The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [71]
On the battlefield, one was taught to face death, and learned also a lesson far harder: to keep one’s courage when death changed its mind, and blood and flesh, still in life, turned to jelly.
The sword whistled down upon Simon. It slashed through the bonds at his feet. The man with the sword said, in French, ‘Rise,’ and made a gesture. For a moment, shocked, Simon couldn’t move. Then the other two, standing over him, gripped the ends of the rope round his waist and brought him staggering upright. He stood, his arms still pinioned behind him, attached by rope to a man on each side. Then the horses came up.
By now, he did not know what to think, or what to hope for. There were two horses only, brought by a fourth man who remained in the saddle. The man with the sword, sheathing it, mounted the second. Then each took an end of his rope. The remaining two stood back and studied him. He trembled with cold. The newcomer laughed. The man with the sword said briefly, ‘Eh bien, monsieur – run.’
There were cruelties one had heard of, practised in antiquity and since, whereby a man tied to two horses would be made to run until the horses, diverging, tore his body in two.
This was not yet like that. The rope, wound many times round his middle, simply tugged him to right or to left, depending on which rider pulled harder. And the gathering speed of the horses forced him to keep his feet, matching their pace, or else be towed through the snow, scouring through hidden brush, bumping shoulder and thigh against boulders, tumbling down hidden declivities.
He lost footing once, near the beginning, and suffered all that before he forced himself upright again. Then he tried to think of nothing but running, his breath fierce and hot through the gag, his lungs steadily drawing, his body adjusting its balance to the unnatural weight of his arms. Then the horses increased their pace to a canter.
Soon after that, his legs began to become heavy. His chest heaved, no longer under his perfect control. Lack of breath made his head sing; interrupted his concentration. He stumbled then, and was borne along twisting, his heels tossed on the ground, as he tried to regain his balance.
That time, the riders stayed wide apart. The next time it happened, they spurred ahead and together, so that he was brought funnelling after, full length on his face in the snow, and had to roll over and over to save his head and give himself purchase. Then, separating, the horsemen gave him the half-lift he needed, but at the price of a sudden harsh tug which straightened his coils and set him to spin as if drunk.
Throughout it all, they said nothing, and their faces, dim in the snow-light, were quite impassive. He looked at their faces when he could, for he had never in his life felt for anyone the hatred he felt for them, and for whoever was doing this. He began to feel, as his numb body weakened, that the sheer power of his hatred would uphold him, whatever they did; would scorch and shrivel them; would draw righteous cohorts to his aid. When they stopped, and he saw the sky to the north had turned red, he thought the Lord had come to his aid. A Judgement was being pronounced. The Lord’s Judgement upon those assailing him. He lay in the snow, and did not realise at once that the coils of rope lay about him.
The men who had dropped them sat motionless, watching him. Then the swordsman stirred. He said, in French, ‘So we leave. You make a fine rabbit.’ They both smiled. And then, turning, they rode swiftly off.
He lay like lead in the snow. He did not have to move. The relief began to send him to sleep. The relief, and the quiet. The sound of hooves deadened and vanished. Behind, in another direction, dogs barked remotely. Ahead, the dim red sky flickered and there were sounds. What sounds they were, he couldn’t be troubled to think. Then it came to him that he was succumbing to the very fate he had dreaded at the beginning. He had been brought here to die in the cold. Only they had exhausted