Pawn in Frankincense (44 page)

The black eyes, so like his father’s and his uncle’s, shining with dread and excitement, glanced round, briefly, at Jerott. ‘Dead.… He fell on the way to the city. They say even his body had gone.’

The pain in Jerott’s arm, breaking through his consciousness, suddenly made his head swim. Killed … killed, after all. And not by Francis. Francis who, for the first time in his life, had stood aside from a battle, running no risks, and hazarding no injury which would flaw his efficiency in the one thing he had set himself to do: to kill Graham Malett. Turning, without a word, Jerott abandoned the boy and the crowds fighting out seawards into the boats, and struggled up through the sands, against the reeling mass coming towards him; the last of the rearguard under Strozzi, the blue panache, worn so fortuitously by Leone and not by Gabriel, lit by the flames.

With them came an onrush of Turks; a fresh party of cavalry, thrown into the town and racing over the square to pursue the Knights into the sea. Jerott saw them coming towards him, and knew he was isolated, and they were too many; and he would have no chance. The leader was pale-skinned, not olive like the Turk or tawny like the Moors of the coast. His robe, backlit by the fire, was white and almost transparent, and round his magnificent head he wore a black and gold foulard, wrapped over fold upon fold with a fall of fringe to his breast. He was smiling.

He was smiling still as he galloped past Jerott and reined, just beyond, where the boy Strozzi stood. Jerott, turning, saw the lad’s sword-point fall, and the grim purpose on his young face change, suddenly, to a look of amazed welcome. Then the Turk, with a little flourish of his own damascened blade, leaned forward amiably and plunged it through the boy’s heart.

It was Gabriel.

The boy dropped. Jerott, standing stock still, saw Leone Strozzi turn from the surf of the shore and, sword in hand, begin at a lumbering run to hurry towards them. He saw Graham Malett, still smiling, withdraw his long, smoking sword and turning, broad-shouldered and golden in burnous and turban, look into his eyes. And he felt a hand on his shoulder and a voice which was Lymond’s again; low, level and friendly, say, The standard needs you. This is my affair. Go.’

As Jerott drew breath, the choice was made for him. Struggling over the sand, laden with armour and weapons, Leone Strozzi on foot was no match for the mounted Turks dashing over the beaches towards him. As Jerott, light in his brigantine, threw himself forward; and others of his entourage, running behind, strove to surround and protect him, matches flared in the dark and half a dozen arquebuses spoke. Flinging up his arms, Strozzi fell. Behind him, Jerott saw Tolon de St Jaille falter and then drop, and another behind him cry out. Then he was at Strozzi’s side, kneeling, and saw the blood pouring dark over the sand from the ball in his thigh.

There was a Majorca Knight, one of the most powerful in his Langue, just behind. Between them, Jerott and he lifted the Prior, and with Toreillas carrying him in his arms and Jerott at his side, the other Knights shoulder to shoulder about them, they plunged out into the surf. With the din of the sea in his ears, drowning the musket shot and the cries, the clash of weapons and the pounding of hooves far behind him, Jerott forced his way through the water, using his sword as he went.

It was shallow. The smallest shallops had already come in as far as they dared and had taken off again, laden with soldiers: except for the Knights, most of the fighting men now surviving must be on board. For the bigger skiffs, deep water was needed. Straining his eyes, he could see far out, black against the lit galleys behind, a shape which must be the longboat of the Admiral galley, waiting for them. It seemed to him that he ran alongside the stumbling Toreillas with his burden for an eternity before the water deepened and, pursuit falling off, they forced their way through the current until the sea was waist high.

How many, Jerott wondered, could swim? Very few. Wearing a hundred pounds of plate armour, none at all. Some, with soaked fingers, he saw attempting to unbuckle back- or breast-plate: some
succeeded, and at the next, careful burst of arquebus fire fell, sagging, into the sea.

Jerott sheathed his sword. With his good hand under Toreillas’s elbow he guided him from rock to rock and ledge to ledge under the water until finally they were on the last spit of the long underwater shelf, and the longboat was bobbing there at their sides. Jerott waited to see Leone Strozzi and the Majorcan Knight safely aboard, and then, turning, made his way grimly back to the shore.

