To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [89]
It started, clearly, with de Fleury’s side and was not, this time, haphazard. To James Hamilton, who had experience of the Burgundian’s cunning, it was not perhaps entirely surprising. To Sinclair, intently studying the man from a smaller acquaintance, it was as informative as watching a battle. Each of the five in the team, it was clear, had his or her orders. Also, the fiction that restricted the use of the hands had been abandoned, as had already happened in the King’s team. This time, no holds would be barred.
‘The girls are young,’ said Will Sinclair, Lord Caithness.
Hamilton smiled. ‘There are young boys on shipboard,’ he said. ‘They play a part, too, in the battle, but not the same part as the men. Watch. This is a clever man.’
‘Too clever?’ said Sinclair.
‘For some,’ Hamilton said. ‘Take the right precautions, and you have him at your heel. There he goes.’ The noise about them increased. Like embers fanned by the wind, the upturned faces burned against the dark rock, their breath rising like smoke.
*
Afterwards, it was easy to see how maddening his strategy must have been. From below, it had the look of a dance: in front, the slight forms of the runners slid round the opposing bodies as in a pavane, sometimes touching hands, sometimes diverging to skip down to a chimney or descend a few steps to run along some shallow roof before regaining the ramparts. The spoilers behind did the same, and the hitters. The ball, too, moved like a tapestry shuttle, sometimes from hand to hand, sometimes from foot to foot, or high in the air, or neatly directed to rebound from wall or gable or gutter or window-stanchion. As they drew near David’s Tower, the players even started to signal to one another, beginning with a chirrup from the musician Will Roger, answered by a seaman’s whistle from the shipmaster Crackbene, and followed by a triplet from the girl Katelijne, high above the angry shouts of their opponents. The ball followed the sound. The ball flew into the shadow of David’s Tower, and the noise suddenly redoubled and became rather more ugly. There was a sudden check, then a roar.
‘Colpito! Colpito! Colpito!’
Dancing figures appeared on the skyline, surrounded by other figures, shouting and arguing. The mass moved slowly back to the centre, still shouting. James, Lord Hamilton, looked at his companion. He said, ‘M. de Fleury appears to have won the first point. Now it becomes dangerous.’
Will Roger, whose nose was bleeding, said to the shipmaster, ‘They won’t let us do that again.’ He felt quite friendly to Crackbene, who had twice got him out of serious trouble, and had picked up a few scars himself.
‘So we do something different,’ said Nicholas, appearing. ‘Are you sober yet?’
‘No,’ said Roger. ‘Neither are you.’
‘No. But Martin is, and Crackbene, and the children.’
‘Children?’ said Kathi.
‘Children. Quanto juniores tanto perspicaciores. I’m switching you and Robin to the back; Martin and myself to the front. Go and be wise.’
‘Then it isn’t Florentine football,’ Kathi said.
‘You noticed. Tactics as follows.’ His proposals, heard in cold blood, were lurid.
‘You really ought to let the King win,’ said Roger at the end. He knew it was useless.
‘No!’ said Kathi. She saw Martin smiling, and scowled. Then they were off.
There was no dancing this time: it was war. For a few moments, the unexpected weight of the foreigners’ team carried it forward, brushing aside the royal runners. Then they were up against Wodman and Liddell, James and Sandy, and someone’s wits had been at work: Meg and John of Mar hopped and scrambled along