Pawn in Frankincense (45 page)

In his anger, his physical power seemed to increase. Once, knife in teeth, he caught Lymond on an upsurge and, gripping his body, flung him as a cormorant disgorges a fish, helter-skelter, crashing into the water, exposed to the lunge Gabriel then made, knife in hand. The blade scored the length of Lymond’s body as he rolled, choking, to avoid it; but the plates of the brigantine saved him and he dived, dragging down Gabriel in his turn; refusing to be kicked off; holding until his lungs as well as Gabriel’s were bursting and then rising with a backward kick between the other man’s legs and behind him, ready to swallow his air, and seize the leonine head as it rose, and plunge it down, drowning again, the knife in his hand edging his throat.

That time, Gabriel let his knife drop. As it swayed glinting down into the depths he instead put up his hands and, seizing Lymond’s
two wrists held the knife from his throat and in a wrestler’s grip, increasing the pressure, began to force the other man, in a kind of iron slow motion, over his head, turning Lymond’s wrist as he did so that he must drop the knife, or allow it to break. And that time, they did not surface.

To Jerott, striking out blind to everything else, it seemed impossible, as from moment to moment the water swirled without breaking, that either man could stay below and alive for so long. To the horsemen gathered on the beach and wading reluctantly into the water, it seemed that both men were lost and it was consequently safe to venture outwards and plunder the bodies. It was to the credit of Jerott’s heart, if not of his good sense, that in spite of the oncoming horsemen he swam on, doggedly, through the opaline sea until, with the outer thread of the whirlpool of movement touching his fingers, he saw something rise in the centre, and lie in its ringed silver chalice, passive as seaweed, with the dark blood swaying like fronds at its sides. It was Gabriel: his eyes closed, his face suffused, with the arteries of both wrists deeply and raggedly slit, and his life’s blood pouring out. Of Lymond, there was no sign at all.

Jerott took a deep breath; and dived.

Francis Crawford was there, not far below, his eyes closed; his hair moving pale in the water. Perhaps he had been trying to surface: perhaps, holding the bleeding man down, minute after minute, he had left it too late. He made no resistance as Jerott gripped him and pulled him above, nor was there any time for elaborate revivication with the Aga Morat’s horsemen trampling the waters. Jerott thumped him once on the back; saw, grimly, no change on the closed and motionless face and, consigning the outcome to fortune, seized Lymond in a less than classic one-handed grasp and kicked out with him backwards, away from the mêlée, to where he knew the last skiff was waiting.

It was a forlorn hope, exposed as they were. Taking his heaving breaths, he saw, indeed, the muskets lift and the arrows aiming, and braced himself somehow to turn over and dive. Then the Aga Morat’s voice, just out of hearing, snapped an order, and repeated it peevishly; and reluctantly, the weapons dropped and the riders, Gabriel’s body supported among them, turned splashing away.

The wages of sin. The wages of sin, thought Jerott, is life. An irony. In his grasp Lymond stirred, and choked, and Jerott, changing his grip, trod water and supported him until, suffocatingly, his lungs were empty of water and his eyes opened after the pain of the first rasping breaths. Empty of thought, the blue eyes for an interval looked into his; and then Jerott saw them change. Jerott said, ‘He is dead.’

The sky was damask and rose: every nuance of rose from pale madder to the raw golden vermilion of the rising sun’s edge. Around
them the sea swayed and lapped them like a rose-tinted counterpane. Against the light, the town, sullenly smoking, raised smudged fingers of ruin and protest. By contrast, the horsemen could hardly be seen in the black shade of the walls except as a thin flash of steel, and as the source of a distant faint calling. The voice of a muezzin, faithful, undaunted, rolled across the roseate water.

O God, Most High. I attest that there is no other God but God. I declare that Mohammed is the Prophet of God. Come to prayer; come to the temple of salvation. God is great; and there is no other.’

‘
The children
,’ said Francis Crawford.
O mill … what hast thou ground?’

