‘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 the inner side of the wall, deflecting the ball, and preventing the use of the roof-tops for overtaking. Then the King and Sandy got the ball, and began to push back; soon after which the weapons appeared.
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 said. ‘We have been playing Florentine football.’
‘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 coul
dn’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 banker had begun the race feeling lenient, he might have changed his mind now.
Certainly, James had no idea how to handle his own youngest brother, and seemed as impervious to the isolation of Albany as to the loneliness and revulsion of the Queen. Yet around James were family men, if he would take their advice. Nicholas had seen Sinclair below, and James Hamilton. Hamilton would not be displeased if the King suffered an accident. Oh Doge, as a flower shall you fall.
It was not so hard after all. Nicholas was moving up quite methodically when he saw something move at the edge of the tower, a yard away from his hold. A hand appeared, grasping the edge, and there followed the knee and face of Robin of Berecrofts. There was only one storey to climb. ‘Kathi sent you,’ Nicholas said. ‘Jeu de Robin and Katherine. Infants are guiltless when they have not been instructed by the sane.’
Robin’s hair and shirt were both flying loose, but he looked surprisingly comfortable. He said, ‘No. She’s gone to let the dogs out. Stay where you are; let the King get to the top, and then come down as you like. No one will notice.’
‘Well, I beg your pardon,’ said Nicholas, climbing again. ‘I should notice. I’m going to win. ’Zione!’
Robin said, ‘What about Jordan?’
‘What?’ said Nicholas, gazing upwards. The top of the tower was dark, beyond the reach of the torchlight. He began to edge round, to the face that was better lit. Too late he remembered why it was better lit. He began to laugh, then realised that James was within kicking distance again and started to clamber.
Robin shouted, ‘If you fall, what happens to Jordan?’
‘You look after him,’ Nicholas said. ‘You and the parrot.’ His fingers slid, coated with white, and he began to laugh again. They had been lime-washing and harling this side before the weather broke down. He crawled further up and over the painted side, encouraging James to climb faster and follow. Half of the King’s hair was now white, and his cheek, and his arms. The surface to which they both clung was covered, like Turkish sweetmeat, with soft red and white marks from their fingertips. It was slippery.
Nicholas said irritably, ‘Robin, go back. Your grandfather will evict me.’
He wondered what the Queen would do if the King fell. She must be watching with horror. The Scots, the sconciatori, the spoilers, who were about to make her a widow and send her back to her furious father. Questo gioco è uno sconcio. Now, perhaps, she would perceive the advantages, if not the joys of insemination.
Jodi.
Warm water.
Never mind. There are solutions to everything.
Blasts of music could now be distinguished amid the continuous roar from below: Willie’s friends had brought out their instruments. A yapping sound added itself to the compound, followed by an impassioned and sonorous baying. Nicholas leaned his sticky hair into the wall and took breath, deeply amused. Every muscle complained. His gaze, moving from the glare and noise and emotion below, rested on the darkness beneath the outer wall of the Castle, and the silent glimmering mass of the town plunging beyond, with the black pool of the Nor’ Loch below it. And far beyond that, over dark country ridges and the faint lights of towers and townships, was the broad grey span of the estuary and the black hills of Fife brooding behind. The estuary where his ships would pass, very soon.
He had paused for a moment too long; he was cold, and his concentration was lapsing. He had just realised it when a vicious blow, utterly unexpected, took him on the shoulder and side, and shook him free. The King.
Nicholas started to fall. He saw James’s face, red and white like the wall, the mouth beginning to open. The King shouted. Slithering, clawing, Nicholas saw that the King was sliding as well, that the violence of his blow had dislodged James’s own grip on the glistening wall. A shriek rose from below. Nicholas’s hands, raking down, found a crack: a moment’s purchase long enough to see, black on white, a past foothold and two marks for his hands. He chanced releasing his grip and, stepping rather breathlessly down, brushed the marks and settled precariously into them. James, kicking, was directly above.
