The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [51]
It was possible that Mar, thickly plated, had fallen more heavily than he intended. It was certainly true that he was taken by surprise, and that the first blows, on his arms, must have numbed them. But the avenging fury that came at him then, raining blows from its sword, from its fists, kicking and shrieking, gave him no time to lift up his sword, and when he suddenly stumbled, caught on the wrong foot, he had no chance to recover. As a ball might demolish a building, the boy Henry flung himself at him and crashed with him to the ground. Then he rose and, standing over him kicked and battered and swore.
Mar struggled. He rolled over, gripping his sword. Henry kicked it out of his reach. The movement had dislodged Mar’s conical helmet, with the royal crest and the plume. Henry swept the helmet aside and lifting his wooden sword with both hands, prepared to drive it point down into the prince’s horrified face.
He got no further. A large hand gripped his arm, and another pinioned his shoulder. A hated voice said, ‘But your grandfather is a bastard, my dear. Never fight for lost causes. Apologise to my lord of Mar.’
‘No!’ screamed Henry.
The hand, moving down, had torn the sword from him, and now taking his arm had twisted it high behind his back. It was pressed against cold fur. ‘You didn’t mean to hurt him, and you were only joking when you lifted your sword against him just now.’
Henry screamed, from pain this time.
‘You see?’ said Nicholas de Fleury to the faces about him; and increased his grip. The rest of the fighting had stopped. The men running on to the field were royal officials and barons, and Mar’s own tutor and nurse. Julius was among them, and Katelijne and Roger the musician. The light from the braziers glistened on the silver armour, the golden hair of the angelic boy, and left in demoniac shadow the jet-clad figure of Nicholas de Fleury at his back.
‘He apologises,’ Nicholas said sweetly. His hand, squeezing, covered half the child Henry’s face. ‘Do you accept the apology, my lord?’
It was Secretary Whitelaw, moving forward, who said abruptly, ‘He accepts,’ cutting across the prince’s angry protest. A calm man, tutor once to the young King himself, he touched Mar on the arm as he spoke. ‘Childish brawls. Nothing more need be said. My lord of Mar, let me take you to my tent.’
They began to leave. The crowd opened. Nicholas de Fleury slackened his grip, both of the child’s jaws and his arm. The boy Henry said hoarsely, ‘He lied! I will never apologise!’ and tore himself free. A dark young woman in green ran up and then, noticing the boy’s hazy stare, touched de Fleury’s arm quickly and stepped back. The child’s hollow gaze followed her.
‘You have just apologised,’ Nicholas de Fleury said to him. ‘Abjectly. And you’d better thank me for it.’
The thanks came at once. De Fleury’s own dagger, snatched from the sheath, flashed up and stabbed through the air, Henry’s fist on the hilt.
Katelijne cried out a warning. Julius hurled himself forward and stopped. For the second time, as in a dream, the powerful hand of de Fleury closed upon that of the boy and arrested fist and dagger together, tight and still at his waist. Then, looking down, he disengaged the dagger with care and smiling, sheathed it below the folds of his cloak. His dimples appeared, untrustworthy chasms in his shadowy face. He said, ‘My poor, stupid child. If you don’t calm down, you’ll hurt somebody. Mistress Bel?’
It was the first time Julius had noticed the old woman standing near the front of the crowd. Her shapeless face was the same colour as Henry’s. Nicholas looked at her. He said reflectively, ‘I think you should take him away.’
Julius thought he was crazy, but the boy didn’t protest at all. He stood as if he