For a second, as he raced to help Strozzi, Jerott might have seen relief and another, unguarded expression on Lymond’s face. Then, moving faster even than Gabriel’s horse, surging through sand dunes towards him, Lymond turned, ducked as a scimitar skimmed him, and, seizing the man’s stirrups as he fled past, drove his knife into his attacker. He left it there. Then, running hard, Lymond vaulted into the saddle as the other man tumbled out and, gathering the reins, pulled the little horse round on its haunches as a sword flashed red in the air where he had been.

Opposite him, reined in also after that single, opportunist cut of his blade, Graham Malett sat still in the saddle, the fire striking sparks from the gold of his turban, his big-boned classical face as calm as his voice. ‘Francis Crawford, who was once a slight inconvenience … does your life please you at present?’

The blue eyes were wide. ‘It has brought me here,’ Lymond said. He could sense horses behind him. The little mare sidled, under his knees; and Gabriel’s horse edged round also in front of him, keeping his distance. He added, paraphrasing the Qur’ân, ‘
Let not pity for me detain you in the matter of obedience to Allâh.
’ The sea, where every movement was magnified, was not very far off. He continued edging towards it.

‘You know the Qur’ân,’ said Gabriel. His pace, following, was entirely leisurely. ‘It is a dramatic work.
And those of the left hand: how wretched are those of the left hand
,’ he quoted, the deep voice enriching the phrases. ‘
In hot wind and boiling water and the shade of black smoke, neither cool nor honourable
. I am afraid,’ said Sir Graham Reid Malett gently, ‘that you, my dear Francis, are of the left hand.’ He thought, seeking the words, and then added to it, mournfully: ‘
And if they cry for water, they shall be given water like molten brass which will scald their faces … Evil the drink; and ill the resting-place
 … Sour-gutted devils, the Ottomans. A lesson in Western civilization is going to do them no harm.’

They were in the sea. The counter-attack, which had followed the attack on the Prior, had spent itself, although for a while the Knights still on the shore had made the Aga Morat prudently order his men to withdraw and, dismounting, rake the beaches with fire. Anger on both sides had made the last skirmish a bitter one, and the beaches were black with the fallen. Far off, on a long spit running
out to sea, the standard fluttered, with fierce fighting going on about it. The shallops had come in, and about them the sands were emptying as the remaining men ran, under fire, for the sea. Around the two men, there was no sound but the rush of the waves and the splashing hooves of their circling horses. For the moment, they were alone. ‘A lesson in
what?
’ Lymond said. ‘What a pity your uncivilized cross-kissing colleagues chose another Grand Master.’

‘Grand Master to those old women? Who wants that?’ said Gabriel. He laughed. ‘After this, my dear, Charles will foreclose on Malta, and the Knights will be flung out on their gallant white crosses. I don’t mind sharpening my knife on a dunghill like Scotland or a sandcastle like Malta, for when the time is ripe, I shall rule over an empire. Stop sidling, my swan. I am going to hurt you, but I am not going to kill you, just yet. You are going to provide me with a deal of merriment still. I do not like being inconvenienced. I wish my friends to note what the consequences are.…’

The fires were dying. In the east, a hairline of light over the sea told that dawn was not now far off, but now it was dark, and in spite of the heat of the day the little chill wind of pre-dawning had risen to stir Gabriel’s turban and ruffle Francis Crawford’s damp hair. He had picked one of the trained horses. Used to the trick, it gave no sign as, still moving gently out through the water, Lymond slid his hand low and began to unbuckle the girth. ‘Incidentally,’ said Gabriel softly, ‘there is a marksman on the beach with orders to do nothing at all but keep his weapon trained strictly on you. Tell me: have you burned any straw lately?’

For the space of a breath Lymond’s fingers unloosing the buckle stopped in their work; and then went on smoothly and steadily to finish it. He said, ‘The worst of fires may be drowned in the sea.’ His horse was still.

‘But we have no fires here, have we?’ said Gabriel. ‘No sparks? No recrimination? No temper? When I think of the floggings some poor, half-demented fools at St Mary’s used to receive, I feel I must reprove this docility. Your mistress flayed? Your son scarred and degraded? Your person made a laughing-stock over the whole Middle Sea? And platitudes are all you can give me.’

‘They cost me least trouble,’ said Lymond. ‘What words could insult you?’

For a moment the smile lost its perfume. Then Gabriel said, ‘What do you propose then? A bedevilment by needles? What must I do to provoke you? You do not, by the way, use my title. I am not yet degraded by the poor Order, you know. In fact, I may say, you may no more unknight me than I may unlady your mother. Tell me,’ said Gabriel, ‘about the beautiful Marthe?’

