Pawn in Frankincense (34 page)

Nursed by slaves and fed by Onophrion Zitwitz on fish wafers and coloured jellies, egg custards and stamped oranges with honey and cypress root, Jerott Blyth had made swift convalescence. During this, he had seen little of Lymond, who clearly did not want his company; and the news of Lymond’s attempted escape had left Jerott speechless. The next morning he passed the doomed fisherman, a sickening carcass on the walls, on his way to answer a summons from the Aga Morat, whose pavilions dotted the sandy plain: his escorting soldiers hurried him past with the points of their lances.

All their guards had been changed and increased in number, and two armed men now followed each of them whenever they stepped outside the palace: Lymond’s doing assuredly. Rumour had it that Dragut’s woman had proclaimed that any further escapes would be paid for by the torture and death of Onophrion: Onophrion, shrugging, had said, without any great originality but with characteristic fortitude, ‘To make an omelette, eggs must be broken. My death is no loss compared with Mr Crawford’s, when one considers the garments one has prepared for him; chest after chest; all of them unused.’

Walking across the sand between the Aga Morat’s soldiers, it struck Jerott that only a short time ago it would have seemed inconceivable even to ask himself whether or not Lymond intended to put Onophrion’s life thus to risk. Insulated in his own island of trouble, he had failed to notice the extent of the breach—the empty bed, the unspoken counsel—which now lay between them.

Entering the Aga Morat’s tent, blinding scarlet and gold under the morning sun, the first voice he heard was Francis Crawford’s,
speaking softly as he did in extreme anger, and in Arabic. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the shade, Jerott saw that the Aga, his lips scarlet against the black mass of his beard, was inflated with rage also, sitting outglaring the speaker, his small fists like gourds fastened on to his horse-wand.

Jerott’s feet moved on the carpet. Lymond swung round, his face disfigured with bruises and anger, and said, ‘You are not needed here. You have the Aga’s permission to go.’ There were deep weals on his arms. Puzzled and angry in turn, Jerott said, ‘What’s wrong? The Aga’s just sent for me.’

‘And you came. That was obliging,’ said Lymond. ‘Now the Aga wants you to turn and go back. Will you pack up all your cold-boiled emotions, and do what the hell you are told?’

The Aga Morat, gasping with fury, said to Lymond, ‘You will pay.… You will pay. And for nothing.’ Then Jerott, meeting Lymond’s blazing blue stare, turned and strode out. Behind him, he heard Lymond fling back at the Aga, ‘
What else do you have?
’

For the rest of that day, if he came back at all, Lymond eluded him; nor did he use his bed that night. By the second night, too stiff-necked to go about asking and too uneasy to sleep, Jerott left his mattress and wandered out into the dark, his loose burnous brushing the little hedges and potted trees, the tiled steps and chalices of unsleeping fountains winking under the moon. Scents marbled the night, streamed and skeined in the air, as tangible as the dyes in Youssef’s exquisite picture: lemon and orange, mint, marjoram, rose and the thick, warm perfume of peaches … 
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi
.

His beloved was dead. He could not remember her face; he could only remember what she was not: that her wit did not lance nor her indifference wound; that her eyes were not blue nor her hair long and heavy and fair.

It was Marthe; Marthe who filled his mind tonight; when an invisible key opened the door he had tried so hard to keep shut. He did not know, even now, why it had seemed so imperative to form no relationship with Marthe; he did know that his instincts had been all against trespassing on the no-man’s land which lay between Marthe and Lymond.

But both Marthe and Francis Crawford had shown that, far from bringing them irresistibly together, the terrible similarity between them had driven them apart as surely as the opposite poles of the magnet. She was no one’s property, thought Jerott, his heart pumping deeply. Since they were so alike, then … might he not hope that whatever had once prompted Lymond to befriend him might also please Marthe?

He stopped. The last flight of steps he had climbed had brought him out on the corner bulwark of the Palace: below him, faint in
the starlight, rolled the sandy plain, feathered with palms, and the silvered arena where lay the Arab encampment. Behind him, a light voice spoke, known to him in every timbre and cadence and damnable mockery. ‘Moping, Mr Blyth?’ said Marthe herself.

