Pawn in Frankincense (4 page)

‘M. le Comte, it was a privilege. I have seen many gentlemen enjoying themselves with a game of cards or a fight, but never a performance of both so
aristocratic
,’ said Onophrion Zitwitz. Below the opulent features, hairlessly moulded in pink marzipan, the controller’s large body was dressed in sober brown short coat and breeches, with the smallest curled feather in his flat, matching cap. His voice, a musical light tenor surprising in that solid, Swiss bulk, became modestly hesitant. ‘In fact, my winnings being something considerable, I have ventured to show my appreciation. The dressing of meat in this inn is better than in most, but I should not call the roasting-shop proprietor a genius: he needs to be supervised and he is prodigal,
prodigal
, with the inferior spices. So I took the liberty … you have not yet dined?’

As in a trance, his three auditors shook their heads.

‘Good. I have taken the liberty of preparing your supper myself. This afternoon I chose the butters, the meats and the cheeses; I have made the bread and prepared the pastries. You have not tasted, I think, the roast venison we make in the castle, just moistened with wine, and with our black cherry sauce? The duke, I sometimes think, does not fully appreciate it. He is an old man. I choose his wines and select his clothes and make up his herbs and his physics, but my talents, I fear, are not used to the full. Not at all stretched.’

‘No. You cook? How magnificent,’ said Lymond breathlessly.

Master Onophrion Zitwitz opened the door. Instead of discomfort and anger and scathing voices, the room became filled with trestle tables, linen, platters, beakers and a file of subdued-looking inn servants bearing trays covered with napkins. The smell of choice foods and wines made the pain in Philippa’s middle increase.

‘I am not a gentleman,’ said Master Onophrion Zitwitz. ‘I do not serve. But I control all the practical aspects, you understand, of His Grace’s household. For this it is necessary to know whether a thing is being done well or badly, and why. I may claim, I think, to be an expert in most if not all of the domestic arts. This is no boast: I have documents to say so from noblemen I have served all over Europe.’

He surveyed the smoking tables and the servants melting in orderly decline through the door.

‘Yes. I am correct in saying, I think, that your supper would have been eatable, but not memorable. I have made the sauces a little sweet, for madame’s taste. Permit me to leave you to enjoy it.’

Ten years had dropped from Jerott. He looked at Lymond, and Lymond said, ‘But we are utterly overwhelmed. I cannot imagine why you should have felt any obligation towards us, although I cannot help being happy that you have. But having prepared this inestimable feast, surely you will give us the pleasure of sharing it with us?’

‘That is not my place,’ said Master Zitwitz. He looked pleased. ‘At the baths, yes. But being in service, one does not eat in gentlemen’s rooms. If you will permit me, I shall call later. I wish to have your views on the custards.’

‘You disappoint us,’ said Lymond. ‘But we shall look forward with pleasure to dissecting the meal.… Until later then, Master Zitwitz.’ The controller smiled, favoured them with a correct bow, and withdrew. The door closed.

As if released by a string, Jerott, his shoulders trembling with laughter, dropped among the pasties and started to splutter. Lymond’s seraphic expression, surveying the feast, did not alter. Philippa, her hands screwed into her skirt, said, ‘Why did you laugh?’

‘I didn’t laugh,’ said Lymond. ‘It’s Jerott’s childish sense of humour assaulting the eardrums. For God’s sake let’s sit down and eat: he’s inhaled the cherry sauce three times already.’

‘Why did you laugh when you knew why I meant to come with you?’ said Philippa, and Jerott put his hand on her arm.

To look after the baby
, she had said. A subject none of them mentioned: an affair so private and painful that you pretended it didn’t exist. Unless you were Philippa Somerville.

Last year an Irish mistress of Francis Crawford’s had been captured by Dragut Rais, the Turkish corsair. Lymond had been told that she had died. Only when his adversary Gabriel was defeated and begging for his life did Lymond learn that the woman Oonagh O’Dwyer was alive, and had given birth to his son.

Gabriel had escaped, taking with him the secret of the whereabouts of mother and child. He had done more. He had made it clear that their safety depended on him. And that any attempt to interfere with his life or his liberty would result in the death, wherever he was, of the child, Lymond’s son.

So Graham Malett had vanished, and shortly after that Lymond himself had disappeared, to be run down in this costly Swiss hostelry, taking the waters in his own inimitable fashion and in no mood, it was clear, for unwanted company.

