Pawn in Frankincense (85 page)

Philippa also had gone very pale. In Marthe’s face Jerott could distinguish no change: what was she made of, in God’s name? He caught sight of the children, and felt sick.

‘Between nation and nation,’ said the even voice, ‘such a matter might become war. For that reason this hearing has been held in private, where no diplomatic papers may return the result. It is a matter within the Seraglio, for the Seraglio to judge and the Seraglio to punish.… It seems to me,’ said Roxelana Sultán, ‘that this nation has become embroiled in a private feud between two masters: a feud which has been played like a game: falsehood within falsehood and guile within guile. I propose that what has begun as a game, entangling as puppets who knows how many innocent as well as the guilty, should end in like fashion.…’

The eyes behind the veil studied them all: Gabriel’s face splendid even in anguish; Francis Crawford’s still controlled: lightly closed like the chiselled face of one of Gilles’s marble treasures, his eyes very dark. Roxelana said, ‘
I propose you a game of live chess
. You will return to your cells. When you come back, you will find this room your chessboard. You will each direct your own pieces and each play the part of your own King.’

Lymond said quickly, his voice surprisingly rough, ‘And our pieces?’

‘Will, of course,’ said Roxelana, ‘be culled from your friends, the two children included. I exclude only the girl Philippa. Her I shall present to the winner.’

‘Princess …’ Philippa’s voice was stifled. ‘The boys are too young.’

‘They will be helped. Since it is not known to whom they belong, perhaps they will be safest on Jubrael Pasha’s side——’

‘
Safest
?’ The sharp inquiry was Gabriel’s.

The veil turned inquiringly towards him. ‘Indeed. Do you think I plan for you a game any less lethal than the one you have both played, so discommodingly, in my city and court? The penalties in this game are death. Death to each piece as it is taken, and death to the King who is mastered. Those who are left on the winning side may go freely, and in peace. The others, at the winner’s discretion, will die.’

There was a sigh: a sound which had no single origin, but floated over the heads of those watching and up to the ringed roof. In it, Gabriel exclaimed sharply, and started forward, but Lymond’s voice spoke first, very evenly. ‘The Sultana has spoken, and we shall obey. Jubrael Pasha, who is guilty, and I, who have been presumptuous, will play against each other and the loser will die. But since my sin perhaps is less than your Vizier’s, may I put my head under your foot for a boon? Let the game be between us two only, with inanimate pieces, or men who will suffer nothing if taken. The others standing before you are not deserving of death.’

The veil studied him. ‘Indeed, Mr Crawford,’ said Roxelana Sultán. ‘Then it will be for your skill to protect them. You may leave.’

The sun was shining when they came out, and there was even a bird trilling high in the bare branches of the plane tree, deceived by the promise of spring. In the harem, where Philippa and Marthe were marched with the two children, it was, surprisingly, the prosaic Philippa who exploded into angry tears like a rocket until Marthe, pale-faced, slapped her cheek hard and held her by the thin shoulders until her sobbing died down. Marthe said, ‘The children. You’re frightening the children’; and Philippa, breathing harshly, was quiet.

‘Now eat,’ said Marthe. ‘Whether you want to or not. The children as well.…
Juste ciel
, don’t you recognize yet that this is life, this
two-sided trickery? There is hope, and here is brutality, to cancel it out. You think we should help one another. Why, when in a twist of an hour our lives can be turned into ashes, through no fault of our own? I told you once. I live for nothing, and I hope for nothing. I am not disappointed.’

The four men walked through the gardens too, between two files of white-helmeted Janissaries, and in their cell were given water and food. The sight of the food made Jerott want to vomit. He said cheerfully, ‘Well, well. Thank God you’re a dab hand at chess.’

‘If you’re going to be bright,’ said Lymond, with a soft and frightening venom, ‘I’ll break your sweet little neck.’ He put his hands back over his face and said half to himself, ‘Oh, hell. Oh, bloody, bloody hell.…’

‘She is a bitch,’ said Míkál’s musical voice. Of them all, he seemed least perturbed. ‘A known bitch. Even to get the Sultan to marry her, she resorted to trickery.…’

Lymond said, his voice even lower, ‘Why the
hell
did you bring back the children?’

