The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [69]
They carried him, then. Behind the booth was a door in the wall, and nothing there but scrub trees, heavy with snow. As he struggled, the sounds from Kinneil became less: the rumble of voices, the trampling and whinny of horses, the clank of buckets, of harness. The flambeaux in the yard became spots in the darkness, and the house a ghost, with threads of light round the shutters and smoke rising, grey upon black. All about him, as the woods fell behind, were glistening fields of snow, eerie and blue in the night; stretching as far as he could see.
They set him down in it, beside a single twisted juniper bush which, buffeted, scattered its snow. Separated from the warmth of other bodies, he felt the chill of the air through doublet and shirt; the snow he stood in soaked the stuff of his hose and spread the chill higher.
His captors, standing about, were unknown to him. The doubtful light of the yard had shown him three burly men dressed in leather, their caps pulled low, their weapons heavy and serviceable. Professional soldiers, he guessed. They had worked together, and in silence; and so knew one another. There was no obvious leader. And although he carried the marks of the fight – so did they – they had not used their swords. But, close to the house, that didn’t mean much.
So what was this, and how could he save himself? His mind had been busy, all the time he was being carried. Since his African venture, some people thought he was rich. But if they had snatched him for ransom, he would have been put on a horse. Instead, he had been brought here, where a murdered man could lie undiscovered for weeks. Murdered by sword, a quick death. Or left to die in the cold of the snow, or the cold of the estuary. Who hated him enough to want either? Who would benefit from his death? Who was rich enough to employ three professionals, and yet so detached that he had no wish to see the dénouement himself?
Or herself. He had displeased a good many women in his time.
Joneta. Would her father do this? A rich baron, whom he hardly knew and had never offended? Hardly. Hamilton had sold him that land. And Joneta had helped take it from Claes which meant, surely, that Claes wasn’t her partner in this. His, Simon’s, death wouldn’t help Claes. The only person who would benefit from Simon’s death was Simon’s son Henry. Standing there in the cold, he was struck by a pang. Henry. If he died, what would happen to Henry? That useless master-at-arms …
His captors had only stopped to catch their breath. He had to do something quickly. Simon dropped to his knees and flung back his head, as if choking. The gag was so tight that he retched. For a moment, air genuinely failed him. Then, roughly, the kerchief was dragged away and the cloth pulled out. He dropped his head, coughing. His nose and eyes streamed, and his skin tightened, freezing and seared. He said hoarsely, ‘Who paid you? I will pay you ten times.’ He used French. Mercenaries knew French.
The man who had pulled out the gag looked at him, and at the others, and smiled. The gag lay on the snow.
So the language meant something. ‘Ten times. More. Send for it,’ Simon said.
The man bent and picked up the gag. He had failed. He could shout. Simon inhaled with a shriek and choked as the cloth was rammed in again and the kerchief bound brutally round. He threshed, resisting, and found himself flung back full length in the snow, one man holding his shoulders, the other his feet. A length of rope was bound round his waist. The two men remained where they knelt, their hands holding him still. Then the third man got up and, stepping back, drew his sword with a whine from the scabbard.
Bitterly, in that last moment, Simon wished his father were here. Fat father Jordan, who had found it so easy to adopt a new country, to forget the Scottish estates of his forebears,