The Unicorn Hunt (55 page)

It was an instinct, to fight; but the truth was that it was hopeless. The surprise had been total. The terrain gave little foothold; the path had already been blocked. The Flemings closed ranks and did what they could. Nicholas bellowed exhortations and warnings and heard Father Moriz shrieking in German as well. ‘
What are you doing? You are attacking the guests of Duke Sigismond!
’

John le Grant spoke between blows. ‘We’ve been hunting on the Duke’s territory. They want to take and hang us in public as poachers.’ A bolt rang on his shield.

Nicholas said, ‘What do you think? I’d rather stand trial than die now, even if we hang from a roof at the end of it. Father? Ederic? Donat? Do we surrender?’

‘We surrender,’ said Father Moriz and, lifting his crucifix, walked forward declaiming. Nicholas swore and thrusting past, managed to share the first blow that sent the priest reeling. John le Grant, uttering Aberdonian and German profanities, contrived to take most of the second. A dozen men fell on them. When they were eventually dragged to their feet and disarmed, it seemed as if surrender had in fact been accomplished: the head of the Banco di Niccolò was in the hands of a group of powerful tousle-haired men whose felt hats bore the badge of a lion.

When asked what lord they belonged to, they laughed, and threw their captives on horseback and tied them. Then they set off in line.

The bound men were all bleeding. It was late afternoon and not warm. The guide had disappeared, and they had been separated from their packs and stripped of all that was valuable on their persons. John said, ‘Where are we?’

Nicholas said, ‘In the Tyrol.’ His head was ringing and one arm was quite dead and possibly broken.

John said, ‘Nicholas?’

Nicholas said, ‘It’s terrible, terrible.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ said John le Grant, with familiar feeling. The German priest looked at them both. John le Grant said, ‘He thinks he knows something we don’t. Nicholas, they aren’t the Duke’s men. They’ll take us to some brute-ignorant lord who
will
hang us.’

‘Maybe,’ Nicholas said. ‘Upside down, I believe. They tie whatever you’ve poached to your feet. Remember, you shot the hind and I picked off a couple of pheasants. Do you see what I see up there?’

The others fell silent. They had hoped for a town perhaps, where a ducal officer might have been summoned. Or even for a simple encampment, for much can be made to happen under cover of night. Instead, what straddled the pass was a fortress. An old one, its walls broken and cracked, but still high enough to thwart even an optimist. Within, from the sluggish smoke rising, there was someone newly in residence.

John said, ‘I’m going to do something. There won’t be a chance once we’re inside.’

‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘And if you try it, I’ll kick you unconscious.’

‘You’ve got a plan. Tell it. You know your plans never work until I’ve checked them,’ said John le Grant. Father Moriz gazed ahead, looking solemn.

‘I haven’t time. Here we are,’ Nicholas said.

All the while they were being pushed through the gates, and untied, and beaten across the filthy enclosure to the dungeons, Nicholas thought of the fuss Julius would have made. He missed Julius and his outbursts, on occasion. John’s outbursts were, of course, not outbursts at all. Then their captors left, and the dungeon door closed and was locked, and everyone looked at him hopefully.

He said, ‘All right. I’ve got the dice. Let’s get comfortable. Then I’m putting up ten Rhenish florins as prize money.’

One of the young men-at-arms said, ‘My lord, how long …?’ and stopped when Ederic, Nicholas’s manservant, looked at him.

Nicholas said, ‘An hour. If it’s over that, I’ll double the prize money.’ No one asked how he was going to measure the hour.

The wounded man was not badly hurt, but had bled a lot. Dionigi was lame. Those who were fit crawled about helping to bind up the cuts of the rest. The roof was so low that one bracket-candle lit the whole chamber. There was no food and no water, but the straw on the floor was at least fresh.

He was quite good, himself, at measuring time. John, he knew, was even better. Just short of the hour, by his reckoning, they heard footsteps approaching, and the door opened upon several men. One of them held something out. The man said in German, ‘Whose is this?’

Nicholas did not reply, but waited for Father Moriz to glance at him. Father Moriz then spoke. ‘It belongs to this knight. To the lord Nicholas de Fleury of Burgundy, guest of Duke Sigismond.’

The speaker in the doorway looked from Nicholas to the priest. He said, ‘
Diese ist der Orden van der Schottische Einhorn
.’

‘That is true,’ said Father Moriz.

