The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [76]
He said, ‘I promised the salt-master I’d look after the cauldron. You know that salt has to have blood? It has to be male blood: bull or buck or calf. Or human, of course. You add it thus to the brine, and it clarifies it. See.’ And he lifted the scoop.
He seemed to be absorbed. At his waist, the axe glinted. For an instant, Simon was ready to lunge; and then the smallest swing of the dipper warned him what was going to happen. He rolled back and the dipper, correcting itself, swung back and over the cauldron, into which it delivered its cargo of gore.
Deliberately, the brine had been permitted to boil. Instead of seething, turgid and brown, the blood leaped on the surface in vivid splashes and gouts, and inflated into thin blemished spheres which burst in fine crimson spray on the walls and dripped from the roof and filled the foetid air of the salt-house with the iron-sharp odour which, rank and stale with age, rose from the compact dirt he had been sitting in. Simon, fast though he moved, found himself – arms, shirt, doublet – filmed with blood, and felt it slide through the sweat on his face.
The other man, streaked with gore, had hardly troubled to avoid it. He plied a long-handled paddle, still smiling; and then, taking a rake, revived the flames in the furnace below. His eyes in the flare were large and wet-lashed and ruddy. Simon looked at him, and felt a doubt, and dismissed it.
The other man said, ‘I shall need to add coal soon. You can help me.’
‘Coal?’ Simon said. He moved back, inoffensively, and sat down.
‘Small coal. Dross. It comes from the mines near Kinneil. It gives more heat than wood or straw for less bulk, so the salt is quicker to form. You saw the mark on the door? Hamilton, of course, holds Kinneil and Carriden under the abbot, but he has agreed to let me develop it. Salt and sugar and alum have a good deal in common. I have access to a brilliant engineer, and some experience from the flatlands elsewhere. It all comes down to hydraulics and drainage.’
‘You don’t need to tell me about coal,’ Simon said. He spoke as if amused, but in fact was astonished and angry. Hamilton should have mentioned this.
‘You mean your new Hamilton land in the west? But your Hamilton land has no coal,’ his captor said. ‘You thought it had, because I wanted to buy it.’
There was a silence. Simon said, ‘That won’t wear. I saw the reports.’ Then he remembered who brought him the reports.
‘Quite so,’ said the man he had cuckolded. ‘But that was Joneta’s doing, for me. Her father sold you the land in good faith. As you remember, he himself made no claims for it. But it’s worthless, of course. Stone. You might get some gorse for your Kilmirren herd. If you manage to keep your Kilmirren herd.’
Simon looked at him.
The other man met the look. He said, ‘Did you think that was all? Did you think that all I would do is bribe your armourer and make you look foolish? Sleep with your mistress? Compel you to run in the snow, and hurt you a little? Do you really think that I, I of all people could not find just the way, just the fitting, flawless, appropriate way for Simon de St Pol to pay his debts to me?’
‘My armourer … You’re mad,’ Simon said. He believed it.
‘Beginning with your name. You saw the crest on the door.’
‘It is not your name,’ Simon said. He felt himself whiten.
‘Need we go into all that again?’ For the first time the other man rose and walked off and turned without cause. He said, ‘Your wife was my mother, and she named me as your child. I believe her. I know you were fifteen and forced to marry. I know she was nearly twice your age. Still, I cannot excuse you for denouncing her, or me. If I choose, I will use the name of St Pol as well as de Fleury. How will you enjoy hearing me call you Father? I could do it, Father.’
And this was insupportable. Simon said, ‘You will not.’
The other man said, ‘How will you stop me?’
Simon showed his teeth. ‘By force.’
‘But I have the ascendancy,’ his captor said. ‘And the axe.’
‘You would kill your father?’ said Simon. He spoke with derision.
‘You invited your