To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [42]
‘Aye, ye got here. Jesus Christ, will ye look at that!’
‘By God’s leave, what?’ said Father Moriz, who was as weary as John but could see that John’s response was about to match the hair under his hat.
‘You’re the priest? Glad to meet you. We’re winning,’ said Astorre.
‘Good,’ said John le Grant. ‘You don’t mind if we turn and go back, then? We could sell the guns somewhere else.’
Deaf to irony, Astorre smartly brought round his beard at the mention of guns. ‘Ye brought them. Good lad. Is the cannon coming?’ And as a shout throttled the air: ‘Damn it, I missed it.’
‘It’s Nicholas!’ said John, his enraged eye falling at last on the field. ‘What’s he doing there?’
‘I told you,’ said Astorre. ‘We challenged the countryside to a series of contests. For the Feast of the Magdalen. We’re winning.’
‘It isn’t the Feast of the Magdalen yet,’ said Father Moriz. On the field, now he looked, the considerable debris pointed to an assortment of lethal engagements involving mass football, mass wooden-sword play, shooting at the mark, shooting at the popinjay, spear-throwing, bowling and horse-racing. A good deal of the litter was bloodstained, and there were five men lying at one side of the field and a dozen more reclining in various attitudes of unease. At a table nearby, a man in a cap and apron was cracking a joke as he threaded a needle. He was surrounded by flies.
‘No, we’re practising,’ said Captain Astorre. ‘A wagon of ale for the winners. I couldn’t stop him. You try. Look at that.’
On the field, in a glittering display of high chivalry, twenty Burgundians, each borne on the neck of another, were attempting to beat down with staves twenty similar pairs of Artésiens. One of the upper Burgundians was Nicholas, black and blue above his torn hose and shrieking insults, and opposing him was a naked man built like a tithe barn and brown to the crabs of his toes. Beneath each was a broad, sweating carrier.
They were almost the last in the field: at that moment, one of the remaining pairs toppled and smacked to the ground and the tally was marked to deafening cheers. There were three couples left on each side.
It would have seemed harmless enough, if one of the contestants hadn’t been the genius of the Banco di Niccolò with, resting in turn on his shoulders, the entire weight of the Bank’s future in the West. The naked giant, lifting his pole, caught Nicholas a cutting blow on the shoulder before inducing his bearer to lurch sideways to help out another pair. The third couple, momentarily freed, began a staggering run towards Nicholas.
John said, ‘Has he been doing a lot of this?’
‘Not as much as he should,’ Astorre said. His good eye, seen in profile, was baleful.
The priest said, ‘It must come as a relief.’ The Captain’s eye flickered. The charging pair reached Nicholas, the pole swung and Nicholas ducked, while his mount, side-stepping neatly, tripped up the other carrier with his foot. With a scream, the pair fell apart in different directions while the pole bounced to the ground. Nicholas patted his mount on the head and spoke to it approvingly. Grinning, it turned, just in time. The tithe barn had not only rescued its oppressed comrade, it had dispatched both the Burgundian couples, leaving Nicholas and his bearer alone in the field. And poles at the tilt, both Artésien pairs were now lumbering towards him.
‘Oh well,’ said John le Grant. ‘I can go back to the Tyrol. You can look after the Duke. Thomas can take on Alexandria. Astorre’s cook can help Diniz in Bruges and the parrot can manage in Scotland. Who’s worried?’
No one was listening, and his own words, towards the end, were coming out pale and flat as the ghost of a die-stamp. The two poles, from converging angles, were aimed at Nicholas: one to his head, one to his chest. There was no possibility of evading them. The noise, reaching fortissimo, stayed there. People threw things into the field. The patient on the table sat up, the needle stuck like a quill in his ear. The man under Nicholas dropped to his knees.
It took some effort. He had to balance, so that