Very slowly, he turned. Once before she had stood thus with the moonlight behind her on the deck of the
Dauphiné
, and his heart, against his will, had hesitated and caught. Tonight, she had bound her hair in a plait which fell to her waist, and the gown which robed her from neck to foot smelt of myrrh. Waiting; studying him, she saw all the colour leave his face, and heard the sharp breath he took to relieve the constriction over his heart. Walking forward, she laid her arms on the wall, and drew breath in her turn.

‘Moping, on such a night for happiness? African roses in the moonlight, and a lover, sleepless, roaming the garden … I saw you from my window,’ said Marthe’s silver voice thoughtfully. ‘I saw you, dark and beautiful and restless, walk by the fountain, and I thought … to reach the nadir of tasteless and vulgar fatuity, I ought to plait my hair and walk out to meet you. Have you lost him again?’ said Marthe with interest. ‘He does get mislaid easily.’

But this time she had been too cruel, and too clever. Drawn so wantonly close to the pinnacle, Jerott could do nothing but fall. Quick as she was, she could not escape his two hands, trained soldier’s hands, dropping with the weight of the pillory over her shoulders and arms, or his voice confronting her, insistent, striving to be understood, ‘
Marthe. I love you.
’

He said it again, under his breath; driven suddenly into shock by the feel of her. Marthe studied his face. After the first second she made no effort to move or to escape: her face showed neither apprehension nor any of the actual pain he was causing her.

Instead, she said, ‘It seems we are sparing no cliché. You impertinent oaf of a schoolboy.… It’s because you can’t have Francis Crawford that you want me. That’s all.’

His hands did not fall: as the cock is snapped back by the trigger, so his unlocking grip sprang apart, and she was free. Jerott drew breath twice and let it out without speaking; and then stood still, breathing raggedly while the seconds passed, his face haggard with shock.

If Marthe felt any shred of sympathy she showed nothing of it. Bland and austere in the moonlight, she merely stared at him, curious, as he searched for something to say or to do. How long he stared back at her neither of them knew; until, all the lines of his striking face blurred with revulsion, ‘No,’ he said. ‘Oh, no. You’re wrong.’

‘You didn’t know?’ said Marthe. ‘Then it’s quite time someone told you, isn’t it? … Don’t apologize. I am not easily outraged. As you know, they are very broad-minded about these matters in Islam.… Or if you don’t know it, Francis Crawford certainly does.’

Jerott said, ‘He has made no … Marthe, this is madness! What are you talking about? I tell you I love you. You. Not anyone else.’

She was picking a spray of orange-blossom to pieces. Leaning on the smooth wall, the fat golden plait shining beside her, she let the white petals fall, one by one, down into the abyss below, the crushed scent filling the air. ‘I am quite wrong about Lymond? Tell me, why did you come out tonight?’

After the slightest pause he answered, ‘Because I couldn’t sleep.’

Her fingers working, she spoke without looking at him. ‘Because you were worried, perhaps; as a good captain should be, when his commander is missing without explanation? How many nights has he spent away recently?’

‘One or two. Several,’ said Jerott.

‘And would you like to know where he is?’ inquired Marthe. ‘I would take you to see him, except that he will be very comfortable and possibly sleeping by now. Also we might have some trouble leaving the palace.’

Jerott Blyth moved with sudden impatience. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘This is nonsense. They wouldn’t let Francis out of the palace at night.’

‘He goes under guard,’ she said. ‘But like the camel who cannot govern his appetite and will perish in clover, still always he goes.’

‘And comes back,’ said Lymond agreeably, just behind her.

She turned. Jerott heard a single, sharp intake of breath; but her impassive face gave nothing away. Lymond, equally still, with the faint light touching his hair and the disordered white shirt and European breech-hose he was wearing, stared her full in the face, wide-eyed and unblinking, for a long moment; and then, stretching one negligent arm, let fall through his fingers a small sprinkling of white, shabby petals. ‘Don’t throw them away,’ he said, in the same pleasant voice. ‘You may need them.’

‘You
were
outside the walls?’ said Jerott. He wondered how much Lymond had heard. He found also he actually wanted to be sick. Without answering, Lymond said briefly to Marthe, ‘Let him go.’