So: ‘Why did you laugh?’ demanded Philippa, and shook Jerott’s hand off her arm.

‘Oh, that?’ said Lymond. ‘But, my dear child, the picture was irresistible. Daddy, afflicted but purposeful, ransacking the souks of the Levant for one of his bastards, with an unchaperoned North Country schoolgirl aged—what? twelve? thirteen?—to help change its napkins when the happy meeting takes place.… A gallant thought, Philippa,’ said Lymond kindly, sitting down at the table. ‘And a touching faith in mankind. But truly, all the grown-up ladies and gentlemen would laugh themselves into bloody fluxes over the spectacle. Have some whatever-it-is.’

Philippa’s eyes, stiff, brown and unyielding, stared unwinkingly at his face. ‘Then where are you going?’

‘I wondered when someone was going to ask that,’ said Lymond; and Jerott, pressing Philippa into a seat, sat down quietly himself, his appetite gone. ‘Tell us,’ Jerott said. ‘Bearing in mind, if you can, what Philippa has done for you.’

Lymond laid down his knife. ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘of going to Brazil. An expedition under de Villegagnon is leaving fairly soon. It might be less tedious than some. I had a long talk with de Villegagnon, by the way. He has given me a little more written proof of Sir Graham Malett’s defection. Added to what I have already, it makes certain at least that Gabriel can never set foot again either in France or in Scotland.’

‘And that is enough for you?’ said Jerott. ‘He may gather men, money and power and range himself where he pleases: with the Emperor, with the Sultan, with the enemies of Scotland and the Faith, and you mean to do nothing? He can pay an employee to trap and chastise you, and you talk of clearing off to Brazil?’

‘I said I thought of it,’ said Lymond. ‘For God’s sake, eat the custards at least. We’ll have Gargantua back in a moment expecting a consumers’ opinion.… Then I called on Henri II of France, His Sacred Majesty, the abstract and quintessence of all honour and virtue, to hire him my small but excellent army. He also—
seid fröhlich, trinkt aus
—hired me.’

‘Oh,
Christ
, what as?’ said Jerott.

‘As a lackey, my lords,’ said Lymond. In his voice, light and absent, there was no warmth whatever. ‘An ingenious Frenchman called Gaultier has devised a hideous novelty: a clock combined with a spinet and covered with every sort of automata which does all but fry fish. I am to collect this achievement from his workshop at Lyons. I am to take the machine, with M. Gaultier to preserve it, on board one of His Grace’s galleys in the Mediterranean and deliver it, with trumpets, hautboys and dried neates’ tongues and marmalade to the court of Allâh’s Deputy on Earth, the Lord of Lords of this world, the Possessor of Men’s Necks, the Majestic
Caesar, the Prince and Lord of the most happy Constellation and the Shadow of the Almighty dispensing Quiet in the Earth … Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.’

‘You’re sailing to Constantinople?’ said Jerott.

‘As the King of France’s special envoy.’

‘And Sir Graham Malett?’

‘Is in Malta.’

Jerott Blyth sprang up. Watching the skin tighten on the prominent bones of his face Philippa felt her own stomach waver once more. Malta was the home of the great Order of Chivalry to which Jerott himself had belonged, as well as Graham Reid Malett, this unique and brilliant man, whose chances in Scotland Lymond had just destroyed. Malta was the home of the Knights of St John whom Gabriel had tried to betray to the Turks after failing in his hopes of acquiring the highest power, the Grand Mastership, which would have given him control of all the Mediterranean. Because the Grand Master was himself a cunning and powerful man, with the support of France’s rival, the Emperor, Gabriel had been unable to achieve the foothold he wanted and had left to try his fortune in Scotland instead. If he was back, it meant only one thing.

‘The Grand Master of the Order is dying,’ said Lymond. ‘Gabriel hopes to succeed him.’

Jerott made a sudden, theatrical gesture. ‘After selling them out to the Turks? After what he did to seize power in Scotland?’

‘How should the Order know about that? Malta’s a long way from Scotland.’

‘You have all the proof you were talking about. Take it to them,’ said Jerott, aghast.

‘Don’t be an ass. Grand Master de Homedes would place me in hell or in hop-shackles, and burn all the papers. He’s the Emperor’s minion, remember, and he’s not dead just yet. As far as he’s concerned I’m a cat’s-paw of France, and any papers I bring are all too likely to reveal his own double-dealing.’

‘Then
I’ll
take them,’ said Jerott.

