The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [72]
So he would beat them. His legs were free. They had bound his mouth and his arms, but had forgotten to retie his legs. He could walk. He could find help if he knew where to go. Slowly, he forced himself up to his knees, his feet, and stood swaying. Below the red sky, the landscape lay like rose-coloured icing. It was empty. He could try to go back, there where now he could hear the same dogs barking clearly. Or he could walk towards the red sky, and over the shallow rise lying before him, for he knew now what he would find.
The salt-pans must be here. He had never seen them, but he had heard how the brine was brought from the estuary and cooked until reduced to dry salt. They said the fires never went out. He did not imagine there would be people: not here, at midnight in January. But the fires would be there, or their embers. Warmth, and shelter till morning. And then they would see, all of them. Then, if it took the rest of his life, he would find whoever had done this. He began to walk.
He had almost come to the rise when his laboured attention was distracted, again, by the barking of dogs. There was another sound mingled with it. He identified it. The sound of a horn.
The hunt. The King’s hunt – horses, friends, rescue – all coming this way. Directly this way. Where there were no lairs, no trees, no game to be seen, or any tracks in the snow.
Except his own. You make a fine rabbit, his captor had said. They had dragged him and left him as you would stake out a goat, having given its scent to the wolves, or the hounds. The King’s hounds, trained to kill whatever they chased. They weren’t chasing the boar: their tongues would be raucous, excited. There probably wasn’t a boar. The boar was probably Joneta’s invention.
Joneta, who had, of purpose, retained his cloak.
He began to run, then.
At the same moment, grey with fatigue, Bel of Cuthilgurdy arrived at the purlieus of Berecrofts and demanded to be taken to Nicholas de Fleury.
Berecrofts the Younger, shocked and worried, had her admitted at once, with her companions. Robin, sent running, came back with servants, extra braziers, blankets, wine, and women offering comfort and bed. Bel refused the wine, but stood before the braziers and repeated, gratingly, her demand.
Archie said, ‘He went to Linlithgow. The King is there, maybe you know? They’ve been hunting.’
He was a sturdy, plainspoken man. She liked him, and the child. She said, ‘I was told M. de Fleury was here.’
‘Perhaps he is on his way,’ Archie said. ‘I could gather men and send out to meet him. I see it is something important.’
A man came in; a man she knew and distrusted. The burly shipmaster who worked for Nicholas now: Michael Crackbene. He addressed her in his strange mixture of accents in which Scandinavian now prevailed. ‘You have a message for M. de Fleury?’ He ignored Archie. She realised that Nicholas had separate lodgings in this house, and that they included his staff and his office.
‘I maun see him,’ she said. ‘It is private.’
He said, ‘You do not come to see Simon of Kilmirren?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘It is of no consequence,’ he replied. ‘M. de Fleury is expected. His ship sails in a few hours. When he comes, he will have no time to speak.’
‘I willna keep him,’ said Bel. ‘But speak with him I must. Are ye sending to look?’
The man hesitated. Archie said, ‘Yes, we’re sending. Robin’s gone to get lanterns and men. Your own two fellows are willing. We’ll make sure he gets here.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Bel. ‘Since time is short, and it’s late.’
The King followed the hounds, fuelled on an elixir of frost and wine and excitement. What they followed, no one knew: the dogs themselves scattered the slots. It hardly mattered. Above were the stars; below the rare glistening white of the snow. And about him were his friends.
Nicholas de Fleury was not there, nor Simon de St Pol – nor, presently, Anselm Adorne who, slipping away, had left to Metteneye the guest-mantle of Burgundy.
Simon was very tired, and the pans were not as near as he thought. The first sign was the