‘You asked me that before,’ said Míkál. ‘I told you, Kiaya Khátún required it. She said, when you betray Mr Crawford to Gabriel, you betray also the escape of the children. It will look natural.’ His face brightened. ‘Perhaps Kiaya Khátún will dissuade the Sultana.’

Jerott said, ‘I notice Kiaya Khátún isn’t among us. I take it she doesn’t rank for this purpose as one of your friends?’ He wondered how heavily Lymond was drugged. He knew the signs now: knew that Archie had given him a massive dose on his return and that he was fighting drowsiness at this moment; trying to build towards the level of self-control and command he would need in the afternoon. Archie, busy, thought Jerott furiously, as a bull-fighter’s auntie, had no time, apparently, to feel qualms about what was going to happen that same afternoon.

He started to repeat his question but Lymond suddenly brought his own temper hard under control and said quietly, ‘I’m sorry. I heard you. Look … Kiaya Khátún is Dragut’s mistress and governess of the girls. She knows too much, and she’s too powerful, and too well connected to have her neck wrung in a chess game. Roxelana will keep her, and do her utmost to buy her silence and friendship.… We are a different matter. Gabriel, too.’

‘You did find something then?’ Jerott asked.

Of course,’ said Lymond wearily. ‘Do you think we made it all up? The rumour Gabriel was spreading was perfectly true. Rustem Pasha and Roxelana between them made Suleiman believe quite falsely that Mustafa wanted to usurp his throne. Roxelana wants her own son to succeed. Rustem pretty well does what she says and wants more power anyway. What Gabriel left out was that he was the third person in the plot, the go-between who carried messages from
Rustem to Roxelana. The letters Philippa found, and which we have not shown Roxelana, prove that. It was the first concrete information we had about the thing. Then we found that Gabriel was stirring up the city, discreetly, with hints in all the right quarters about Rustem’s and Roxelana’s guilt. Of course she couldn’t let him continue as Vizier or anything else once she suspected and we proved that he was trying to betray her share in the plan. On the other hand, because of the letters we found here in the Seraglio, she knows that we are aware of the truth. The expectation beforehand was that, having found Gabriel guilty, she would swear us to silence and then kiss us on both cheeks and open the door. We were over-optimistic’

Or Kiaya Khátún was,’ said Jerott. He couldn’t leave it alone; not now. He said, ‘Wouldn’t a simple assassination have been easier?’ He leaned over and shook Lymond’s shoulder and Lymond said, his eyes opening, ‘I know. I’m awake.… I tried that. In fact, name some way I didn’t try it. He knew, you see. He was guarded from morning till night; even his food was tasted beforehand. Therefore the State had to do the butchering, and I had to get into the Seraglio to present my case to the State.’

‘With Míkál’s help?’

‘With Míkál’s help,’ agreed Lymond.

It was not Jerott’s moment for being magnanimous. ‘What a pity,’ he said austerely, ‘we were all required also to assist.’

Lymond sat up, his eyes blazing. He said, ‘Now, look …’ and then cut it off, shutting his lips. But Jerott, his face flushed, was already saying quickly, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Francis. I know it was my own bloody fault. You didn’t mean the boys and Philippa to be brought back and you didn’t need Marthe to go to the Seraglio and you didn’t expect me or Onophrion …’ He stopped. ‘Where’s Onophrion?’

Lymond’s face was still white, but at least he was now very awake. ‘Yes. Where indeed?’ he observed.

The big room seemed much emptier when they were all taken back. The eunuchs had gone, and the dwarves; and the Kislar Agha’s place by the empty throne had been taken by the Bostanji Bashi, the Chief of Security. The executioner. And against the flowering walls stood the silent ranks of the mutes.

Then Jerott saw that the Kislar Agha had moved down from the throne and was standing with Gabriel beside him and four other men: men whose faces were vaguely familiar, and whom Jerott recognized suddenly as having given evidence for their master. Gabriel’s pieces … but only five in all?

Answering the thought, the Kislar Agha paced over to Lymond, his bearing and dark fleshy face mantled in all the dignity of his African race. ‘Mr Crawford? I need not tell you that in chess it is usual for each master to play sixteen pieces. In this game we restrict you to five, of which you yourself, playing the King, are one. You will be permitted a Queen, a Knight, a Rook and a Bishop, to be chosen from the friends now accompanying you with the exception of the boy Míkál, for whom a replacement has been put forward. On Jubrael Pasha’s side, he will be permitted to play the same pieces and on opposing squares but for his Rook, which clearly must not confront his opponent’s Rook at the start of the game with no Pawns intervening. He also has two extra pieces: the gift of two Pawns, to be played by the children. These will stand before his King and his Queen, thus preventing the Queens from opposing. Do you understand?’

