The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [215]
‘Then it has come,’ said the Duke. ‘You see my men at each side, moving forward. They have stones. When we are ready, they will use them to induce the herd to rush forward. As they pass, we shall kill them. You will take your position over there, and you will shoot.’ A sprinkling of flakes, thicker now, drove between them.
‘My lord!’ said the master-huntsman.
‘My lord?’ Nicholas said, cupping his ear. ‘My lord was speaking?’ He left Moriz and made his obedient way to the Duke, hurrying as much as was possible.
He reached the Duke. The Duke said shortly, ‘Shoot this time. Over there.’
‘At the chamois?’ said Nicholas, lifting the crossbow. He sounded surprised. Nevertheless he took aim, steadied, and made to press the release.
‘No!’ said the Duke and his chamberlain in unison. The chamberlain, who had begun to hasten over, suddenly stopped. The Duke raised a hand and delivered a blow that almost broke his guest’s wrist. Sigismond said, ‘Do you know what you are doing?’ The man Cavalli had appeared at his side.
Nicholas lowered the bow and stared at his wrist, and the Duke. He still looked surprised. Snow fell. ‘I wondered,’ he said. ‘That is, why you wanted me to fire from the front. It would just have driven them backwards over the –’
‘My lord!’ repeated the huntsman, arriving. ‘We must leave. There has never been seen such a harvest as we have already. Let us collect them and go.’ Already the mounds in the snow were grey and white.
‘And lose the rest? No!’ said the Duke. ‘Make the signal. And you’ – to Nicholas – ‘stand over there.’
The face of Nicholas cleared. ‘Beside the chamberlain?’
The Duke glanced at him. ‘I will speak to you later,’ he said, and lifted his hand, giving an order. The huntsmen, armed, formed two uneven lines. At the sight of the signal, a confusion of shouting broke out in the distance, accompanied by muffled thuds. The feet of the small band of chamois plucked at the snow, and their heads turned like vanes on a steeple. Then the boldest put its nose down and rushed forward, and the others came too. They leaped as they came, soaring over the moraine of their dead. As they came, the huntsmen shot, all except Nicholas. And the Duke, who was a brave man, one saw, did not move from his side. Nor did Cavalli.
Three chamois escaped, floating over the gorge to the pinnacles on its far side. One left blood in its tracks. On the plateau, men were running now, dragging together the kill, roping and lifting it. There was no way to take it down except over the shoulders, and everyone save the Duke was expected to bear what he could. The bows and spearpoints were bagged, the quivers closed. It was hard now to see from one end of the plateau to the other, and below, the marbled landscape faded and vanished. ‘Faulty alum,’ said Nicholas hoarsely; but no one understood the joke except himself, and he didn’t repeat it. He kept meeting John’s furious eye: the chamberlain avoided him, but Antonio Cavalli kept close and helped him take one of the beasts on his back.
Cavalli said, ‘How is the knee? It will be difficult, going down.’
Nicholas looked round, so far as he could. ‘Well enough. At least I shall be going down at my own speed, not someone else’s. I have to thank you for that.’
‘You wore a stout strap,’ said Cavalli. Their faces were too stiff to smile.
Last, Father Moriz came up and spoke to him. It took the form of a diatribe so vehement that the snow fell off the priest’s eyebrows. Nicholas moved off with the others, still listening. He hoped all the time that Father Moriz was going to swear, but he didn’t. In the course of it, John inserted himself beside them by adroit management of a well-directed haunch and two hooves. He said, ‘What happened? They pushed you.’
‘They pushed him, and then gave him a steel bow,’ said Father Moriz. ‘He didn’t use it. In this cold, it would have snapped when the bolt was released.’
‘It might have hurt someone,’ explained Nicholas.
‘I know what a steel bow does when it splinters,