hands clasped, the robes were still, and Abernaci was passive once more, his dark eyes resting on Thady.
There was a knife in Thady’s hand, too, although no sign of how it came there. He turned, balancing it thoughtfully, waiting until he might be unperceived; then he judged it, and threw. It was a more difficult target than Abernaci’s. The knife hurtled straight to the bottle cord, and parting it, let the spouting ink flask fall free to spill its black pool harmlessly on the floor. Black eyes met blue in mutual speculation; and Lymond, speaking softly, said, ‘More?’
And then the shouting began.
The voice of Hérisson’s steward began it; a door banged, and his calling rang suddenly through the packed cellar. The paper cart had reached the Porte Cochoise and was entering the city. Stewart, fighting back to collect Thady, watched for two minutes while the scene dissolved into pandemonium, with Hérisson in the middle sonorously making his dispositions to take the illegal consignment. Then he hurried Thady outside.
It was the ollave, cheerful with much drink, who wandered immediatelyfrom Stewart’s side and was found presently halfway up the adjacent scaffolding. And it was Thady Boy, rocking slightly on the steeple top, oblivious to the Archer’s angry hissings below, who spotted the spark of gorget, the glint of arquebus and the bristling shadow of pikes under the housetops in the Rue aux Juifs.
They raised the alarm in the Hôtel Hérisson as the cart arrived from the north. The grille was lifted, the base unbolted, and the bales were sliding into the cellar while the city guard was two streets away. Bouncing like a cork, Thady Boy ran downstairs to the cellar; and when Stewart, scrambling, got there after him, the ollave’s voice, raised in charitable zeal, was already making drunken, flamboyant and shatteringly practical suggestions on how to deal with an imminent raid.
For years after, in Hérisson’s circle, they told the story of that night: how with a cordon round the whole house the bailly and his sergeants burst into the cellars to find nothing worse going on than an uproarious, a scurrilous rehearsal for part of tomorrow’s great Entry, with charade following monologue and lampoon following charade under the direction of a potbellied, black-headed Irishman representing the Spirit of France, suspended gently swaying above the packed audience from the blocks and pulleys on the roof.
And when, reluctantly at length, the city guard tore themselves away, the entertainment was only beginning, for they had forgotten to let down the Spirit of France and that fluent person, not at all willing to be ignored, had captured the hand bellows and, declaiming, was coating the seething heads below with black varnish.
It was Michel Hérisson himself, draped half-naked in a sheet and almost helpless with laughter, who jumped for the cable operating the hook and let go, so that Thady Boy hurtled down through the air, past the dais under which lay the portable printing presses, past the bales of paper disguised behind scenery and the bales of paper disguised as scenery, and straight into a full trough of paste. A wall of white porridge three feet deep rose with a glottal smack and dropped in knackery-haunted gouts on the company.
It was as if a divine signal had come. The audience stood to a man. Into the nameless, lung-scouring gas which replaced air a clay ball shot; then another; then one with lead in it knocked someone out. Benches began to rise. The Delphic Oracle, tackled low, sagged with godlike indifference and stuffed her august nose at last into the copper. Abrupt as an overtaxed weight lifter, other deities fell. Someone whirled a stone elbow, skirling; paste-soggy clothes ripped; and in the glorious, semi-inebriated whirl of pounding flesh, thethicket of flailing arms and belling throats and the shouts of damnable hilarity, blood and ink became one.
They delivered Thady Boy, damp, clean and singing
There was a knife in Thady’s hand, too, although no sign of how it came there. He turned, balancing it thoughtfully, waiting until he might be unperceived; then he judged it, and threw. It was a more difficult target than Abernaci’s. The knife hurtled straight to the bottle cord, and parting it, let the spouting ink flask fall free to spill its black pool harmlessly on the floor. Black eyes met blue in mutual speculation; and Lymond, speaking softly, said, ‘More?’
And then the shouting began.
The voice of Hérisson’s steward began it; a door banged, and his calling rang suddenly through the packed cellar. The paper cart had reached the Porte Cochoise and was entering the city. Stewart, fighting back to collect Thady, watched for two minutes while the scene dissolved into pandemonium, with Hérisson in the middle sonorously making his dispositions to take the illegal consignment. Then he hurried Thady outside.
It was the ollave, cheerful with much drink, who wandered immediatelyfrom Stewart’s side and was found presently halfway up the adjacent scaffolding. And it was Thady Boy, rocking slightly on the steeple top, oblivious to the Archer’s angry hissings below, who spotted the spark of gorget, the glint of arquebus and the bristling shadow of pikes under the housetops in the Rue aux Juifs.
They raised the alarm in the Hôtel Hérisson as the cart arrived from the north. The grille was lifted, the base unbolted, and the bales were sliding into the cellar while the city guard was two streets away. Bouncing like a cork, Thady Boy ran downstairs to the cellar; and when Stewart, scrambling, got there after him, the ollave’s voice, raised in charitable zeal, was already making drunken, flamboyant and shatteringly practical suggestions on how to deal with an imminent raid.
For years after, in Hérisson’s circle, they told the story of that night: how with a cordon round the whole house the bailly and his sergeants burst into the cellars to find nothing worse going on than an uproarious, a scurrilous rehearsal for part of tomorrow’s great Entry, with charade following monologue and lampoon following charade under the direction of a potbellied, black-headed Irishman representing the Spirit of France, suspended gently swaying above the packed audience from the blocks and pulleys on the roof.
And when, reluctantly at length, the city guard tore themselves away, the entertainment was only beginning, for they had forgotten to let down the Spirit of France and that fluent person, not at all willing to be ignored, had captured the hand bellows and, declaiming, was coating the seething heads below with black varnish.
It was Michel Hérisson himself, draped half-naked in a sheet and almost helpless with laughter, who jumped for the cable operating the hook and let go, so that Thady Boy hurtled down through the air, past the dais under which lay the portable printing presses, past the bales of paper disguised behind scenery and the bales of paper disguised as scenery, and straight into a full trough of paste. A wall of white porridge three feet deep rose with a glottal smack and dropped in knackery-haunted gouts on the company.
It was as if a divine signal had come. The audience stood to a man. Into the nameless, lung-scouring gas which replaced air a clay ball shot; then another; then one with lead in it knocked someone out. Benches began to rise. The Delphic Oracle, tackled low, sagged with godlike indifference and stuffed her august nose at last into the copper. Abrupt as an overtaxed weight lifter, other deities fell. Someone whirled a stone elbow, skirling; paste-soggy clothes ripped; and in the glorious, semi-inebriated whirl of pounding flesh, thethicket of flailing arms and belling throats and the shouts of damnable hilarity, blood and ink became one.
They delivered Thady Boy, damp, clean and singing
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