The Unicorn Hunt (21 page)

He blew his horn and signalled his men, once again, to ring the group with their torches and head them away from such snow-mounded dykes and rickles of stone as would spoil the legs of their horses. The ponds and burns were all safe: they were hard enough to bear a wain and four bullocks.

They looked well, his young men and women, you had to grant that. He had trained the best ones himself. Jamie the King, and Alexander, that used to cry himself Sandy until he came back from foreign. parts with a Flemish saddle and an English style with a crossbow. And the royal wee red-head, Bleezie Meg, as the stable-boys had it, that nocked her arrow and drew her bit bow as stout as a man, when he could get her away from the nuns. Better advised than the uncles, at times, although he’d had the polishing of the two of them too.

He liked them all, and wished he could have found them better sport, but there was little good scent to be had in the snow, and the wolves had gone to ground, it would seem. All they had got was a
score of dazzled fowl in a tree and a hare or two, and the clouds were beginning to draw over the moon. He was ready for them to give up, when they started to talk of calling in at Kinneil yonder, where the Hamiltons always had a few barrels of wine in the cellar, in the days when the Lady was living. And so they did, and were welcomed, although Lord James was away, and it was the lassie, Joneta, who did them the honours.

And when the daft idea of the boar came up, it was no surprise when Sim of Kilmirren went off with the lassie to look for it. Everyone kent that the Hamilton girl had been moonstruck over her bonnie Simon, and was again, it would seem. The master huntsman wished he had a cross-bolt for every lass who had offered Kilmirren a shot. He sighed, getting the dogs under control, and the horses kept moving until their lordships had had their drink and were ready to ride out again.

It pleased but didn’t surprise Simon when Joneta put her arm inside his and, sheltered under his cloak, guided him across the crisp, crumpled snow of the yard to the outbuildings. If the boar was still there as she thought, he would bring back some helpers to tie it. Then, loosed a good distance off, it would give them some sort of a run.

Hamilton wouldn’t mind. Simon was on good terms with James, Lord Hamilton, having bought some expensive land off him, and denied it to Claes. He had enjoyed telling Claes, who would appreciate this pause at Kinneil all the less for it. Not that Claes was, in any case, having the luckiest day in his life. Wherever he went, he drew stifled amusement.

And meanwhile, there was no hurry to look for the boar. As he recalled, there was a bakehouse nearby which was generally warm and often empty. Remembering, he let his palm winnow down Joneta’s flank, pausing to diverge now and then. Amid the increasing haze of pleasure, he hoped Claes had seen them depart.

He almost wished Claes was here now, as Henry was present occasionally, stimulatingly – reprehensibly, he supposed – at Kilmirren. With Joneta held expertly against him, Simon opened the bakehouse door.

Warmth emerged, and rosy light, and the delicious smell of hot bread, and three men who seized his arms as his grip of Joneta loosened, and then stuffed a rag into his mouth, binding it before he could shout.

Joneta, instead of running for help, stood holding her throat. She had pulled his cloak with her. It lay on the ground, exposing
his hunting-dagger and sword. Both were taken, and his hands wrenched behind him and tied. He kicked and fought, using his spurred boots until, with difficulty, they pulled them off. Then they bound his feet. He hurled his weight from one side to the other.

Fighting with lance and sword were his forte, but he was well trained in combat of other kinds. You couldn’t go to war on the Borders without being able to hold your own with your fists. But against three in ambush at night, when off his guard and roused for a girl …

Joneta. He glared at her. He couldn’t speak, but his eyes must have frightened her. She turned and ran, taking the cloak. From beginning to end, his assailants had paid no attention to her. They knew she wouldn’t raise the alarm. She had known they would be there.

They carried him, then. Behind the booth was a door in the wall, and nothing there but scrub trees, heavy with snow. As he struggled, the sounds from Kinneil became less: the rumble of voices, the trampling and whinny of horses, the clank of buckets, of harness. The flambeaux in the yard became spots in the darkness, and the house a ghost, with threads of light round the shutters and smoke rising, grey upon black. All about him, as the woods fell behind, were glistening fields of snow, eerie and blue in the night; stretching as far as he could see.