‘But you are German,’ said the man in the doorway. It could be seen now that he was young, and wearing a sword under a stiff leather jacket.

‘From Augsburg. That is so,’ said the priest. ‘Master John here also speaks excellent German, although he is Scottish. And Sir Nicholas has some of the language. We should like to meet your lord and remedy this mistake.’

Nicholas continued to look as if he had some of the language. He was pleased as well as surprised. He had expected to have to do some of that himself. He was also pleased and surprised for other reasons, in spite of the cold.

The man said, ‘I have orders to take the Collar’s owner upstairs. The two German-speakers will, please, accompany him.’

‘And the others?’ said Father Moriz. ‘They require food, drink, medical help …’

‘It will be seen to,’ said the man. He set the door open, and Nicholas walked out with Father Moriz and John.

It was like another occasion. That time, they had all been in prison together – Tobie, Diniz, Astorre, as well as John. That time, he went to meet death and found something else. Death was never the worst that could happen.

The dripping stairs of this castle were nothing like those of Zacco in Cyprus. Fortified though it was, it had been built and was used as a hunting-lodge: he could hear dogs yapping and growling and had seen the good range of stables. The man in the leather jacket walked ahead, but two armed servants followed. It was a steep climb and a long walk through tortuous chambers thereafter.
Feeling had come throbbing back to his shoulder and beat in his head. The side of the priest’s face was bruised, and John le Grant limped.

It seemed to Nicholas that he was exaggerating the limp. He felt alive in spite of the pain, and expectant, and wished in a sudden blind flash that he were free, as once he had been, to savour all that was happening. Then their conductor stopped and knocked on a door, and spoke to the person who opened it. It closed, then opened again. This time, the man in the jacket led the way forward and bowed. ‘Your grace, the knight of the Unicorn Collar. Sir Nicholas de Fleury; his priest; and a Scotsman named John.’ He bowed.

The room they had entered was of moderate size but warmed by a brazier, and the plaster walls were draped with patterned hangings and lit by wax candles in good polished sconces. The furniture, though solid, was equally good: a pair of stout coffers topped by tapestry cushions, a set of shelves on one wall bearing dishes of pewter and silver, a number of cups and a vessel of wine. There was a prie-dieu in a corner, and a basin and ewer in another, with a rack of plain towels. The master chair stood by the brazier, and the board beside it bore two heavy books and some sewing on a table-carpet of green cloth. The occupant stood by the window surveying them.

‘Your grace,’ Nicholas said. He heard John draw in his breath. He spoke to a woman.

She was nearer John’s age than his: past her middle thirties, and already too stout for her height, although her hair still showed red under the old-fashioned double-peaked headdress. Her sleeves were fur-edged and trailed, and her high bosom was pinned with a brooch made of rubies. The stones were formed in the shape of a lion; the same as that worn by the men who had brought them.

‘My grace, is it?’ she said. ‘It seems my nephew’s making mair free than he should with his unicorns. What for was that Collar?’

Le Grant’s face had turned red. Nicholas said, ‘For getting your niece’s husband out of the country. You may not approve.’

‘Thomas Boyd?’ said the woman. ‘Oh, deary dear. Oh, deary deary dear.’ She walked forward slowly. ‘Were ye hurt just now?’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘Most of my party were injured.’

‘Sons of Belial,’ she said. ‘They were to ca’ canny. I told them. Jack, go and see to it.’ The man in the leather jacket hesitated, then went out. The lady of the chamber who had opened the door closed it and sat just inside, her eyes lowered. She was not young,
but handsome after an older fashion. Her mistress said, ‘Jack Lindsay. His father came out with me and married a German. It can happen to anybody. Well, come to the fire: you look as if ye need it. I’ll get my physician to see you. Does the priest not have Scots? Where are you from?’

‘Aberdeen,’ said John le Grant, thus addressed. He walked forward. ‘Your grace.’

She said, ‘You don’t know who I am. He does.’

‘I didn’t tell them,’ said Nicholas. ‘This is Father Moriz, an expert in smelting. He does speak English. And John le Grant, mining engineer, navigator, gunner. He has worked in Germany as well as Constantinople. John, this is her grace the Duchess Eleanor of the Tyrol, lady wife to Duke Sigismond and father’s sister to James, King of Scotland.’

There was a silence. The Duchess took the big chair and picked up her sewing. ‘So you didn’t tell them. Well, I have to say the Duke was forgetful as well. He’s away. I wouldn’t exactly know where, but of course he’ll hear how ye mistook the way and got into trouble, and send to Brixen to have ye all join him. In due course. News takes time to travel.’

