To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [199]
There was a pause. Sersanders said, ‘And what are Paúel’s intentions?’
‘Ask your friend Nikolás his intentions,’ Benecke said. ‘It is my ship which is dismasted and lying under his guns.’
‘I was relying on the bear,’ Nicholas said. ‘We began with Paúel’s head and his arm, as you see. A trifling effort would finish him off. How about if we tied him into his shirt like the sheep? He’d go high. Anything over two hundred feet’d be a record.’
‘You’re going to hold Paúel Benecke to ransom?’ Sersanders said. He sounded irritable.
‘Well, that would be stupid,’ said Kathi. ‘M. de Fleury would have to stay a pirate for the rest of his life. Mind you –’
‘It is rather attractive,’ said Nicholas. ‘I have access to a Greek-speaking parrot and some unclaimed treasure and the crew have learned to chant “Hale and Howe Rumbylowe” and all the right ditties. I even know a one-legged man.’
‘What has that to do with pirates?’ Kathi said.
‘He is one. I suppose,’ Nicholas said, ‘the world is full of natural pirates and those who are trained by their nurses. Ask René of Anjou. Ask the Emperor Frederick. Ruthless.’ He paused, feeling slightly distrait. Outside, the small geysir rumbled and then began to spout in vehement gusts. It was disturbing. Sersanders got up and went out.
‘So who goes to prison?’ said Kathi.
‘We haven’t decided,’ said Paúel. ‘You wouldn’t like to come to prison with me? We have some delectable tortures in Bergen.’
‘Nobody is going to prison,’ Nicholas said. ‘But don’t tell Sersanders, he’d be so disappointed. Kathi. I want to spring the springs. Are you coming?’
Kathi jumped to her feet. To the pleasure of Nicholas, so did the Danziger. Even Sersanders, although muttering something about returning to Skálholt, joined them outside in the glittering, shifting, rumbling playground of giants and dwarves and accompanied the three of them on their tour. They were moved to imitate the puttering mud, warmed their hands in the streams, blew alcoholic fumes into the profound, steaming basins. They collected stones and fed the gurgling orifices and counted in unison until the geysirs burst forth. They put Sersanders’s hat into one, and a glove which emerged like an insect.
They made up rhymes and spells and orders which they timed contrapuntally to several geysirs at once, after they had found how to set the explosions. Sersanders, relaxed with judicious applications of wine, joined in boisterously. Benecke played his supporting role without stint, but without giving voice. It was his dry remark which at last made them all stop and listen. ‘Snow is coming. You should strike your tent and move, while you can see.’
It was, of course, sensible. Sersanders agreed. Nicholas, deeply involved with Kathi in a monstrous experiment with the largest geysir, felt like being obstinate, and was. After a sharpish argument, he gave in, largely because of a short fall of snow which, while it lasted, reduced visibility to nothing and made the risks of leaving the hot springs quite apparent. It happened again before, laden, they managed to walk half of the way to the horses. By common accord they sat down where they were until it ended. The ground was warm. The next random step might have plunged any of them into a simmering basin. The snow, fine as powder, danced about them in clouds and so did the steam mingling with it.
‘Unlike Hesdin,’ Nicholas said, ‘everything works.’ The remark had no point, except to himself, but Kathi took him up anyway.
‘I knew you would enjoy it,’ she said. ‘Lucifer, Master of Secrets. Did you notice the rainbow? A regnbogi Nikuds, they call it. Nikudr is the old name for Odin. Old Nick.’
‘Robin told me,’ he said. ‘It is also the name of a water-goblin with inverted hooves. You can’t tell whether I’m coming or going, so help me Frey a and Thor and the Omnipotent God. Do you know the expression concupiscientia oculorum?’
‘Visual curiosity, leading to sensory and imaginative