Caprice and Rondo

  The rain was now becoming unpleasant. At this late stage, there was no question of closing the games; those who could not tolerate it had left, and the rest, used to brief soakings, simply pulled up their hoods and huddled closer. The water ran down Zeno’s magnificent cloth of silver, drenching the two splendid white plumes in his hat and rendering brighter still the gold, the silver, the turquoises of his quiver, and the shining, safely waxed strings of his bow. His horse, twirling, frisking, curvetting, was foreign as well, and Zeno rode it with the short stirrups and forward-leaning seat of the Persian who is trained from birth to ride without reins. As he set to circle the mast, gaining speed, he tossed the bow into the air and caught it.

  ‘Charlatan!’ Robin muttered, watching.

  ‘But also a marksman, I’m afraid,’ observed Anna. Since Julius’s competent performance, she had shown herself willing, in a resigned way, to comment. And she was right about Zeno. Having put his small speedy horse through its paces, the Venetian set it into a gallop and, riding faster and faster, rose in the stirrups to shoot. He hit the ball. But he made the shot backwards, over his shoulder. Then, amid uproar, he cantered back to take his place by the other three.

  Adorne saluted him, as did Julius. Nicholas did not go quite so far. It was a feat, even if the Venetian used his own horse and bow; even if he wore, strapped to his bow-hand, the ivory trough which, by extending the draw of his arrow, added valuable power to its cast. He was a citizen of the Republic, and it was his duty to promote it. The next moment, de Fleury rode out unsensationally on his borrowed mount, equipped with his borrowed quiver and bow. The string was proofed. There was no excuse therefore for his failure, three times over, to shoot an arrow anywhere near the gold ball. One of the shafts, descending at random, came close enough to cause his three partners to scatter. The third time, the drum beat his recall and, frowning, he trotted over to Zeno, to a chorus of good-natured catcalls. ‘Messer Caterino, who makes your arrows?’

  ‘Messer Niccolò, who brews your ale?’ said Caterino Zeno.

  ‘… THAT WAS DELIBERATE,’ Kathi said to her husband. The awning mumbled and spat: the rain was heavier. Robin and Anna exchanged glances.

  Robin said, ‘I was close to him just now. Kathi, he hasn’t been drinking water.’

  ‘It’s not only that,’ Anna said slowly. ‘Is it?’

  Kathi gave her a comradely look, and silently congratulated the Divine Bounty which had produced someone who could apply her mind to Nicholas without becoming instantly revolted. She said, ‘No, it isn’t, although he’s pretty sodden as well. I shouldn’t necessarily trust him an inch, but those shots were deliberate.’

  ‘I don’t see why you think so,’ Robin said. He sounded exasperated. Kathi slid her hand into his.

  It attracted one of Anna’s wry, glinting smiles. ‘I am afraid,’ she said, ‘that Julius is the worse for drink also. What are we to do with them?’

  ON THE FIELD, his shoulders soaked, Adorne narrowed his eyes at the butts. His hair streaked his cheeks, and the grass churned under the hooves of his horse. Soon, the whole stretch would be mud. He was fortunate, being the first man about to dash across the width of the field, loosing his arrows. Or fortunate in the matter of foothold. Upon the range of distant targets to his left, the white of each bull’s-eye was exactly the size of a crown: he was supposed to hit them while galloping, and his soaked string was useless. His mount continued to fidget, disturbed by the incessant manoeuvres of Zeno’s short, deep-chested animal at his side. Behind Zeno was Julius and here, on his own right, was de Fleury. It enraged Adorne that, through no fault of his own, he was about to seem as incompetent as this unspeakable knave. The unspeakable knave, leaning over, said, ‘That’s a good bow.’

  ‘It’s wet,’ said Adorne. He spoke shortly. The trumpets blew to announce the next phase, but Zeno’s horse was still displaying its rider’s skill and its mettle.

  ‘All the same,’ de Fleury said. He leaned over further. Unbelievably, before Adorne could stop him, his opponent had snatched up his weapon and carried it back to his own knee, causing his own horse to start. Next, grinning, de Fleury flung up his shirt-arm and plucked off his hat with a flourish, upon which his horse faced about and showed signs of evacuating the field. The trumpet blew a second time, and someone shouted his name. Adorne exclaimed, ‘What are you doing, de Fleury? Give me my bow!’

