Pawn in Frankincense (32 page)

‘Surely,’ said the dark-haired young man in the violet tunic, and, susurrating silvery music, he walked smoothly in. ‘And these are thy friends?’

Performing the introductions, Philippa was all too conscious of the Geomaler’s dark grey eyes resting on the bill of lading dropped on the table, the interlaced foreign writing plain in the candlelight. Míkál, smiling, bowed. ‘I see thou hast lit on the secret. I have witnessed the signor, often, shading a little paper over a candle. He does not expect simple minds to understand.’

‘I was lucky,’ said Philippa. ‘I’m afraid I opened Signor Donati’s desk on my way through his rooms. There were several packets of bills already treated, but until you talked about Gabriel, I didn’t realize what it meant.’

‘Did I mention Gabriel?’ said Míkál.

‘No. I did. Your purity remains undefiled,’ said Philippa tartly. ‘Whatever happens to Gabriel, if there’s justice, will be my pleasure. We only wanted you to tell us, if you will, about the child.’

She wasn’t feeling casual. It had taken a great deal of nervous energy to defy Archie’s outspoken disbelief and drag him to Zakynthos. His lack of reproaches over the delay in the Lazaretto had been a burden itself; and now she had embroiled Sheemy Wurmit mercilessly in her single-minded affairs. Her friend of the religion of love said in his musical voice, ‘Thou wouldst learn of the child from Algiers, the white child whose ring was given to Jacomo?’

‘Yes. What is his name?’ said Philippa. ‘And what is he like?’

The candle shivered, starring his earrings with silver, but without lighting his eyes. ‘His nurse, the mother of Jacomo, called him Lambkin, Kuzucuyum,’ said Míkál. ‘I know no other name.’

‘He’s healthy, is he?’ said Archie; and in the dim light Míkál’s mouth sketched a quick smile.

‘Like a bullock. Hewn from sparstone, like satin, containing its light. Masked like a Schwatzen horse with yellow silk hair, chopped along the bridge of his nose. A nose; two eyes, and a mouth. He speaks English.’

‘From Jacomo’s mother?’ asked Philippa briskly. Her voice, ratting on her, split in the middle.

‘From the nurse he had left in Algiers. He is between one year and two. He walks, eats, shouts, laughs, sings, and is a proper boy-child. That is why the Commissars took him away.’

‘The Commissars!’ said Sheemy Wurmit sharply.

‘Thou knowest, then,’ said Míkál, turning. ‘The Commissars for the Levy of Children. They came here a month ago for their tribute and took him, with the rest of the levy.’

‘Why … 
where
has he gone?’ said Philippa without any breath left at all.

‘East, to be sure: they make the Devshirmé only every four years, and children have to be gathered from Albania, Servia, Bosnia, Trebizond, Mingrelia—from every part of the Empire as well as in Greece. One in three male children, at the choice of the Deputy. That is the custom. Then …’ Míkál shrugged. ‘The least comely will till the fields in Natolia, learn Turkish and how to endure hardship: they are circumcised and become followers of Islam. Presently, they are brought to Constantinople, to the Aga of Ajémoghláns, and are taught crafts, or the art of war. The best of these may become Janissaries. The worst carry water and wood, clean the Seraglio, care for the gardens or the horses or the barges, or serve the Spahis and Janissaries themselves. He will not be one of these.’

‘What then?’ It was Archie, as Philippa’s voice failed her.

‘The good corn; the beautiful; the bright, are the Grand Sultan’s own. With three thousand hand-picked children the boy is on his way to the Topkapi Seraglio at Stamboul. For four years he will live in the harem, serving and learning, under the wisest men of the Empire. He will be taught Turkish, Persian and Arabic and the Sheriát of Islam. He will learn to run like a gazelle, to ride, to shoot, to cast the javelin, and the arts of wrestling and falconry. He will be taught music and poetry and the exercise of his senses. If he is chosen as a page, he will be adorned with delicate tints, dressed in sweet scents and in clothes of scarlet and white. In time, he may fill one of the highest offices of the land. He may become a judge, a jurist, a court official, a governor of a province. He may become Agha of the finest of troops, the Janissaries, the Bostanjis, the Spahis. He may, if he is brilliant and wise, become Grand Vizier, or supreme head of the civil and military empire under the Sultan. For thus does the Sultan rule. Through former Christians, without parents, without money, without brothers, without power, who owe all to him; and in dying, will leave it to him once again.… This child: the child of thy quest has gone to all this.… Wilt thou bring him back?’ said Míkál.

