Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (31 page)

By the end of his first week at Oxford, he had heard the man’s name mentioned six times and found his interest piqued. By the tenth mention he was feeling slightly annoyed: by the twelfth he decided he had to seek the man out for himself. He dropped a casual word and had himself invited to a country weekend in Surrey where he knew Jamie Kirkpatrick was also to be a guest.

Their initial meeting, it could be fairly said, did not go well. At first Andrei had been suitably impressed, for James Kirkpatrick was indeed and in a word—gorgeous. He also proved to be witty and quite funny, for he had the entire drawing room in stitches with his stories. That he was brilliant was in no doubt. Andrei felt grateful to the gods that it was in a useless discipline such as English, and not in a field that mattered, such as mathematics or physics.

Andrei had been holding court in the library of the country house, a group of mathematics scholars clustered around him as he showed them a proof on which he was working. At some point, Jamie Kirkpatrick had joined the ring of fascinated faces, sitting casually cross-legged on the Turkish carpet, a look of intense interest on his face that informed Andrei the Irishman actually understood the proof as he’d scratched it out on the paper. Andrei sniffed, for few people had the sort of facility with mathematics that he had. In all of history there had been a golden string of mathematicians, rarely more than one or two to a generation, to which line he belonged.

The golden head had inclined over the paper on which Andrei had roughed out his theory and while other faces were suitably impressed, this one was not. The green eyes elongated in thought, the mouth drawn in an inscrutable line. Andrei was irritated. He did not trust people who were not suitably impressed.

“I think,” said the voice, which was also completely lacking in awe,“ you’ll find that if you take this step out, you can come to the same conclusion much more quickly.”

The bastard, for this is how Andrei was now thinking of him, scrawled the same formula below, took out the step he had pointed out and added in two other components. The proof was indeed solved, though the arrogant
svoloch
could not be bothered to write in the answer, he simply left it blank for Andrei to fill in himself.

Andrei suddenly wished dueling wasn’t out of fashion. Had Jamie been a mathematician himself, Andrei would have received it in the spirit intended, as one mathematical mind easing the path of another. Mathematics was often a collaborative effort, with a free flow of ideas leading to an inevitable conclusion.

But to have an English major show one the flaw in a problem, to have the insufferable gall to make him look a fool in front of all those people… well, that wasn’t to be countenanced. And yet, after the man left, Andrei had seen what he meant and that he’d merely made one of those intuitive leaps that set great minds apart from good. Suddenly he regretted his absence, but the man, like quicksilver, had disappeared from the premises. Andrei though, was quite certain they would meet again. He felt it inevitable, and Russians were great believers in the inevitable.

When they did collide, it was to be on the field
with horses and great whacking mallets, and if it was not heard for miles, it was certainly seen by several hundred people.

‘Let other people play at other things—the King of Games is still the Game of Kings.’

Polo had been the game of choice for Persian princes, Chinese emperors and dark-eyed Mughals. Therefore it was a sport that Andrei played, for he was as royal as Russian blood allowed in such times as he found himself.

His team, clad in scarlet jerseys, trotted out onto the field. It was a warm day and the sun glittered off the expensive cars parked behind the stands, stands which were filled with glorious English girls. Andrei inclined his head at a particularly sumptuous redhead, who flushed a lovely pink in response. He would have to remember her for later.

The opposing team wore emerald green shirts, and when James Kirkpatrick rode out, it was in the position of the number three man on the team. Andrei’s own position. It required one to be the most skilled player, for the third man was the team’s playmaker, setting up the shots for other players, hitting in the long balls, and taking the penalty shots and knock-ins.

Andrei knew a natural horseman when he saw one and had to admit that he was looking at one now. He had seen him earlier sitting upon his horse like a King, relaxed, chatting with the inevitable girls who seemed to gather and turn their pretty faces up at him as would delicate cupped flowers toward the sun. There had been a cluster of girls around his own horse, though not, he thought irritably, quite so large a cluster. The man was seriously starting to annoy him.

Jamie Kirkpatrick rode a chestnut mare sixteen hands high with a gleaming coat and form that said she was both well exercised and well fed. Andrei’s own mount was a sturdy steppe pony, fourteen and a half hands at the withers and a descendant of those tough little horses upon which the Mongol hordes had conquered the Eastern world.

James Kirkpatrick rode as though he’d been born on horseback, for the horse checked and swerved like water parting around reefs and shoals, with no more than a slight movement of the man’s hands or a whisper low to the pretty mare’s head. Andrei rode just as well, for he had trained on the wide open steppes of the Ukraine without a saddle or bridle, and had learned the hard way how to control a horse with muscle and will, how to coax the best from the animal, and how to become a part of the flow and stretch so that one no longer knew which was oneself and which was horse.

The first chukka consisted of the two teams getting a feel for the other. Andrei even managed to eke out a goal. It was hard won, for the Irish bastard played a hard opposition and gave absolutely no quarter. He was damn good, but that was fine by Andrei because he was quite certain he was better. By the end of the first chukka, he was no longer feeling quite so superior. He had been ruthlessly checked, and he was of the mind that the ball was somehow magnetized to that bastard’s stick. Still, his goal remained the only one.

First chukka down, five to go.

Andrei started the second chukka in high humor. His horse was warmed up now and prancing under him with barely restrained energy. They were up one point and his blood was thrumming in a most pleasant manner through his veins.

His humor did not last long. The play in the second chukka was brutal, but this Andrei did not mind. It was that bastard James Kirkpatrick that had him riled.