‘Who can tell about the beautiful Marthe?’ said Lymond levelly. ‘Since she is not signed in the genitive?’

And Gabriel throwing back his head laughed, and laughing gave a mock groan, and said, smiling, ‘My God: my God: why alone are you not my slave? Why do you not adore me, who care for nothing and are distressed by nothing in this world, except what touches your vanity? You wish to wrest your son from my power.…

Have you even discovered that there is not one child, but two? Do you care which is yours? Does it matter to you if one is taken from me and one is left to suffer and rot?’

His hands still, his work abandoned, Francis Crawford stared at the other in silence. Then: ‘Who is the other child?’ said Lymond at last.

In the growing light, Graham Malett’s glorious face was filled with indulgence and joy; he was in power and at peace, with the world on a string at his girdle. ‘Does it matter?’ he said. ‘Never on this earth will you distinguish them, nor is there any person now living who knows one child from the other. To be sure of finding your boy you must now find and take possession of both; to be sure of nurturing your boy, you must nurture and cherish not one but both. Of the two children you have found—you are right—one is your son. The other,’ said Graham Malett joyously, in his rich singing voice,
’the other is mine and Joleta’s.’

However strong the self-discipline, for every man there is a point beyond which the impulse to kill will not be denied. Gabriel knew Francis Crawford. He attacked, when Gabriel was expecting him to attack, but not quite as he expected it. The freed saddle, pulled from the mare’s back, hurtled through the air and struck Gabriel’s raised sword from his hand as Lymond, light and most punishingly practised, launched himself from his own horse on to Gabriel’s shoulders and bore him, dragging and with a final walloping splash into the dark, running sea. On shore, fire flashed and an arquebus spoke, and then another, but it was too tardy, too far away, and too dangerous, in the indistinguishable dark.

It was deep. He had made sure it was deep, for Turks do not swim; and Moors do not care to risk their lives for a renegade knight. Gabriel could swim. Gabriel had the advantage of weight and height; of friends who would rescue him wounded; of constant, practised training in battle over all these last months which Francis Crawford was aware that he lacked. So the killing had to be done now, in this first moment; as they both fell choking into the waves. There was no time to unsheathe his sword. But Lymond’s right hand, with the long dagger ready, drove with all his force straight at Gabriel’s heart.

It hit not flesh but metal. It slid from some object laid like a carapace over Gabriel’s heart and, dragging bloody across the skin of his chest, lost its force harmlessly in the sea till Lymond pulled his hand back and, flinging himself off, trod water in a sudden deep
channel, and then, finding his footing, braced himself against Gabriel’s counter-attack. As it carried him under the water, he knew suddenly what it was he had hit. It was the crucifix; the great silver crucifix of the Knights of St John, which Gabriel wore still, undiscarded in haste, below the folds of his burnous. And through all that followed, Lymond carried the irony of it, wry as aloes, at the back of his mind.

Insensibly, the sky was lightening. To the successful defenders of Zuara left on the shore; to the Turks rounding up captives, to the Moors picking over their booty; to the men appointed with their arrows and arquebuses, straining their eyes over the dark water, the attack was at first merely a dimly lucent explosion of spray, followed by the slow, surging shapes of two horses, half swimming for shore. Then as the sky paled from second to second from indigo to jade it was possible to make out the two heads, darkened with water; and on the beach the Aga Morat suddenly ejaculated, ‘Allah! Allah preserve him!’ while from the sea, Jerott Blyth, having seen the standard on board and the last of the shallops filling, swam towards the fight that he knew he would never reach until it had ended, one way or the other.

Gabriel, of the magnificent shoulders and the thick, corded arms, was content merely to find his grip, and to hold his man down. Slender, twisting, Lymond eluded him … not always, but so far for long enough to rise retching to the surface for a starving portion of air before he could coil down, knife in hand, and avoid the drowning weight on his hips and his shoulders, the strangling arm under his chin, the knife Gabriel held prepared in his bear hug, to slit into belly or chest.
I am going to hurt you, but I am not going to kill you just yet
. So Gabriel had said, when his own life was not yet in question. It did not apply now; not any longer, since he discovered, as he would not admit he had discovered, how close a match he had found in one other man.