To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [90]
They were simple enough: a stob of wood; a length of piping torn off a wall; a bar from a grille. Robin was the first to be sent staggering by a crack on the shins; he couldn’t see from what, or who did it. The next victim was Crackbene, clipped by a brick just before the ball was wrested from him. The attacker this time was Sandy Albany. Crackbene, shaking his head, took two strides and tore the thing from him. Then they both turned and ran, for the ball was in free play again. But both sides, by that time, were armed, if by nothing more than a belt strap. And the play, swaying back and forth from the middle, became inconclusive.
It was Mar, in the end, who went further than anyone else by deciding, it seemed, to remove Nicholas. It began with a mild pincer movement, aided by Wodman and aimed at tipping him down the nearest ramp. When Nicholas, although incoherent with laughter, contrived to turn himself inside out and escape, Mar pursued him instead of the ball, and produced the iron stanchion he had thrust into his waistband. As it whistled over his head, Nicholas ducked. Wodman, running up from behind, slackened pace. Then Mar lifted his other hand, with the stone in it.
Had he been entirely clear-headed, Nicholas might have seen it in time. As it was, it slammed into his temple, knocking him half senseless between the teeth of the machiolations at his back, where the parapet wall was at its lowest, with nothing but sixty feet of air to the rocks at its foot. He had enough consciousness left to half turn, grasping at the high stone on one side. But by then, Mar had the bar again in his hands and was single-mindedly kicking and thrashing him upwards and over. The boy’s freckled face shone in the dull light like amber, and his eyes were bright as the stars. At the same moment, Wodman got to his other side, his knife in his hand.
Whatever he had been going to do, it was forestalled by the flight of the ball, which turned the game and brought the players jostling back, James at their head, and Sandy and Liddell behind him. The King himself had a stick in his hand, and had shown himself as brutal as anyone in the way he used it. For a moment, swaying a little, he surveyed the scene; then he spoke. It was an order, couched in obscene terms, to his brother. Mar looked up. Nicholas, more than half aware, wrenched himself almost free and was caught again by the stanchion, this time against his shoulder and neck, thrusting him back yet again to the half-empty space in the wall. The King stepped up to John of Mar. He slapped his brother, and wrested the bar from his hand. And John of Mar, his face scarlet, stretched and seized the dagger from Wodman’s grasp and lifted it high.
It was Wodman who disarmed him, with one swift movement which recalled the Archer he had once been. Against that, a thirteen-year-old had no defences. The Prince screamed in pain and frustration and his brother slapped him again and turned to Nicholas who was slowly straightening. Martin, bending over him, moved aside.
‘You deserved that,’ said the King, frowning vaguely.
‘My lord,’ Nicholas said. He cleared his throat. There was blood on his brow, and the skin of his face and neck was red and blue down one side.
‘It isn’t Florentine football,’ the King said. ‘It doesn’t count.’
‘I am,’ Nicholas said, ‘Florentine in my nation, not in my customs. Dante. It doesn’t count.’
‘Yes it does,’ said the King’s sister. Her hair, lit from below, framed a face as bright as her brother’s. She said, ‘I’ve just scored.’
‘What?’ said the King. Everyone turned, including Mar. Nicholas sat down on the machiolation over which he had just escaped being thrown, and pressed his face into a kerchief.
‘You all ran away,’ Margaret said. ‘Master Crackbene had the ball, and I kicked him till he dropped it. It’s in the door. La porta. I’ve scored.’
‘My mistake,’ Nicholas