So was the boy. The child Robin, his hair white with lime-wash and blackened with sweat, was clinging to the wall by the King, and the King had gripped him by the wrist, immobilising him, while he sought a hold for his feet. The boy’s face, bearing the other man’s shifting weight, was fierce with determination and pain. He said something. It sounded like, ‘Sir!’
Nicholas said, ‘I’m all right. The King will be all right in a moment. He’ll lose the wager if he gets any more help. Monseigneur? You’ll lose the –’
He ducked, missing the King’s kicking foot by an inch. The King’s other foot was firmly set in a crack, and the kicking foot withdrew and found another crack almost immediately. The boy’s wrist was released, and the hand that had gripped him stretched up. James was climbing again.
Nicholas watched him with some admiration. He probably deserved the throne. He shifted his own insecure grip, and prepared to climb again. The boy said, ‘No.’
He was above, and in his way. Nicholas said, ‘Don’t be tiresome. If I have to climb round you, I’ll fall.’ James was reaching the top storey, and the roaring had started again. The boy said nothing. Swearing, Nicholas pulled himself up beside him, his eyes searching above for new holds. He said, ‘I ought to kick you, too, as I go.’ He had almost passed when he glanced back and saw that the boy’s face, half hidden, was itself as white as the paint, and that he was holding by only one hand. The hand slackened.
Nicholas swore, crossly, in Greek. He took one step down and, holding one-handed himself, gripped the boy’s nearer arm. The boy gave a half-stifled scream, and Nicholas shifted his grip to his belt. There was rope there. Nicholas said, ‘If you faint like a cowardly turd, I will forbid you my house. Dig your feet in. Use your right hand.’
‘I can’t,’ said the boy. Sweat was glistening on his temples.
‘Yes you can,’ said Nicholas, knotting the rope. ‘Do you suppose that idiot girl … Katelijne!’
The voice that answered him came from above, accompanied by the squealing of pulleys. She had been waiting. She must have run up inside, as any intelligent person would, of course, do. Nicholas was so busy manoeuvring the boy to the edge of the tower face that he hardly heard the violence of the noise from below, or the final concerted shriek as the whitened figure of James, King of Scotland, clambered triumphantly on to his roof, accompanied by the hysterical barking of dogs.
Dangling against the unpai
nted wall, when Nicholas finally reached it, was the object that very few people would have noticed, he supposed, unless they were fatally inquisitive to begin with, like himself. Like Katelijne.
He said, ‘She had some sense, after all. She’s sent down the plasterers’ hurdle. Come on. Your carriage awaits.’
They were halfway down when everything became illuminated: roofs and towers, men and women and dogs; when the Castle’s great inky shadow spread its skirts over a countryside and a town suddenly bathed in red light, as if a false dawn had broken forth from the coping of David’s Tower, or Hell had opened its gates. The basket fire on the roof had been lit by the winner, as sworn.
The great fire took hold, its flames leaping. Moments passed. Then, one by one, all round the spaces of night, dulled by distance to moth-colours, other fires appeared and hung burning, part of the great unseen constellation that waited, day and night, to be summoned to fire: Haddington and Dunbar; Eggerhope and Dalkeith and Hume, Fife to Stirling and the north; Tantallon to Berwick and the south. The balefires of Scotland, wakened to summon the lieges.
‘Why did I think …’ Roger said as, the cradle lowered, the boy was lifted out of the hurdle. ‘What made me think that whatever you said, you weren’t going to be first at the top of that tower?’
‘I was cheated,’ said Nicholas. ‘It’s all right: his arm got a crack in the fighting and the King’s grip finally did for it. Anyway, what to me are the windy plaudits of the multitude? That is, next time you will do better at Florentine football, or else. Do I see Kathi? Kathi descended: la quale è molto utile et humile et pretiosa et casta; who is going, please, to get the bloody dogs out of the way before their tongues all turn white? Does lime-wash affect –’
To Lie With Lions: The Sixth Book of the House of Niccolo Page 21