Scales of Gold by Dorothy Dunnett Page B

blood who staggered out of the shed and began to cross the yard at a stumbling run, towards the glowing kilns and torchlit benches. And the woman, having screamed, fell.
    Surprise at first held them all fast. Then every man in the yard began to run whooping after him.
    Nicholas, kneeling, lifted Marietta Barovier in his arms. Almost immediately, she began to stir, and raised her fingers to the mark of the blow on her temple. Then she opened her eyes, and shaking free said, ‘Stop it. Go and stop it.’ And as he helped her to her feet, she held the door and shouted over the yard to her workers.
    Some of them heard, and hesitated and turned, but most were beyond earshot, and beyond heeding. A cage of dogs, somewhere unseen, began to set up a frenzy of barking. Nicholas stood, rigidly holding Donna Barovier’s arm. He heard Julius declare, ‘No!’ in an angry voice, and then begin to run after the crowd.
    Loppe waited a moment. He said, ‘He won’t get away?’ in a questioning voice; and then began to run after Julius. He was a good runner. Nicholas dropped the woman’s arm and, using all his weight, shouldered his way after the others.
    Shadows streamed over the ground. Against the red light, the vermilion eyes of the kilns, the bodies of men flickered and danced, their arms upraised, brandishing, hurling. Shovels flailed. Iron bars glimmered like lances, some with the live glowing gather still alight at the tip. Like cabalistic signs, pincers burned in the air, and burning stuff arched and sizzled.
    You could see from the rush and swing of the crowd how their quarry was trying to evade them, dashing from shelter to shelter; trying to gain enough ground to reach the distant wall and climb over. Suddenly animated, Nicholas thrust ahead, flinging bodies aside, wrenching weapons away, shouting commands. Men fought, resisting him. He found Loppe at his side, and then Julius. Julius cried, ‘The bastards! One man!’
    It was human nature, Nicholas knew well enough. While he had lain on the ground, the victim of heartless authority, they had been sorry for that small, incompetent man. By running, he had turned himself into a sport. Now they were combining to herd him, attempting to corner him by one of the kilns. Some of those nearest were thrusting their rods into the fire, renewing their heat. They advanced towards the cowering figure, one swinging the red glistening glass into a noose, another whirling a burning globe at the end of a gut of twisting, glittering red.
    Their victim screamed and began running. Such was his desperation and speed that he broke through the far ring of the crowd. Beyond was the waste ground, the heaps of sand, the piles of barrels, the wall at the end that might lead to freedom, were it not ten feet in height.
    The fugitive ran for his life, and Nicholas, pelting after him, at last took the lead. He heard the voice of Julius, furiously calling in the clamour behind him. He heard, ahead, the pounding of feet on the dirt, trying this way and that as the man sought to shake him off.
    Nicholas reduced his speed, and drew in his considerable breath, and said, ‘Don’t run. You won’t be harmed.’ Julius came to his right side, and Loppe to his left. The crowd also slowed. He said over his shoulder, ‘Stand still. He can’t get away.’
    ‘Not from us, he won’t,’ a voice said, and a missile came flying over the shoulder of Nicholas to land in the darkness in front. It was followed by others. The feet ahead, which had hesitated, began running again, their sound altered to an irregular crunch. The footsteps became more deliberate, and took another direction, and became part of another pattern of noise, coarse and grumbling, overlaid by an intermittent silvery torrent, as from a glacier in thaw.
    Beside Nicholas, somebody cheered. Somebody said, ‘The silly fool’s trying to climb up to the wall through the cullet.’
    Cullet was broken glass. He had brought the donna Marietta so much, she