He turned in the saddle, only to the find the bastard on his left flank, going like fury. The next thing he knew was a sharp knock and scrape that felt like his head was being re-positioned in an ungentle manner and his helmet was gone. He raised his stick ready to smack the bastard, only to find he was gone in a sleek ripple of emerald silks. Andrei kicked his pony’s sides and tore after him, though the demon was partway across the field with Andrei’s helmet no longer in hand.

For Andrei’s helmet was currently soaring in a glorious parabola, high up into the sun and then came down, mud and all, into the silken lap of a brunette with good teeth. The crowd roared with laughter and Andrei felt a surge of pure Russian fury ice his veins. Then the crowd was roaring in approval for the man had flown upfield and knocked the ball in from half a length of the course away while the rest of the players were distracted by the sailing helmet.

The man smiled and removed his own helmet, his golden hair wet and gleaming as sunflowers. He tossed it into the stands where the curvy redhead who had drawn Andrei’s eye earlier caught it with a smile that bespoke a wealth of promises, none of them polite.

It was mad to play without helmets. A ball in the temple was certain death. The play ought to have been stopped but it was a game played for fun, not to be taken seriously and Andrei knew no one was about to try and stop either him or Jamie at this point. They were enjoying the spectacle too much.

Three chukkas down, three to go. And the emerald bastards were ahead by one.

Half-time was spent changing horses and switching ends so no one could complain of a wind disadvantage, and assessing oneself for injuries.

In the second half, Andrei felt as though he were playing against the Devil himself, for the Irish bastard rode like the wind upon the back of a mythical winged horse.

They tangled over and over, a mesh of horseflesh and men and mallets and elusive ball. Setting up play after play, knocking the ball in for the other players, some of whom were giving them a wide berth each time they slammed together. Neither of them particularly noticed, for the universe had narrowed to the two of them.

During one tussle, when the ball was between them, caked with mud, horse’s withers also thick with it, Andrei had voiced his displeasure.

“
Svoloch
,” he hissed at the man, then curvetted his pony in an arc and brought the mallet down to hit the ball with a backswing. Instead, it hit with a furious crack on the chestnut mare’s foreleg. It had been an accident, though Andrei knew it looked like anything but, and made no effort to correct the impression. A penalty was called.

“
Bljad
,” Jamie said, green eyes narrowing like a furious jungle cat. The sight was pleasing to Andrei, who trotted away, back held straight as a Cossack. A string of seriously rude Russian followed him down the field, turning his milky white ears red at the tips. A Russian sailor would have been impressed; Andrei was not.

The buzzer went before play could be halted.

Four chukkas down, two to go.

The field was little more than churned mud, for though the inconstant English sun was now out on glorious display, it had rained all the morning and night before. Andrei’s thighs were numb and he knew they were bruised black. One shoulder felt as though it had been pulled out of its socket and popped back in by a giant’s hand. In other words, he felt roaringly alive and ready to show that Irish bastard to whom this game belonged. He used the four minutes to check his pony, to calm his anger and to refocus his mind on the game. He took a breath, feeling the hard pound of his blood and the quiver of his muscles, and then he turned the horse and started back up the field.

The Irishman was already pounding down the field toward him at a furious gallop, the new mare beneath him glittering like dark Baltic amber. Andrei set his own horse to a hard canter, seizing it expertly with his knees like a Cossack and demanding the run of its life.

Later, the women would speak of it with a flush in their faces and even the men would have a spark in their eyes, for it had been great sport. The two men engaged, the only two men anyone had eyes for had been golden princes—sun sparking from their bridles, gleaming off boots and saddles, and glittering off the blinding gold and shimmering white of their respective heads.

It occurred to Andrei halfway down the field that if he didn’t improvise, the Irishman would, if not outright kill him, at least maim him permanently. He should have apologized for the bloody horse—that had been a miscalculation, but it was too late to stop. Whatever was meant to happen was already rushing headlong at him and he was Russian. And any Russian worth his salt knew that Fate would have Her way.

The Irishman reached the ball first, but only a bare second before he did.

His hair soaked to his head, golden ends curling up, green eyes narrowed to slits, the man said something so exceedingly indelicate about Andrei’s mother in flawless Russian that Andrei was impressed despite his immediate wrath. He returned the favor in the coarsest words a Russian could summon up, which was to say extremely coarse, and then set about taking the ball away from the bastard. But the ball was gone. It had, through some devilish sleight of hand, been shot halfway across the field to the number one seated emerald player. And the Irish bastard was smiling.

The crowd was now focused on the number one seated players, locked in furious combat over the ball just as, Andrei saw with a lurch, the Irishman had intended they should be. He swerved, intending to jump the pony over to the right and avoid the man’s mallet. But in a movement too quick to even be seen, the mallet was tossed into the man’s left hand, which served a numbing crack to Andrei’s shin before being tossed back to the right. The Irishman’s mare did not miss a step and they flowed on like a golden stream down the field, where Jamie caught the ball as it shot out from Andrei’s number one’s mallet. He deftly shot it with his right hand straight between the posts.

Andrei shook his head in outraged admiration. The bastard was left-handed, but had been playing like some ambidextrous demon the entire time. His shin was starting to throb horribly.

They were even at four goals each.

Five chukkas down, one to go.

All hell broke loose in the sixth chukka. The field was slushy, the horses tired and the players all in the grip of a royal fury. Scarlet and emerald jerseys were near to indistinguishable under a thick veneer of mud and bruises in shades of vermilion and puce, ochre and verdigris were flowering on every bit of visible skin.