‘Same story,’ said Lymond. ‘You’re not only suspect, you’ve opted out of the Order. I can see them flinging out their favourite Knight of Grace on your advice.’

‘I see,’ said Jerott slowly. ‘You’ve thought it all out.’

‘That’s what I do,’ said Lymond. ‘I sit on my brood-patch and think. I’m going to Constantinople. You’re going to Flaw Valleys, England, with Philippa. Graham Malett is going to be Grand Master of the Order of St John.’

‘Graham Malett is going to die,’ said Jerott mildly. ‘And I’m going to kill him.’

There was a silence. The perfumed meats, congealing on their platters, soured the cold air with their smells. Through the thick
shutters the sound of bells and the rumble of horse-sleighs troubled the air and were gone. Voices sounded below from the public parlour, protesting as the pot of
Schlaftrunke
, the last of the night, was put down. Lymond said, ‘No one is going to kill Graham Malett.’

Jerott faced him; still and quiet. ‘I am. There are a hundred places on Malta where a small boat can land. I can’t perhaps bring him to justice. But I can kill him.’

‘No,’ said Lymond.

‘I’m not asking your permission,’ said Jerott. His plate, piled with irrelevant food, still lay untouched on the table. ‘I don’t want your help. Or maybe you don’t think you need help? Maybe you’re hoping to rouse Islam to crush the Knights for you, Gabriel included?’

‘Settle down with a harem at last? What a skittish fancy you do have,’ said Lymond. He stood up slowly, the long oversleeves sliding; the shoulder-buckles gold in the candlelight, and moving across to the stove picked up a billet of wood and began rebuilding the fire. His hands, performing their exact office, drew Philippa’s aching attention as how often before to their form and their strength. ‘No,’ he said at last, shutting in the new fire and, rising, turned round. ‘… Oh, God: all this bloody food. Where can we dump it?’

‘There’s a place,’ said Philippa suddenly. ‘If you open the back window, there’s a rubbish-dump underneath. The snow would cover it quite fast.’ Lymond walked to the window.

‘Well?’ said Jerott. Alone of the three he had stayed where he was, waiting. ‘You don’t want Gabriel dead. Supposing you tell us all why?’

‘Oh,
Jerott
,’ said Philippa. She turned, a trembling green jelly in one hand and a bowl of soup in the other, and her nose had begun to run because she was crying inside her eyes. ‘Because if anything happens to Gabriel, the little boy has to die.’

‘But …’ said Jerott, not adjusting and loathing it. ‘But …?’

‘But how amusing,’ said Lymond, admonishing. In a shower of almond blancmange, the last of Master Onophrion’s light supper went shooting into the yard and, closing the shutters, Francis Crawford walked back into the room and laid the platter carefully back in its place. ‘You heard. The policy is one of strict laissez-faire for a very good reason. If anything happens to Gabriel, Daddy’s little bastard will die.’

Soon after that, Master Onophrion Zitwitz arrived. Shivering, in spite of the newly filled stove, Philippa barely heard Lymond’s smoothly turned compliments, or the controller’s satisfied acceptance of them. In her ears were Jerott’s guarded apologies, and the light ruthlessness with which Lymond had silenced him.

More clearly now than when they had entered the chamber that
evening and met the first shock of his anger did she understand why Francis Crawford found their presence in Baden insupportable. Jerott, she knew, would not join Lymond now. Nor would she presume to scratch the gloss of his mission with her juvenile presence.…

A long time afterwards, she was to remember what an excellent chess-player Francis Crawford was. And that, whether romance existed in him or not, sentimentality had no place at all.

But at the time she arrived only so far in her thinking; and then was drawn out of her abstraction by Master Zitwitz’s voice saying, ‘But, M. le Comte, I cannot tell you how sensible I am of the honour. I shall serve the embassy with my life.’

‘What?’ said Philippa hoarsely to Jerott.

‘It’s recruiting day,’ said Jerott in a murmur. ‘He’s asked Master Zitwitz to leave the duke and travel with him as household controller to the Ambassador’s residence in Turkey.’

Philippa Somerville blew her nose sharply. ‘On the strength of his sweet cherry sauce?’

‘On the strength, I think, of that handy right uppercut,’ said Jerott. ‘I’ve said we’ll ride with them to Lyons, and then I’m taking you back home to England. If you agree.’

‘I think,’ said Philippa mutinously, ‘I want to go to Brazil.’