‘Yes,’ said Philippa.

‘To what?’

There was a silence. Frightened, Philippa looked at Archie, and then at Sheemy Wurmit and, instead of an answer, saw the same question reflected in two pairs of eyes. To what?

To his heritage? He was a bastard. To the world of Gabriel? But that meant hurt, deprivation, and ultimate death.

In Constantinople, or Stamboul as she must learn to call it, he would be rich, cared for, and safe. He would learn the graces his mother would never teach him, and the arts his father would never take the time to bestow. With every talent trained and cherished, he might grow to position and power incomparable. But…

Her face red, Philippa said, ‘I’m not bringing him back to anything. I’m taking him away from something.’ And again, Míkál said only, ‘From what?’

‘From the life you’ve described. From being a scholar, and also a page to the Sultan. From dying rich, and dying without kinsmen. From distorting in Islam a temperament shaped for Western philosophies. From wielding a power that may bring him face to face on a battle-plain with his own flesh and blood.… Míkál, will they allow me to buy him?’

‘If thou hast money enough, go to the Commissaries who accompany the levy and make thy wish known. If they are already in Stamboul, then——’ He broke off as Philippa jumped to her feet.

‘The
Subject
! Of course. Archie, that’s what the message meant.
The Subject is at Djerba
. Who else is Gabriel tracking so carefully but Mr Crawford! So the
Object——
’

‘… is the baby,’ said Archie.

‘
The Object goes to Stamboul
,’ quoted Philippa exultantly. ‘It fits!’ She frowned. ‘But if Gabriel is already intriguing with Turkey, he’ll make sure that they don’t sell the baby to Lymond. We ought to get it back now, before it gets to Stamboul; before Gabriel even knows that we’ve found it. With Mr Crawford chasing false clues all over North Africa, of course Gabriel’s suspicions will be lulled. Think of it,’ said Philippa gloatingly. ‘We let Signor Donati, without suspecting anything, supply another bill of lading in place of the missing one, secret writing and all. Mr Wurmit—you
will
, won’t you?—travels on the same ship to Malta, sees the Grand Master and exposes Gabriel’s collusion with Turkey. Gabriel is finished, and Leone Strozzi’s expedition to Zuara is a howling success. Meanwhile,’ said Philippa dreamily, ‘Archie and I follow the children, find and pay for our yellow-haired bullock and bear him home to his father on elephants. Paeans, circuses.’

There was silence. Then Archie Abernethy cleared his throat briefly. ‘You’ve overlooked a wee something,’ he observed. ‘If Mr Crawford’s a prisoner on Djerba, it’s on Gabriel’s orders. If anything happens to Graham Malett, Mr Crawford’ll no Uve long after it Man, they’ll fill him with stuffing and bread him. He’s got to get out of Djerba beforehand. Moreover——’

‘Moreover, I’m no blate about going to Malta,’ said Sheemy Wurmit comfortably, ‘but the way winds are, I might well get there two weeks too late. There’s no date set for this attack on Zuara. It might be over, for all you and I ken.’

Philippa’s bony jaw squared. ‘I see,’ said the heir to the Somervilles. ‘It’s the good old freemasonry of gentlemen squires. You want to go straight to Djerba, get Lymond out, and sprint off to Zuara to save the Knights and make leched beef of Blue Panache in person. You’ve forgotten one thing. If Gabriel dies, the child dies. If you go, how do I get to that party of children?’

‘I take you,’ said the Pilgrim of Love. Reclined with grace on a mattress beside them, he had faded from their attention, occupied with planning and argument. Now, as he stirred, the lamplight fell on his graceful limbs and his angular, open-eyed face, and the little bells whispered. ‘In a place known as Usküb, in north-west Macedonia, the children are gathered. They will not have reached Stamboul yet. I shall take you to them, I and my friends. You will be safe. But it means you entrust yourself and your money to me. You are not prepared to do that.’

