Katelijne had guessed what ball the riders were going for. Before even her uncle exclaimed, before Anselm her brother had moved, she had set off to scamper back through the sand to the links. The man in black, mounted, arrived just before her, scattering the few grazing heifers and causing the half-dozen foot-players to stumble aside from the hole over which they were poring. Two of them shouted, and one lifted his stick at the horse.
The man in black plucked it out of his grasp and broke it over his knee. Then, gathering his reins, he swept his own stick in a low, graceful arc, and settling it outside the ball, whipped it showily out of their reach, while the mare between his knees swerved and followed, in visibly perfect control. The ball, chipped into the air, fell ahead and was securely caught, with a smack, between the two open palms of Katelijne.
For a moment, she stood her ground as the rider swooped to her side and drew rein. She let him begin to lean down, before she lifted her palm and threw the ball back where it had come from, at the feet of the shouting, hurrying golfers.
They looked down at it, and at her. The man in black said in French, ‘You would like to join in the game?’ He was at least as old as her brother. His sleeve smelled of brine, and horse, and scent, and his doublet was made of plain black silk, sewn, embroidered and pleated. Under the brim of his hat, his eyes were as large as those of swan-seduced Leda in a painting she had not, when a child, comprehended.
‘Isn’t it over?’ she said.
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I fear that it is.’ He had hardly shifted his gaze.
She whirled. Behind her back, the man in rubies, the man Julius in red, had ridden up and, bending, had scooped the ball again from its owners. Feet disputed, and voices. Then Julius, laughing, turned his horse, and with ease punted the ball across to the black rider again.
This time, she was on the wrong side to catch it. She picked up her skirts and ran forward none the less as the red rider thundered behind her, and the golfers, silent and dogged, pounded after. Ahead, the man with the whistle played a cadenza of notes with one hand and, when the black rider glanced over, beckoned. The black rider, his horse in motion, bent in a mist of cold scent to dispatch the ball in his direction.
The stick had just connected when his horse pecked, staggered, and all but threw him. The ball, knocked awry, flew instead towards