The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [19]
One did not address princesses as ‘Hey.’ One did not allow one’s future employer to drown. Katelijne said, ‘All right, run away. You knew you couldn’t win, anyway.’
She wasn’t heard. Or perhaps she was: the round cheek bulged, as if a Stewart jaw had been set. The russet hair, too wet to whip in the wind, lay like leaves on the leaden pall of spoiled velvet. The girl didn’t look round.
A voice in languid French said, ‘Leave it to me.’ The black rider, his horse swimming beside Katelijne’s. Passing, he caught the mare’s eye and hissed at her provocatively.
Katelijne said, ‘Can you capture the ball?’
‘If I must,’ he remarked. ‘I doubt if the dear creature can swim.’
‘I can,’ she said. He was already in front, the black velvet and the embroidery drenched; his hair, hatless now, cut curling and smart on the nape of his neck; his eyes, his pale, densely focused eyes on the child.
‘I offer candles,’ he said, without turning. The words barely reached her. Whatever he offered, he had given her no advice and no orders. She followed.
It was more difficult now, further out from the shore. The wind sliced the tops from the waves, and the waves themselves, curling high, sometimes bore her horse up and over in safety, but sometimes broke in her face while the horse struggled and snorted beneath her. Ahead, Margaret’s mount was hardly swimming. The lady Margaret, whom she had come from Flanders to serve, and who was going to be served, whether they had been introduced to one another or not.
The wind brought a gust of sound from behind. Help belatedly on the way, it was to be supposed. A number of big men on big horses. Or a boat, even.
And they would be too late, for ahead there had come the wave which the pony was too slight and too scared to survive. The poor beast was no more, except as a turmoil three deep waves from the spot where the black rider’s powerful gelding was swimming.
Katelijne saw the pony’s head break water and sink. And saw, to one side, a red head rise and sink also. The pony was drowning. The child had left the saddle and was drowning as well.
Katelijne dragged her feet out of the stirrups and stopped. In a surge of water, the black rider had abandoned his horse. Freed, it began to swim back to the shore.
Katelijne wasted no time on trying to catch it, but concentrated on driving her own mount to the spot. It would have helped if it hadn’t been an Arab and somewhat unused to water. She wondered what fool had brought it to Scotland. The man in black appeared, vanished and suddenly reappeared quite close beside her, a limp red head over his shoulder. He could swim. A billow of velvet floated up and then vanished, leaving a brief scrap of white in its place. A hand reached up to her, offering a knife.
‘Cut your skirts off and take her. I’ll lead Epyaxa.’ His own doublet and pourpoint were gone, leaving him in black hose and shirt, like a tennis-player. He paddled, holding the reins, while she ripped off her half-gown and some of her linen. (Epyaxa?) The child, pulled up before her, was alive, but retching and weeping and calling for one Mariota.
Katelijne set about turning the mare and found the task taken from her, almost at once, by the swimmer. After that, he stayed by her side, his hand by the Arab’s cheek-harness, his voice in its ear. The mare’s ears were stark upright, as if she understood what she was being told. The language was Greek. Ahead, and approaching fast, was a splashing line of frantic chevaliers, the man in scarlet in front.
‘Dear Julius,’ said the swimmer below her. He rolled on his side and glanced up. ‘Well, come on, sweetheart; use your knees and let’s get to the shore. We did all the work. We might as well get all the credit.’
‘Who did all the work?’ said Katelijne.
‘I, the irreproachable Knight Highmount, loved and feared by many. I did,’ he said; and, reaching into his shirt, produced something and