They set him down in it, beside a single twisted juniper bush which, buffeted, scattered its snow. Separated from the warmth of other bodies, he felt the chill of the air through doublet and shirt; the snow he stood in soaked the stuff of his hose and spread the chill higher.

His captors, standing about, were unknown to him. The doubtful light of the yard had shown him three burly men dressed in leather, their caps pulled low, their weapons heavy and serviceable. Professional soldiers, he guessed. They had worked together, and in silence; and so knew one another. There was no obvious leader. And although he carried the marks of the fight – so did they – they had not used their swords. But, close to the house, that didn’t mean much.

So what was this, and how could he save himself? His mind had been busy, all the time he was being carried. Since his African venture, some people thought he was rich. But if they had snatched him for ransom, he would have been put on a horse. Instead, he had been brought here, where a murdered man could lie undiscovered for weeks. Murdered by sword, a quick death. Or left to die in the cold of the snow, or the cold of the estuary. Who
hated him enough to want either? Who would benefit from his death? Who was rich enough to employ three professionals, and yet so detached that he had no wish to see the dénouement himself?

Or herself. He had displeased a good many women in his time.

Joneta. Would her father do this? A rich baron, whom he hardly knew and had never offended? Hardly. Hamilton had sold him that land. And Joneta had helped take it from Claes which meant, surely, that Claes wasn’t her partner in this. His, Simon’s, death wouldn’t help Claes. The only person who would benefit from Simon’s death was Simon’s son Henry. Standing there in the cold, he was struck by a pang. Henry. If he died, what would happen to Henry? That useless master-at-arms …

His captors had only stopped to catch their breath. He had to do something quickly. Simon dropped to his knees and flung back his head, as if choking. The gag was so tight that he retched. For a moment, air genuinely failed him. Then, roughly, the kerchief was dragged away and the cloth pulled out. He dropped his head, coughing. His nose and eyes streamed, and his skin tightened, freezing and seared. He said hoarsely, ‘Who paid you? I will pay you ten times.’ He used French. Mercenaries knew French.

The man who had pulled out the gag looked at him, and at the others, and smiled. The gag lay on the snow.

So the language meant something. ‘Ten times. More. Send for it,’ Simon said.

The man bent and picked up the gag. He had failed. He could shout. Simon inhaled with a shriek and choked as the cloth was rammed in again and the kerchief bound brutally round. He threshed, resisting, and found himself flung back full length in the snow, one man holding his shoulders, the other his feet. A length of rope was bound round his waist. The two men remained where they knelt, their hands holding him still. Then the third man got up and, stepping back, drew his sword with a whine from the scabbard.

Bitterly, in that last moment, Simon wished his father were here. Fat father Jordan, who had found it so easy to adopt a new country, to forget the Scottish estates of his forebears, his brother, his heir. To wring land and title and riches from France, coming home in old age to mock his only son; to revile him; to attempt to brand him a failure.

So now the vicomte de Ribérac would have no son to taunt, and no one to blame but himself. Jordan had left him unprotected in Scotland, to be killed by the men Jordan had offended. For Simon saw it all now. These assassins were sent by Jordan’s enemies.
They understood French. They had not been tempted by money – of course not. Jordan’s rivals were wealthy. Only the rich opposed Jordan. Their mistake was that they thought, killing Simon, to cause Simon’s father a moment of sorrow.

Simon watched the sword coming down.

For a long time now, the road had been uncertain. Until the last fall of snow, the track of horses and carts had shown dark in the torchlight but after Torphichen, their last brief halt, the way had been pristine, and the directions given Bel by the resident agitated Brother of the Knights of St John had not been of the clearest.

The Preceptor of the Order was at Linlithgow Palace, five miles off, with the King. But the Flemish gentleman, M. Nicholas de Fleury, was not of the party, so far as the Hospitaller knew. So far as he knew, M. de Fleury was at home in his lodging at Berecrofts. Berecrofts, to the west of the Avon, and no more than half of an hour-glass away.

At this point the Brother suggested, his manner full of concern, that if the matter could wait till the morning, he was sure that beds could be found in the Preceptory. She supposed she looked mortally tired. She had not time to be tired, or cold, or hungry. She thanked him and, with her small, silent entourage, set out again.