John le Grant said, ‘This isn’t Brixen? Your grace?’

‘Dear me, no,’ said the Duchess Eleanor. ‘That’s seventeen miles to the south. We’ll go there directly. No, you’ve wandered. It’s the guides. You can’t get good guides nowadays. Do you like soup? My cook makes a good soup. You go off and get yourselves seen to, and we’ll talk properly when you’re done. You’re not very old.’

Nicholas turned at the door, where the man she called Lindsay had reappeared, followed by her lady-in-waiting. Nicholas said, ‘I’ve aged lately, your grace.’ She smiled as they filed out.

She had told him just enough to let him settle everyone’s doubts. First his men, cramming down ale and venison and thick, filling bread in a bare room which, though draughty, wasn’t a dungeon, and had pallets already brought in for the night. By then, even the injured looked brighter.

‘We were in the wrong valley. But we’ve had some luck from it. These are the Duchess’s men, and she’s here, and she’s anxious to do everything she can to make up for it. We’re off to Brixen, her own castle, soon, and then the Duke himself will send for us.’

The men accepted it. Niccolino always fell on his feet.

Once the ale had taken effect, he found a place where he could talk to John and the priest and the three men of his own household.
They were sober, as he was. Donat started before he could speak. ‘That guide was bribed! Those places he led us to!’

‘Bribed, of course. By the Duchess, one supposes,’ said Father Moriz.

‘Of course.’ Nicholas looked across at Donat. ‘Your back hurts. So does my arm. She thought it necessary. She’s a capable woman controlling a twenty-year marriage to a self-indulgent, indolent profligate.’

‘They say,’ remarked John le Grant, ‘that he has a bastard for every week of the year.’

‘And they had one child, who died. He also spends money. On the mistresses. On gambling. On new castles – Sigmundsburg, Sigmundseek, Sigmundsfreud, Sigmundskron, Sigmundslust, Sigmundsfried. On birds and horses and dogs for the hunt. On the advisers he favours, and the men of culture he likes to sustain. He has already sold off all his father’s land in the Confederate States, and now has mortgaged Alsace and the Black Forest.’

‘To the Duke of Burgundy,’ Ederic said. Ederic came from Antwerp.

‘An encroachment the Swiss don’t appreciate. The cantons are nervous of Burgundy and have the best fighting men in the world. The Tyrol sits between, and can’t afford to pay mercenaries for anything. Sigismond thinks the Duke of Burgundy will lend him troops to protect him or – madly – attack the Swiss if he wants to. The Duchess doesn’t think the Duke will. The Duchess thinks that the Tyrol needs help. Not soldiers; not at once, anyway. But investment. A way to realise its own wealth, so that no matter how much Sigismond spends, there will always be more.’

‘Silver,’ said John le Grant. The priest’s face remained undisturbed. The remaining three looked uneasy.

‘And copper. More valuable sometimes than gold.’

‘And the use of your Captain Astorre and his army?’ It was the priest.

‘They possibly think so.’

‘You sound as if you’d had a talk with the lady already. This was the meaning of your conversation upstairs?’

‘She will call me back,’ Nicholas said. ‘When my broken head and the drink should have done her work for her.’

‘She sounds an astute woman. Why has she stayed with the Duke?’ This time, it was John.

The priest said, ‘Ah, no. Why has the Duke stayed with her? That is the nub of it.’

The rest of the men had started to sing. Against the noise,
Nicholas talked, and the others listened, the priest and the engineer addressing one another and him, their voices considered, vehement, thoughtful. They were all flushed. Presently the man in the leather jacket came back, and walking over to Nicholas required him to follow. If you listened carefully, you could hear the thread of Scots under the German.

John le Grant spoke to Nicholas in rapid Italian. ‘Maps, remember.’

The young man turned. ‘There are some maps,’ he said shortly in the same language. Below the Italian, too, the Scots lay submerged. If he was James Lindsay’s son, then he was full cousin to David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford. Thinking, Nicholas followed him back to the Duchess’s chamber. This time there was no one in attendance, and Lindsay, after introducing him, left, closing the door.

Eleanor of Scotland sat unchanged with her embroidery, a cup of wine at her hand. The embroidery had materially grown. She said, ‘Pray be seated. Nowadays, I prefer to talk business in German. I am told Flemish is not unlike.’