  It came, thrown into his hands, and he raised it, breathing quickly in anger. Then he saw that this was not his own bow, nor any of Zeno’s providing. What he held was a small unadorned weapon of horn, wood and sinew, expertly proofed, and designed, Arab-style, to accommodate its own majrā: the trough which, like Zeno’s, added length and power to each pull.

  Adorne said, ‘But this is yours.’

  ‘Loaned me,’ said Nicholas. ‘Use it. Keep your shaft to the right.’ Adorne stared at him. The field quietened. He heard his name called again. Anselm Adorne drew a short breath. Then, leaving his reins, he lifted the bow, and flung his horse into motion.

  To cross the field at full gallop was a matter of moments. Twisted in the saddle, Adorne shot — once, twice, thrice — at the distant white coins, and, slewing round at the end, heard the three roars, and saw the flag lifted three times. With a strange weapon, out of a turmoil of angry surprise, he had delivered three shots in the white. Flushed and panting, he sat in the saddle and gazed over the field, where his fellows were set to perform.

  He hardly heard the reception for Julius, who managed two out of the three at quite a spectacular speed. He did hear the shouting for Zeno, for it greeted a performance as good as his own. But the rest of his attention was fixed on the distant figure of de Fleury, who remained, awaiting his turn, with Adorne’s useless bow in his hands. Except that it was useless no longer, for in those few moments aside, he had seen de Fleury begin, with powerful hands, to replace the wet string with the dry one from inside his hat. On horseback. And on a short bow with a hundred-pound pull.

  But brute strength and long practice were one thing, and the sober concentration required by a feat such as this, on a thrice-churned field, were another. De Fleury pounded cheerfully across, occasionally sliding, and shooting carelessly and fast into every place on the bank but the white, after which, laughing, he tossed up his bow as Zeno had done, and caught it in cheerful contrition. Arriving, he did not even look at Adorne, and the latter, the borrowed bow outstretched, let his hand drop. He did not understand, but he could not deny he was grateful.

  Zeno, accompanying Nicholas to the line for flight shooting, was in a sardonic mood. ‘You should have kept your splendid bow. Where did you get it from? And having acquired it, why give it away?’

  ‘Well, you saw,’ Nicholas said. ‘Even when I had it, I couldn’t do anything. It was the wine and the beer, I suppose. I think I’d better leave the long distance to you, and save myself for the rest.’

  Zeno had laughed, and Julius, overhearing, had punched Nicholas on the side and remarked that he didn’t think he had anything left that was worth saving. Then Julius turned round and joined Zeno and Adorne at the line, and the last of the envoy’s ordeals began: the round in which each man had three chances to shoot as far as he could. It was not a competition, and there were no prizes to be had, but honours between Genoa and Venice were at present even, and Anselm Adorne wished to change that.

  He still had the bow. He had, more than the worth of the bow, the furious determination inspired by de Fleury’s inexplicable act. Adorne’s first two shots were both fine, but the last was brilliant, travelling straight and hard for well over four hundred yards. Even Zeno was unable to match it, never mind Julius the lawyer. Anselm Adorne had finished by holding his own, and even by creating a record.

  Shaking his fellow performers by the hand, returning to bow to the President and, amid acclaim, to retake his seat, the Burgundian envoy could be satisfied. He had represented his master. He had completed the programme he had set himself, and had emerged unharmed, and with credit,
as something better, at least, than a disgraced ambassador.

  He was conscious, of course, of his debt. Quitting the field, he had returned the bow to its temporary owner with a curt question. ‘Why?’

  And the dark-rimmed, unhealthy grey eyes had glanced at him with something almost like amusement, while Nicholas de Fleury had said, ‘Isn’t it obvious? So that I shan’t be blamed when you die.’

  Then the princes left, and there remained only the exhibition of trickery. The Venetian and his pair of Persian-trained acolytes would surely enjoy displaying that.

