The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [211]
The chamois was an antelope. Nicholas had seen its skull displayed often enough, Roman and fragile, with its twin backswept horns and the cavities of its black, mourning eyes. The chamois was an exclamation, a lilt, an animal with the elevation of a bird, light as smoke, whose hooves hardly printed the snow as it traversed the peaks and soared between gullies and ledges. To kill a chamois, a man required agility, and endurance, and strength. It was the ultimate test exacted by princes, and often the ultimate doom.
Sigismond of the Tyrol led the way, and kept Nicholas de Fleury at his side. At the proper time, the snowshoes were untied, and soon after the thick leather boots were fitted with crampons and the axes were out, clawing their vertical path. Father Moriz, his lips moving, exercised his spear-hilt and settled his toes into their succession of crevices, with words of advice to one side for John, and to the other for Nicholas, when he thought the latter could hear him. Then the group of men which contained de Fleury moved upwards and out of his reach.
The numbers had gone. In the intoxication of the air, the searing light from the snow, the magnificence of the panorama forming below, Nicholas climbed without weight, without cares. If Sigismond wished, Sigismond could kill him: he was close; he had the weapons, the skill. On his other side climbed the Venetian who was at present the Duke’s most favoured servant: Antonio Cavalli, the busy envoy and expert on horses who had visited Dean Castle in Scotland that spring. Around them were other intimates of the Duke: nobles, churchmen, and men of learning who had discovered that to keep his interest they must not only quote Pliny, but hunt.
The climbing strained every sinew. Here the snow was soft; there it was impacted like stone; in another place the rock, stripped by gales, was striated with ice. And climb they must, for the chamois were not here but high in the peaks. After two hours of it, some of the party had flagged and turned back. After another hour, Sigismond, smiling, responded to a signal from above and led the way to a fault, shielded from wind, where his huntsmen had nursed a small fire and were unpacking meats and fat flagons from baskets.
Sigismond said, his gapped teeth harrowing a long, bristling bone, ‘The Duke of Milan hunts with leopards. The lady my Duchess tells me they tried it in Scotland, but the people complained.’
‘I heard it was the leopards which complained,’ Nicholas said. ‘Like elephants, they are not fond of the cold. Should you wish to experiment, I can supply you with muzzles. James of Cyprus has them fashioned in gold, although he fails to use them enough.’ Smiling, he touched his arm, acting a wince.
‘How did you cheat him?’ said Sigismond.
Nicholas set down his ale. ‘One learns from one’s betters,’ he said. ‘My lord, you have a complaint?’
‘I, your host?’ Sigismond said. ‘Princes are resigned to being exploited. You proposed to the lady my wife to excavate, for a certain sum, a field by the Inn which would yield me a fortune in alum.’
‘That is so,’ Nicholas said. The Duke’s household, close about him, chewed without looking up.
Between words, the Duke’s teeth grated spasmodically on the bone. ‘My advisers tell me that such alum cannot be sold. The rights to sell in the Tyrol are already possessed by Bartolomeo Zorzi, appointed by the Holy Father to vend Tolfa alum.’
‘Your grace distresses me,’ Nicholas said.
‘Do I? Then consider the silver mines,’ the Duke said. Combing free the last of the meat, he threw back his arm and sent the whitened bone into the void. His unwiped lips glistened. A servant knelt hastily with a cup, but did not trouble to hold the lid under his chin.
‘The silver mines?’ Nicholas repeated.
‘You bring letters