Such was the warmth of Kinneil and the quality of its wines that the King lingered and might well have slept there, but for the loud, rallying voice of the master, enquiring if his grace was ready, for the horses would be taking a chill, not to mention himself?

So they roused, the young men and women, and were handed once more into their mantles and wandered off in groups, chaffing, to relieve themselves, and take a last swallow of wine. Adorne said, ‘Where is de Fleury?’

His nephew did not know. It was Andreas the doctor who said, ‘Did he come to Kinneil at all? I assumed he had gone home to resume packing at Berecrofts.’

The eyes of Katelijne turned to her uncle. Adorne said, ‘I think it unlikely. What of our other friend? Who has seen Simon of Kilmirren?’

‘I have,’ said someone with a tinge of relish. Julius, once the volatile Charetty lawyer in Bruges, and still fond enough of his hunting to resent having to see to the
Ghost
. Julius said, ‘He went off with the girl. Hamilton’s by-blow. Joneta. Do you want me to look for them?’

‘No,’ said Adorne abruptly. He softened it. ‘You have to go to
Blackness.’ Katelijne, he saw, had slipped off. Julius took his leave. Adorne began to prepare for the resumed hunt, conscious of a sense of foreboding. It was unnecessary, his intelligence told him. The boar, on investigation, did not exist: the hunt would rely as before on the hounds picking up scents. It could not last long. The King would tire, and they would ride back to Linlithgow. When Metteneye came for him, he was ready. He was here representing a Duchy. That came first.

All the same, setting off, the torches streaming behind, he was anxious. The cold now was extreme: his breath sparkled white in the air; the dogs, casting about, seemed to find nothing. Then, by a twisted juniper bush, dark in the snow, they stopped, and milled about snuffling, and then suddenly sprang forward strongly. The horn blew. The blood rose high in his veins and he spurred forward, eager once more.

Joneta, alone, watched them go. She was still there when some steward knocked at the door, enquiring the way to Berecrofts on behalf of his mistress. She did not see him herself, but her doorkeeper, reporting, said he seemed to serve a good family, but would not take the time to come in, or name or bring in his party.

She wondered, then, who was visiting Nicholas, but had long learned not to feel jealousy. It was enough that she stood there, and waited.

On the battlefield, one was taught to face death, and learned also a lesson far harder: to keep one’s courage when death changed its mind, and blood and flesh, still in life, turned to jelly.

The sword whistled down upon Simon. It slashed through the bonds at his feet. The man with the sword said, in French, ‘Rise,’ and made a gesture. For a moment, shocked, Simon couldn’t move. Then the other two, standing over him, gripped the ends of the rope round his waist and brought him staggering upright. He stood, his arms still pinioned behind him, attached by rope to a man on each side. Then the horses came up.

By now, he did not know what to think, or what to hope for. There were two horses only, brought by a fourth man who remained in the saddle. The man with the sword, sheathing it, mounted the second. Then each took an end of his rope. The remaining two stood back and studied him. He trembled with cold. The newcomer laughed. The man with the sword said briefly, ‘
Eh bien, monsieur –
run.’

There were cruelties one had heard of, practised in antiquity and since, whereby a man tied to two horses would be made to run until the horses, diverging, tore his body in two.

This was not yet like that. The rope, wound many times round his middle, simply tugged him to right or to left, depending on which rider pulled harder. And the gathering speed of the horses forced him to keep his feet, matching their pace, or else be towed through the snow, scouring through hidden brush, bumping shoulder and thigh against boulders, tumbling down hidden declivities.

He lost footing once, near the beginning, and suffered all that before he forced himself upright again. Then he tried to think of nothing but running, his breath fierce and hot through the gag, his lungs steadily drawing, his body adjusting its balance to the unnatural weight of his arms. Then the horses increased their pace to a canter.

Soon after that, his legs began to become heavy. His chest heaved, no longer under his perfect control. Lack of breath made his head sing; interrupted his concentration. He stumbled then, and was borne along twisting, his heels tossed on the ground, as he tried to regain his balance.