To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [91]
‘And so?’ Margaret said. She jumped up and down, hitting the King. There was a short silence. She stood still, breathing threateningly. ‘Now there has to be a third game.’
‘If I might make a suggestion,’ Nicholas said.
Chapter 12
TO THE BETTING men far below the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, it gradually became clear that there had been another score up on the battlements, allotting one point to each side. When the teams failed to re-form it became a source of some speculation. Sinclair said, ‘They’re tired of it, thank God.’ Then he said, ‘What in God’s name are they doing?’
Archie Crawford, the Abbot, had joined them. He said, ‘Word from aloft seems to indicate that they are choosing the victor by trial of single combat. His grace the King and M. de Fleury are to race one another to the top of David’s Tower.’
‘Stop it,’ said Sinclair.
‘And impugn my lord’s courage?’ said Hamilton. ‘Watch. His grace has done it often before. The Burgundian hasn’t.’ He did not add what they both knew: that the young men were drunk.
‘He mustn’t. He doesn’t know the footholds,’ said Robin.
‘He’ll find them,’ said Kathi.
‘The way he is? After that iron bar? In the dark?’
‘It’ll be light soon enough,’ Kathi said. When she was delirious with invention like this she looked, with her Adorne cheekbones and wide eyes, like the kitten of her little name, except that kittens were sensual creatures, and all the essence of Kathi was in her mind.
Robin said, ‘I know it’s fun, but it’s real mischief. He shouldn’t do it.’
‘All right, I’ll stop him,’ said Kathi, and began to walk to the parapet.
Robin said, with exasperation, ‘No, I’ll go,’ and pushed her aside. He knew he couldn’t stop M. de Fleury any more than Kathi could, but he was better at climbing. He had climber’s feet, arched and tough, with sharp supple ankles. His father and grandfather said he would do for a monkey if he kept his mouth shut. Monkeys were wiser than men. They knew if they spoke that someone would set them to work. He grinned, thinking of monkeys and feeling for his first handhold.
The King and M. de Fleury were in full public view by the other wall, awaiting the signal to race. Robin’s plan was to find his way up the wall just ahead of them and stand by to help. Round his waist was his belt, and a short length of rope Kathi had found for him. If either of them just slipped and fell, he couldn’t do anything. If they got stuck, then he could. He moved upwards, listening. The signal came: a flourish from one of the trumpeters. Then the roar told him the race had begun. He went on picking his way, his heart aching with love and with worry.
Nicholas saw him when he was a third of the way up, and ahead of the King. Deafened by the waves of applause from below, he was progressing up the face of the tower in a way that owed more to the spirit of adventure than to climbing technique. The dressed stone was fairly new, and the mortar was grudging of footholds. On the other hand the string-courses were firm, and so were the cages over the windows. Only the wind now and then tugged him between one trifling hold and the next, and his hands were growing chilled, like the rest of him. The smoke swirling up from below caught his throat, and the glare of the torch-fire flickered and writhed on the stone, or blinded him from a window as he paused to recover. He only paused once, because James, his face set in a rictus, came scrambling past him, and he had to leave his hold to regain his lead. He was a bigger man. It was not all that difficult.
He had felt James snatch at his ankle as he came level to pass, but he had expected it, and was well dug in on that side. Mar had not been allowed to dispatch a Burgundian banker, but the King’s honour was now directly involved. He supposed that ruthlessness was a good sign in a king, as it was a prerequisite for anyone who planned to be a victor in life. He wondered if the King knew enough about human nature to realise the rashness of rousing anger in a dangerous sport. If the Burgundian