The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [212]
‘Of course,’ said Nicholas, ‘I bow to your judgement. You are abandoning, then, all hope of restoring your fortunes with silver?’
‘On the contrary,’ said the Duke. ‘I see no redress in the matter of alum. But there are those, less self-interested, who can promise me all the money I need through the simple right to sink and operate mines. You have heard, no doubt, of the Vatachino. Their agent Martin sat only last week where you sit. He owes nothing to any prince, and less than nothing to Burgundy. I have granted him the contract.’ He stood. ‘I have shocked you.’
‘No,’ Nicholas said, standing also. He wished the Duke had been four inches taller. ‘I would have done the same, in his place and yours. So does your grace mean to continue?’
‘The hunt? Why not? Let us go,’ Sigismond said.
John le Grant caught up with Nicholas shortly. ‘What was that? Why tell you that now?’
‘To see what I would do. Father Moriz?’
‘Yes, my son,’ said the priest. He did not sound particularly fatherly.
Nicholas said, ‘Take care. Take care, both of you. It won’t last long, but this is where you have to keep on your toes.’
John le Grant groaned.
He was right. Having established a position of conflict, the Duke amused himself over the next stage of the climb by practising refinements. These were relatively small in scale. Of two pitches, the worse would always fall to the Fleming; if a man ahead slipped, it was the fingers of de Fleury upon which his heel would begin to descend. Once there was a brief avalanche which caused John, too, to cling to his hold, and even the priest was not exempt from minor mishaps.
Even so, they were no more than dangerous gestures. The climb itself was demanding enough. For a man from a flat country, Nicholas congratulated himself on acquitting himself reasonably well: for that, he had the mountains of Trebizond and Troodos to thank, and his recent hardening in the heights about Bozen. The others were much the same.
Sigismond, he had to acknowledge, was a natural mountaineer, and so were the young aristocrats and hunt-servants about him. Broad of shoulder, powerful of thigh and ankle and knee, the young men were the ones who gave him most trouble. They vied for the attention of Sigismond. There was a certain bonhomie in the group, but nothing like, for example, the rough, libertarian exchanges between huntsman and King that were common in Scotland; and the jokes were guarded rather than free-running and bawdy. They were all afraid of their master. Nicholas supposed he ought to start being afraid of their master as well.
The weapons came out shortly after, when word came at last that they were close to their victims, their prey.
The wind had risen, scuffing snow into their faces: for some time now they had been climbing in silence. The herd they sought was one which had challenged the Duke for many weeks, because the chamois had picked a terrain from which the exits could hardly be netted: for the few that escaped the wrong way and were caught, there were dozens which were able to fly to safety. They had, then, to be killed on the spot.
Sigismond waited now till the party had gathered, smothered in the jetted steam of their breath, their beards freezing, their clothing soaked with exertion. At his signal they armed; the crossbows were uncased, the bolts ready; the spearpoints fitted into their sockets. Father Moriz hefted his weapon. His legs were snow-caked to the thigh, his face hacked out of veined marble, but his hands were quite steady. John’s features had the blue-white drawn look of the thin-skinned, but he, too, handled his crossbow with precision, glancing at Nicholas now and then. Below, the mountain range filled all the space to the horizon; a porcelain pattern of white and blue shadows against which puffs of snow spouted and vanished like gunsmoke. The pale sun dimmed and glinted like a tavern sign wrung