‘I think so,’ said Lymond. ‘You mean that we are to play five-a-side chess; but that Jubrael Pasha is to have seven pieces. I take it that it is beyond my powers to object. May I ask why Míkál is to be withdrawn, and who is to substitute?’

The Kislar Agha had a sovereign way with awkward inquiries. He said, ‘He is not eligible. At the girl Marthe’s suggestion, we have brought her uncle, the usurer Georges Gaultier.’

Christ
, thought Jerott; and, in spite of the shivers in the small of his back, nearly laughed. Míkál, of course, would be preserved by Kiaya Khátún, if not Roxelana. No one could afford to antagonize that restless, moneyed race of strange children of love. And in his place, implacable to the end, Marthe had let them send for her uncle. Jerott wondered if they had searched the house when they found him and what else they had found. And what Gilles had said.… Then Marthe came in herself, very straight, and something almost a smile on her face as she walked up to Lymond and, meeting his gaze briefly, ranged herself at his side.

His gaze on the door, Lymond spoke to her. ‘You were right, it seems, to fear and despise us. Man has brought you to a death which any woman could have averted. There is no reparation possible for what I have done to you.’

Marthe was looking at him still, a faint smile in her eyes. ‘Relieve your conscience of me,’ she said coolly. ‘You have enough to answer for. Mr Blyth may go to the devil for me, as I shall for my uncle. What part shall I play?’

Then Lymond looked at her and said, ‘The Queen: what else?’ and Jerott knew he was giving her the principal piece and the most agile; the one which he could most swiftly move out of trouble. For to be taken was death. And it came to Jerott at last that while he himself had been carping and backbiting and quarrelling Francis had been bracing himself slowly and quietly for the most terrible rôle of his life: the role of God with seven lives in his hands, and two of these children.

To kill Gabriel, Lymond must take the King he represented. To do so he must use his five pieces, and use them better than Gabriel, who in turn would try to take Lymond’s King. Not only that, but he must use them somehow without a piece being taken, for a piece taken by either side meant that the person playing that piece laid down his life. Lymond must therefore light with this venomous handicap: that none of his pieces must be imperilled. And worse than that, must defend himself against Gabriel, who would care little, Jerott imagined, for his own men, but who could rely on one thing absolutely: that under no circumstances whatever would Francis touch his two Pawns.

Only half conscious of his surroundings, Jerott watched Gaultier come in, panic-stricken and pallid, stammering with anger and accusations aimed at Marthe and at Lymond. He saw Philippa enter, carefully groomed with her head held very high, and take her place by the throne as the Kislar Agha directed. Then, deaf to Gaultier’s hoarse voice, he watched the negress bring in the two children and, walking over, leave them at Gabriel’s side. Beside him, Lymond stopped speaking and Jerott, his fingers like fish-hooks, leaned over and dragged the old man, struggling and exclaiming, to his other side. In his softest voice Jerott said, ‘Be quiet. Or the mutes have orders to throttle you’; and there was a sudden silence. The door opened and Roxelana Sultán entered with ceremony and, mounting the throne, was seated. Porters brought and unrolled over the carpet a painted cloth on which sixty-four squares had been laid out, coloured alternately in red paint and white.

The chessboard. Beside Jerott, Lymond closed his eyes, and Jerott’s mind, once launched on its unaccustomed effort of imagination, tried to follow his thoughts. Every move was potential death for Jerott himself, for Marthe, for Archie or for Gaultier. Every move must be thought out twice over: once for its purpose and once for its
risk to his pieces. If Lymond were too careful and keeping his players lost his King in the outcome to Gabriel, Gabriel could choose to kill not only Lymond but all his friends with impunity.

So this was no sport, no impersonal battle, no exhibition of vanity or childish adventure embraced out of pique. This was an ultimate trial of every quality all his life Lymond had squandered: of speed and wit and clean, objective intelligence. Move by move his decisions had to be right, for, if they were not, no anonymous ally would disappear to lie under some exiguous cross. Two mutes would cross the floor with a thin piece of hemp in their hands, and before Lymond’s face, one of his players would die.