‘That was my intention,’ said Marthe. She added, her voice clear as a diamond, ‘But first he is anxious to know where you have been.’

‘In that case he will, I am afraid, remain anxious,’ said Lymond. ‘
Assai sa, chi nulla sa, se tacer’ sa
, so to speak. Furthermore, if we are to have enlightenment, I propose that we have general enlightenment. Will you call Kiaya Khátún, or shall I?’

A little silence fell. The heavy gold plait, loosened by some light humidity of her skin, had begun to unfurl over Marthe’s shoulder: the sheen of it, pulled slanting over her brow, gave to her eyes underneath a shadowed, fey quality, disturbing and troubled. She said, ‘Do what you wish. I don’t care.’

‘But I do,’ said Lymond. ‘I know you are bitter. I won’t believe you are jealous.’

Marthe broke into laughter. Flinging back her head she laughed, open-throated: genuine laughter, with a thread of hysteria somewhere behind it. The little petals, unregarded, tumbled down the folds of her robe to the ground. When she could speak: ‘I don’t want Jerott Blyth!’ she exclaimed.

‘Be quiet!’ For the first time, Lymond’s soft voice bit. ‘I know that. I spoke of something quite different.’

Jerott was trying to get away, blindly, like a man stumbled on devils. It was Marthe, he realized, who, changing place swiftly, had blocked his exit, and Lymond who, now stepping back, said quickly, ‘Go to bed. Forget what you’ve heard.’

Jerott stopped. Marthe said, in the identical soft voice, ‘Yes, go to bed, Jerott. But first embrace your master goodnight. Or take his hand. Or lay your head, if you can, on his shoulder. Why do you think he is careful tonight to stand off from you? Because, my dear Blyth, if you go near him, you will know where he has been.’

Jerott paused. In front of him, Lymond had not moved. To pass him, there was no need to approach closely. If he so wished, in his turn, Lymond had only to move backwards to avoid any contact at all. But he stood still and continued to stand still as, drawn by the girl’s hatred, and his own hurt and resentment, Jerott walked along the flower-strewn wall, slowly, closer and closer until, with a flash of his hand, he was able to grip Lymond hard by the arm.

There was no need to speak. Lymond’s blue eyes, narrowed and filled with a kind of weary distaste, stared back into Jerott’s, and Jerott, his fingers and thumb closing on skin and bone, blood and muscle and vein like a tourniquet, harder and harder, admitted to his understanding at last what his heart had already guessed.

Plain in the perfumed night; strident over the soft odours of trees and flowers and cirtons, the scents of sweet basil and spikenard rose from Lymond’s moist skin.

Braced though he was, the violence with which Jerott, turning, flung him off forced Lymond to step back to steady himself. Watching the other man stride down the steps and into the garden: ‘I am no longer Superintendent of the Five Cereals,’ murmured Lymond. He turned, the cold mockery back in his eyes, and stared into Marthe’s impassive face.

‘I love you not.… Oh, I love you not,’ he said. ‘Engrave it on the rinds of the cypress trees, and swear thy ring-doves to witness. You are a night-hunting sable, my Marthe, and your fur is soft, and your teeth are sharpened and wounding; but so are mine; so are mine.…’

He was very close to her: the hair identical to hers ruffled over his brow; the eyes open and inimical, of an identical blue. She could smell, sickeningly, the scent of him and sense, greater than her own, his physical power.

‘We are in the mud. Let us wallow,’ said Lymond bitterly. And
grasping her with fingers as pitiless as Jerott Blyth a moment before had used on himself, he bent his head and forced on her, with extreme and deliberate violence, the longest and the most savage kiss of which he was capable.

Bruised; stifled; contaminated, she could not quite weather it. Half weeping with hatred and with nausea, she gripped the wall as it ended and but for that could not have remained upright when he opened his hands.

Facing her in the moonlight, Francis Crawford too was none too steady: in his heavy-lidded eyes there was a queer lack of focus; a masking almost like blindness. But, after a moment, he spoke his farewell to her in something near his normal, light voice. ‘And whether that approached incest or not, I suppose only you know,’ he observed; and turning, walked down into the night.