‘Consider their wines. Their wines, mademoiselle, are exquisite.’ The voice of Onophrion Zitwitz, singing his favourite litany, hung in the sultry air under the
Dauphiné’s
poop awning. ‘The lagrime de Christo, now: so beautiful that a Dutchman, they say, tasting it, lamented that Christ had not wept in his country.’

‘It’s a spirit,’ said Marthe, without charity. ‘Almighty God: what are the fools doing?’

‘Fighting a battle,’ said Georges Gaultier mildly. ‘It takes time. The Knights sailed for Zuara only ten days ago, and the wind was against them.’

Marthe turned with angry impatience from the poop rail. ‘They may be dead,’ she said. ‘How long will you wait before we sail to Aleppo?’

Turning his head, her self-styled uncle glanced at where Salablanca sat, silent and unregarded in a corner. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘That is, once our good patron arrives back on board. Or we have news of his death.’

Freed from Djerba on Güzel’s instructions after the escape of Jerott and Lymond, the
Dauphiné
with her crew and all her remaining passengers had sailed, as directed by Lymond through Salablanca, straight for the island of Malta. There they now lay, in the great harbour under the guns of Fort St Angelo on one side and Leone Strozzi’s fine new fortifications on the other. The creek leading to Birgu, the Knights’ city, was barred to them, and they had made no effort to enter; but had dipped their flag in salute to the white cross flying from every battlement, and had satisfied the skiff which put off to ask them their business.

They had no business, they said, other than to await the return of the Knights of St John from their attack on Zuara, and to take on board their patron and two others whom they had reason to believe might be with them. His patron, M. Zitwitz had said, entrusted with this reception, was a dear friend of the Chevalier Leone Strozzi, who would respond favourably, he was sure, to any kindness shown the
Dauphiné
during her enforced stay.

That the kindnesses, materializing, should take edible form was not therefore altogether surprising, though Marthe, in her impatience, could be heard to say that she wished Fate would take M. Onophrion and hang him to cool in a brook, like a jar of his own preserved Leipzig cherries.

The fleet came back from Zuara next morning; and watching them come, sails full and banners streaming in a following wind, those on
the ramparts of Mount Scibberas and St Angelo, no less than on the decks of the
Dauphiné
, soon realized that something was wrong. The galleys were intact. No staved wood or torn sail spoke of disaster: only a silence which lay on the water like the white haze of humidity which made the sweat check and run like a thief over spine, loins and ribs.

Men could be seen: pale punctuation of flesh among the timber and metal and cloth. But no trumpets blew, carrying far over the water; no voices cheered; no hackbuts sparked off with joy. Instead, as the galleys came nearer and nearer, all those watching saw that the ships themselves were half empty: that the walks and platforms which had left crowded with soldiers and knights showed shining wood to the sky except where, under an awning, a few lay recumbent. The only sound in Leone Strozzi’s fleet came from the open hatches, and it was the sound of his wounded. The chain was raised, and the leaderless fleet passed in to its anchorage, and its dead to their tombs.

Salablanca alone was still on deck when at dusk a boat put off from Birgu and brought the French Special Envoy and his escort at last back to his ship. Jerott, climbing aboard one-handed after Francis Crawford, saw Salablanca smile and say, ‘Allah is beneficent,’ but did not hear what Lymond answered, if anything. By the time he in turn landed on deck Lymond had already made his way aft, where the voices of Marthe and Gaultier could be heard.

Salablanca was looking at him. Jerott said, ‘Gabriel is dead. He betrayed the Knights into the Aga Morat’s hands, and the cream of the Order has gone.… Strozzi’s badly hurt, but he’ll live. They kept us, to answer for what had happened … but it is clear beyond question now, to them all, that Gabriel was and had been a traitor.’

Salablanca spoke softly. ‘Mr Crawford himself killed him?’

‘Yes,’ said Jerott.

‘I am glad,’ said Salablanca. ‘But the child …?’

O mill, what hast thou ground?
Lymond had said. And since then, had hardly spoken at all.

‘There are two children,’ said Jerott. ‘I don’t know what is to be done. But you’d better come with me so that we can both receive our orders.’