Philippa considered him. A plain child, her thin face weathered to the colour of good oxblood hide; her hair reduced to mud-coloured thatch by the sun and her hard-worn, voluminous skirts not only grimy but distinctly frayed round the hemlines, she was unequivocably nobody’s moppet. She said, ‘I think I trust you. But Mr Abernethy has more experience of the world than I have. Archie?’

Archie Abernethy drew a deep breath and, from the bottom of what was indeed a profound experience of men and animals, drew of his knowledge of both. ‘Your name is Míkál,’ he said. ‘And you’re one of the Pilgrims of Love. I’ve kent others. They’re not all pure, not holy, nor indeed very strong in the heid. But one and all, they’ve been well-meaning bairns. What I must ask you now is not whether you mean well; I think ye do. But have ye the wits to safeguard and cherish a lassie?’

‘It is said, “Every soul is held in pledge for what it earns,”’ said Míkál. ‘I vow to you, by my soul, that I shall protect her.’

‘You are vowed to love,’ said Archie. ‘If she is threatened, or the gold she carries, what will protect her?’

‘They are the slaves of violence, whose master I am,’ said Míkál. ‘Can there be doubt who will prevail?’

‘I spoke of a man,’ said Archie. ‘A man at present in Djerba. The gold is his gold, and the boy is his son. If the girl is harmed, or the son, or the gold, God will dance for him.’

‘I hear thee,’ said Míkál blandly. ‘God send thee no more rest than a Christian’s hat: but thou art a good man.’

‘I understand lions,’ said Archie.

They took their leave of her, Archie and Sheemy Wurmit, next morning: Sheemy to travel to Malta, blithely, to meddle in Sir Graham Malett’s affairs, not without hopes of reward; and Archie
to take passage on a south-bound trading-ship which would, expensively, land him by skiff outside Djerba. He was dressed in his turban, his speech accented in Urdu.

It was Philippa’s last link with home—the very last. The last link with Scotland. The last link with Kate. The last link, perhaps, with Francis Crawford, on whom, through the years, she had spent so much unhappy dislike.

There had been no hint, in that cheerful, self-confident upbringing on the North Tyne, that one day she would find herself alone in the Ionian Sea, on the verge of a journey into the unknown with a stranger of one day’s acquaintance, seeking a child of that same Francis Crawford’s.

She had been happy at home. Gideon, the most gentle of fathers, had in his life been her hero; Kate had been and was her beloved. What the grown-up future might hold she had always mistrusted. She feared and disliked the sophistication of courts; she treasured the freedom of childhood; she shied from the bore and the prig, the sentimental and the smart, the intense and the humourless. She had been cynical, as was Kate, about senseless adventure. A different thing, she and Kate had told each other, from the slaking of a well-formulated cultural hunger.…

Oh,
Kate,’
said Philippa, with a lemony smile; and, drying her one cowardly eye, blew her nose and went off briskly to place her honour, her quest, and her hopes of minimal daily nourishment without overmuch garlic at the feet of her Pilgrim of Love.

On Djerba, the August sun, burning, had set fire to the whole white-hot arc of the sky; blazing down on white sands and white walls; on the painted green and black of the palms and their shadows; on the idle nets, the sun-dried shallops drawn up on the beaches; and the lustreless spars of the
Dauphiné
as she lay idle at anchor in the inner pool.

In the villages; in the little market town near the palace, the curs slept in the shade; the camels rested, chewing, their liquid eyes almost closed; mules stood motionless, drooping in the silent courtyards. And in Dragut’s palace also, in this the worst heat of the day, people and animals slept, those that could; and those who could not amused themselves in their various fashions.

The mistress of Dragut’s palace, who called herself Güzel, or Kiaya Khátún, had taken her lute to the picture-maker’s, a cabin in a little-used courtyard behind the stables; and was playing and singing, absently, in her thickly golden contralto, while she watched the old man who, in spite of the heat, was working with spidery delicacy among his papers inside. She didn’t turn as Marthe came through the open door, but continued what she was singing, her eyes downcast, her brow clear under the little band-box hat with its short, pristine veil.