  SEEN FROM THE President’s pavilion, the little extravaganza that followed was pleasant enough. Their anxiety removed, Adorne’s companions could even admire the dexterity with which Caterino Zeno, twisting and turning between the lines of fine wands, would aim and strike each one from one angle or another; how Julius, acrobatic on his high-prancing horse, would run beside it and leap in and out of the saddle and then, racing parallel with de Fleury, would toss over and re-toss his weapon, each man shooting with first one bow, then the other. Lastly, in unison, the two performed the feat de Fleury had already demonstrated and unstrung and restrung their bows at the gallop, while controlling the beasts without reins.

  Watching them, Anna spoke slowly. ‘I wonder how often they have done that before. They are reading one another’s intentions.’ And she added, half to herself, ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps they, too, had forgotten,’ Kathi said. She viewed the two laughing men, and Caterino Zeno, who was not laughing. She had seen Nicholas ride. She had seen him swim with a horse in the sea, and slide with one into a chasm of ice. She had heard from Dr Tobie of the games in the Meidan at Trebizond, where the hooves danced on cedar flour instead of thick mud, but where, nevertheless, Nicholas had been pitched to the ground. He had looked, arriving today, as if he had had just such a blow, and had tried to drink his way out of it. Then it came to her where she had seen that look before. She said aloud, ‘He has been divining.’

  ‘Nicholas?’ said Robin sharply. The field shooting had finished, and now they were about to end, as they had begun, with the papingo: this time the proper parrot in wood, with its five sections to be shot down, leaving the last and smallest core for the victor.

  ‘This is a country of silver and copper,’ Anna said. ‘I suppose his skills are worth a great deal, unless they exhaust him. You say that they do?’

  ‘He has recovered now,’ Kathi said. ‘If you call that kind of behaviour a recovery.’ Her eyes were on the field. The three riders, bows prepared, had taken their stance at intervals round the base of the mast. Receiving their signal, they had begun to set their horses in motion. As they gained speed, they fixed their gaze upwards, to the papingo at the top of the mast. For this time, they were to hit it at will, and as often and fast as they were able, until all the parts had been pierced and brought down. The rain beat on the contestants’ dirt-smeared features and the upturned faces of the spectators, and frothed on the grassy mud. The awning rattled and boomed, so that Anselm Adorne had to lift his voice when he spoke.

  ‘I am a little concerned. They have no protection.’

  Jerzy Bock leaned over. ‘They are good marksmen.’

  ‘Even so. Shooting from all sides at once, it is dangerous. The arrows hit and rebound. We are safe enough, but they are not.’

  But even as he spoke, a roar proclaimed that Zeno, his smile fixed, had repeated his own earlier feat and, shooting in reverse, had brought down the first part of the parrot. Then immediately, a second roar and a shout of laughter greeted the fall of a second part, brought down by Julius in an extraordinary shot which not only speared the wood, but caught it with a second arrow before it dropped on the ground. Then Julius himself yelled, for Nicholas, lowering his bow, had abandoned shooting the papingo in favour of firing his arrows, one after the other, around and sometimes into the upturned hooves of Julius’s horse as it galloped, mud flying, before him, while Julius wildly attempted to bring it back under control, cursing at the top of his voice. The crowd hooted and Robin, his face brilliant, said, ‘What about that!’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but Zeno is going to shoot Nicholas if he doesn’t begin to take this seriously,’ Kathi said. And just as she spoke, everything happened.

  Zeno, his face showing his impatience, lifted his bow and released first one and then a second arrow into the papingo and then, taking a third, increased his speed until he had overtaken both Nicholas and his victim, coating them with mud in the passing. Nicholas spluttered, clawing mud out of his eyes, and Julius, yelling, brought his horse cantering back into its circuit and prepared to aim at the papingo again. Zeno, now on the opposite side, launched an arrow. Nicholas, his face still masked with mud, armed his bow and lifted it to do the same, just as his horse lost its footing.

  Four arrows flew. One, from Zeno, whizzed straight for the papingo. The second, from an ecstatic Julius, crazily split Zeno’s arrow in half. The third sprang, as his horse fell to its knees, from the short bow of Nicholas. And the last emerged, already singing, from somewhere at the edge of the field, and was not shot by the contestants at all.

  The last arrow, which was a featherless bolt from a crossbow, soared over the field and clubbed the central pole of the spectators’ awning under which Adorne sat, bringing down the rest of the frame and causing the cloth to empty its heavy burden of water over the broken timber and struggling people below. Anna was knocked to the ground.

