The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [85]
He took the cloak and found himself outside the door, in a blue-white world of thick falling snow. He found the three Adorne horses, drooping in a bare withy shelter, and mounting one stiffly, turned its face to the west. The place must have been full of people but he saw no one: only the night, and the white veils of snow, hung with the rose-coloured blooms of the salt-fires.
He would have seen, had he remained, a struggle as bitter as any that had taken place within the last hour, as two fresh men tried to contain a third for whom, at the moment, exhaustion did not exist, as he tried to enforce his will, without weapons.
Adorne and Sersanders, in turn, did not draw their swords. At first, after overcoming the disadvantage of surprise, it was enough to bring de Fleury down, and then block his way to the door. But after that, the ferocity of the fighting took them both by surprise, and twice he nearly escaped them. Once, breathless, Adorne tried to reason. ‘Nicholas, why? You can do nothing. You’ll be hanged if you kill him.’
And then Nicholas said, ‘He’s going to set fire to Berecrofts.’
‘Simon?’ Sersanders said. And he laughed.
Adorne would have known better. As it was, de Fleury kicked, and kicked again, and when he got to his knees, he had Adorne’s sword in his hand, and the point of it at Adorne’s throat. He said, ‘Let me go, or come with me.’ And Sersanders, crazily, took out his own sword and slashed.
De Fleury engaged it. He played with him, moving backwards all the way to the door. It was half open. De Fleury glanced once behind him; and then again, fighting still, at Adorne leaping towards him. The girl was almost on him as well. She was carrying something.
Adorne reached him. Sersanders, striking wildly, found his steel locked and wrenched out of his grasp. He staggered back. De Fleury took one step through the door and Adorne grasped him. De Fleury said, ‘No!’
It was apparent then that against three, he would lose. The girl was close; Sersanders had already scooped up his sword; Adorne’s grip was unexpectedly fierce. Adorne’s eyes, magistrate’s eyes, seized and held his. Nicholas de Fleury said, ‘I have a sword. I will use it.’
‘Then you will have to,’ said Anselm Adorne.
And so de Fleury, lifting his blade, struck him down.
Adorne sank to his knees. Sersanders shouted. Katelijne looked wildly at both and then caught the door as de Fleury thrust through it. She took a pace at his heels and hurled something.
She had carried a one-handled pan. She threw the contents, and drenched him. He had expected a douche of seawater. He had even had time to think, ludicrously, how cold it was going to be, racing outside in the snow to where, a long way off – too far off – he had hidden his horse and his weapons.
In a way he had been right. It was cold. He reached his mount stiff and dizzy and shivering. He was actually riding before he realised that he was drenched not in water, but blood.
No one followed him – or not at once. Behind, Katelijne dropped the pan in the snow and ran back indoors, where her brother knelt, and her uncle lay in his man’s lifeblood, proper for salt.
His eyes were closed. She said, ‘How bad is it?’
‘He can’t walk. Stay with him. I’m going to follow the bastard and kill him.’
Once, Anselm Sersanders had been a member of that insouciant, merry tribe of youngsters in Bruges which had admired the wildness of Claes. Now Sersanders was a grown man, with the family temper. Katelijne said, ‘Our uncle will bleed to death. Bandages. Take off your shirt.’ She had her gown already pulled down. Her shift, underneath, was too dirty.
Her brother, though hasty, was not without sense. He looked at her and then, silently, ripped up the cloth that she needed. She showed him what to do, and ran out. Before he had finished she was back, with an old woman and a boy.
In that spectral uninhabited place, it was uncanny. She said, ‘I’ve paid them. They’re all hiding, from