By then, Lymond was already standing with his back to the carved rail of the poop, the blue awning dyeing his lightly tanned skin and borrowed clothes, addressing Gaultier, reclining watchfully in the captain’s great chair, and Marthe, sitting perched on the table with her hair tied to fall down her back; and Onophrion, standing varnished with sweat in his stiff clothes, deferentially listening.

‘I regret,’ Lymond was saying pleasantly, ‘that Sir Graham’s death brings with it certain complications. Unless I forestall the news, the lives of two children become forfeit. We have also the safety of Miss Somerville to consider. I propose therefore that we split forces. The
only information we have about the ship which took the first child from Mehedia is that it calls at Aleppo. On my instructions, Salablanca has found and chartered here in Malta a vessel which is willing to take two of you to Aleppo. Jerott and Marthe will sail on her. M. Gaultier, M. Zitwitz and Salablanca will come with me to Zakynthos on the
Dauphiné
, and thence follow the Children of Devshirmé to Constantinople.’

‘Unchaperoned?’ said M. Gaultier. He had sat up. ‘Marthe, travelling alone with Mr Blyth? I am afraid, Mr Crawford, that as an uncle——’

‘As an uncle, you permitted her to go ashore by herself at Bône dressed in boy’s clothing without an avuncular qualm,’ Lymond said. ‘I have nothing against her being attired in boy’s clothing in perpetuity if you feel it will protect her from an unsanctified bed.’

Jerott said, his face flushed, ‘In any case, I’m afraid I don’t care, Francis, to take the responsibility——’

‘
L’amor’ è cieco y rede niente,’
said Marthe. ‘
Ma non son’ cieche Valtre gente
. He wants to stay with Mr Crawford.’

Jerott’s voice was stony. ‘I am prepared to go wherever I can be of most help. I meant only that I expect to be too occupied to give the attention I ought to Mile Marthe’s safety. I think M. Gaultier should come with us.’

‘Then who,’ said Lymond agreeably, ‘do you suggest looks after the spinet?’

‘Onophrion?’

‘Jerott,’ said Lymond, with the thinnest edge beginning to show in his voice. ‘I am taking the
Dauphiné
and all the appurtenances of a royal bloody envoy because I am proposing if need be to mortgage the King of France down to the last bow on his mistress’s nightcap in order to get the Somerville child out of this safely, with the baby if possible. For that I need Onophrion. No one in the presence of Onophrion could take this embassy lightly. We shall proceed in state, carrying our riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and our treasures upon the bunches of camels. I require you, if you mean what you say about helping, to be a young ass in Aleppo, not Zakynthos.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Onophrion Zitwitz respectfully, and they all turned. ‘But there is always Mr Abernethy, I believe.’

‘Not this time,’ said Lymond shortly. ‘He left for Aleppo even before Gabriel died. Philippa knows the danger and may be able to protect the Zakynthos child, if she has found him when the news of Gabriel’s death reaches those parts. The other child, if possible, will have to be found before the news reaches his keepers.’

‘This child … the other child … do we understand,’ said Marthe, untying the ribbon in her bundled fair hair and letting it fall, smooth and swaying, over the thin, severely laced stuff of her dress, ‘that your late unhappy mistress had twins?’

Malevolent, Jerott opened his mouth; but Lymond was quicker. ‘You are not asked,’ he said briefly, ‘to understand either me or my late mistress. You are requested only to go to Aleppo. Do you wish to, or not?’

‘Are our wishes being consulted?’ said Marthe. ‘Yes, I shall take your disciple Jerott,
manco passioni humane
, and he shall be returned to you weaned. Shall I go in disguise? A wild beast’s skin on my horse’s buttocks, and a hammer at my girth like a Pole?’

‘I feel,’ said Lymond, ‘you would fail to convince as a Pole. Go as yourself. Unless M. Gaultier still has objections? In which case Marthe will of course come with us, and we shall leave Aleppo to Jerott and Archie?’

‘No … no,’ said Georges Gaultier. ‘Though I shall need her to help with the spinet at Constantinople.’

‘She will be there,’ Lymond said.