  The arrow ejected by Nicholas drove through the air with great force, and striking Julius, bored clean through his body.

  Zeno set his horse at the crowd, and identifying the rogue with the crossbow, shot him dead.

  In the field, Julius cried out, dropping his reins. His body inclined, remained caught by one foot, and then toppled finally on to the ground. Nicholas, brought crashing down by his horse, scrambled to his feet and stood still, his face ghastly. In the pavilion, Adorne, bruised and soaked, flung debris out of his way and began lifting canvas and shards to locate Kathi. Robin, doing the same, found and helped Anna, who had injured her shoulder. Kathi was discovered dazed where she had been thrown, her pallid face powdered with dust. Opening her eyes, she saw her uncle and Robin and finally Anna, risen with blood on her arm. Looking up at the tatters above her, Kathi said, ‘Someone sneezed?’

  Robin snorted, his eyes very bright. Her uncle knelt. Anna, dropping beside him, was exclaiming. ‘Kathi? Are you all right? Is the baby all right?’

  ‘The …?’ said Robin slowly.

  ‘What?’ said her uncle.

  Anna looked up, and then down to catch Kathi’s grimace. She bit her lip. ‘I’m a fool. You hadn’t told them,’ she said. ‘Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I guessed; I thought everyone knew.’ From shock and distress her eyes were filling. Adorne stooped and, lifting her, steadied her shoulders.

  Kathi said, ‘They were going to have to know some time. Don’t worry.’ She spoke automatically. Her gaze on Robin, she was trying to rescue the moment, to recreate it, to exchange, without words, all the things that should have been said, for the first time, when she told him. Reading his eyes she knew, suddenly, what he, too, was trying to say, and would say when they were alone. But for the moment, he simply dropped to where she was and took her in his firm, enveloping embrace, and she found herself crying as well.

  It was then that they heard someone calling for Anna.

  Nicholas, standing straight-backed by the rigging of the mast, watched Adorne approach, helping Anna over the uneven grass. She wore a scarf round her shoulder and arm. By then, the horses had gone and there was a ring of people about Julius’s body. One of them was a physician. Zeno could be seen at the edge of the field with the President, examining the corpse of the man who had brought down the pavilion. There was no doubt, of course, about who had brought down Julius. They were kind enough to say that it couldn’t be helped, in the rain, with his horse falling and the arrow already sprung. Anna came up and looked at him and cried,
‘What have you done?’

  What have you done! Night, and an icy river outside Berecrofts, and an old woman’s voice flinging the same bitter words at him over the still body of someone else who did not deserve to die. If there was justice, this was justice. Nicholas looked at the beautiful woman Julius had married and replied, ‘I have killed him.’ Then the violet eyes turned from him and she walked slowly to where her husband lay, the slanting eyes closed, the shapely limbs slack, and the careless, life-loving spring of wilful enjoyment all stopped.

  Nicholas found that Adorne was standing beside him. Adorne said, ‘I have spoken to those who saw it. It is not your fault. I am sorry.’ He paused. ‘You suspected there would be an accident to the awning? You said something of it.’

  He had more than suspected; he had known. Jelita’s masters had made sure of that. Poland disliked Genoa and dared not offend Venice, but there were limits.

  Nicholas said, ‘It will be hard to find the truth, now that the archer is dead. You were not hurt? Robin and Kathi?’

  ‘Are also unharmed. I would not have spoken to you as I have,’ said Adorne unexpectedly, ‘if you had been the worse for wine. But no man in his cups could have made those hoof-shots as you did. Your friend did not lose his life through your failings, but from mischance.’

  The rain fell. Nicholas, finding a stay from the mast at his side, ran his fingers along it and kept it. Adorne, after waiting a moment, moved off towards the little tableau around Julius’s still body. Nicholas shut his eyes. It was Anna’s voice he heard next, soft and clear above the beat of the rain. ‘Wait! Wait! He is breathing!’

  Adorne said, ‘De Fleury? Are you there? He is alive!’

  Nicholas heard him. Although his hearing persisted, his brain and his sight had become disconnected. His grip slackened. The cable rasped through his palm, and the ground tilted below him. He did not realise that he had fallen, and was lying, like Julius, in the mud.