The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [283]
The rest of the people, singing, laughing, blowing whistles and drubbing their tambourines, poured through the souks to the taverns and markets whose stall-keepers, practised of old, had run ahead to spread out their wares.
Tobie and John le Grant ran among them. It was a slow run, involving the exercise of persuasion and force upon an impacted mass of animals, wheelbarrows and insouciant persons travelling in unpredictable directions and disinclined to give way.
The distance to the house they had been told of was not great, but the souks of the quarter were maze-like. Both men were scarlet and sodden with sweat when their method of progress began to meet with the disapproval of a group comprising the owners and clients of a pastry-shop in the Mida Alley. Standing before the two Franks, they issued an ultimatum which John unwisely rebuffed. The pastry-shop owner called aloud. Every able-bodied man in the vicinity came to his assistance. The last anyone saw of the two Franks, they were being driven forward with quail-sticks, the bells rattling and ringing with each blow; the assailants’ laughter rising raucous above them. The two men uselessly stumbled and fought. Their cries rose from distant streets, and then faded.
Listening, David de Salmeton laughed. He didn’t underestimate this remarkable Flemish banker – that, indeed, was why he had kept the engineer and the doctor in sight. But de Fleury’s house was well guarded. No one could enter or leave without being seen. And soon it would matter no more. This was a game the Vatachino had won.
Nicholas, who did not like losing games, would not at that point have agreed. He had, after all, passed several methodical hours putting his various theories to the test in those areas open to his unreliable physical resources. He had learned, from the sound of footsteps above, that all the premises over this chain of cells appeared to be occupied, but that voices did not seem to carry either way. He had found that there was no exit beyond the last room, whose door was studded with metal and locked. The commotion of rats was loudest there, and a smell that made him draw back.
His hands and knees by now were painfully raw; they had stripped him of all but a breech-clout, and he would have to use that, too, if he wanted to stand. Later, rearranging his schedule, he settled patiently to dismantling what he could of the steps, and made himself a primitive mounting block, which he used to test other ceilings. He found one more trap-door and, kneeling, pushed against it with a plank. When nothing happened, he clenched his teeth and got to his feet, using his shoulders to wield his stock with more force until the agony made his senses swim. Just before he lost his balance, he gave the trap a great double blow that echoed through the whole chain of cells and could not fail to be heard above.
What happened next he must have missed, lying at the foot of his jumble of wood. When he opened his eyes he was conscious of light and sniggering voices, and looking up saw the trap-door open and packed with dark grinning heads. When he moved, someone called out in Arabic and, lifting an arm, tossed down a streamer of fire which landed, crackling, upon the timber beside him.
He roused himself. As he attempted to crush it, a burst of light announced that another was imminent. Then it hung in suspension, the voice of the thrower raised in noisy dispute. Abruptly, the second flame was withdrawn. The voices rose in a crescendo. Without warning, the trap-door thudded down once again, and the bolt was driven home.
He was not meant, then, to burn. He saved, sluggishly, one flickering brand and somehow extinguished the rest. Cherished, his single torch showed him again the cellars from which he had come and, at the opposite end, the opening of the passage he had still to explore. He created a second brand as reserve and left it burning. Then he took the first and edged his way to the passage. The rats kept out of the way; hosts of green light in the dark, but now he saw