The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [67]
‘It has yet to be decided,’ Adorne said. Understandably, he sounded repressive. It would not look well if two Burgundians fell out in the royal presence. And Adorne was an able man, who had not failed to profit from the absence of Claes. As had Simon.
‘Oh, dear. Well, don’t mourn,’ said the object of their attention. ‘The God Mercury, protector of merchants, will compensate me. There is a move afoot, I hear, to dash outdoors and commit riotous enormities. I shall come, to have something to remember you by. And you, M. de St Pol? Or don’t you like bloodshed by torchlight?’
‘It depends who is shedding it,’ Simon said, laughing. It drew no reply but a dimpling smile.
It had stopped snowing by then, but far off to the west, the steward’s big horse had foundered and he had had to transfer to one much less powerful, while two of the husbandmen had dropped out. Bel rode still, with the Broughton man, and young Wodman. There were no spare horses now, and darkness was coming.
It was like another ride she remembered, for endurance, but that ride had been in terrible heat, not in cold, and she had been ill then, and was strong now, although sick with fear. And that ride she had survived because of one loving man, who had carried her in his arms. Because of Nicholas.
Later, much later, when it was full dark, and new-fallen snow lay glimmering over the shire from Linlithgow to the sea, the wine-warmed company of James of Scotland and his companions called for their hunt-servants, their horses and hounds and, assuming their furs and their boots, took up their weapons and rode out, laughing and calling, to commit the riotous enormities their pedlar had spoken of.
He rode with them, cloaked in sable-lined damask; his face white and black in the light of the flambeaux; his voice ringing. Euphemia Dunbar said, ‘The wine was strong.’
‘It is not the wildness of wine,’ Adorne said, ‘but, I am assured, an explosion of spirits induced by the end of the Kilmirren feud.’
‘The end?’ said Mistress Phemie. ‘Well, of course you must know. Otherwise I should have felt some solicitude for him tonight.’
‘For whom? For Nicholas?’ exclaimed Anselm Adorne.
She looked at him with her wise, uncomely face, and made no reply. It was his niece who enlightened him. It was Katelijne who said, ‘Don’t you hear it? His voice; and the voice of the dogs?’
Man and woman, they both looked at her then; and Andreas, riding beside them. Her eyes, her over-bright eyes were lamps, and the chameleon expressions flickered over her face, quicker than thought. She said, ‘I think this is to be the night of the duel. The duel that wasn’t fought at the tournament.’
‘And you want to interfere?’ Adorne said.
She lifted her chin. ‘There is no one to arbitrate.’
‘Is one of them without honour?’ Adorne said. ‘Or a murderer? Dr Andreas?’
The physician said, ‘I have no advice to give you. I gave M. de Fleury the same reply, early this evening, on a broader matter.’
‘He asked you his fortune?’ said the woman.
‘He was apprehensive,’ suggested Adorne.
The doctor looked at him. He said, ‘Very few men feel no physical fear. He is one, or has become one.’
‘Nicholas?’ said Adorne.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Dr Andreas. ‘He has many skills, developed through boyhood. It is unlikely that you or anyone else have ever understood the real man. Or, at least, anyone in his world now.’
Chapter 9
THE SNOW WAS DEEP for the hounds, but once over the rise north of Linlithgow, the land was flat, and all you had to do was make sure you stopped before you reached the long selvedge of mud by the estuary.
Not that it would matter if the young devils ran straight out into the water: the dubs were firm enough, and even the edge of the spring tide was freezing. It would give them a shock, that was all. And meanwhile, between the salt-pans to the right and the mouth of the good river Avon away to the left, they could beat the ground as much as they wanted, until they got cold. The master huntsman had in mind to get them all back to the Palace before three short of midnight, and himself into his