Pawn in Frankincense (86 page)

Then Lymond opened his eyes, and Jerott thought of Pierre Gilles and what he wanted to say, and moved to touch his silk shoulder. ‘Francis.’

For a moment Lymond didn’t turn, and when he did, the blue gaze, utterly detached, looked through Jerott. Jerott said quickly, ‘Francis … if there is any doubt: any doubt at all of the outcome, sacrifice anything and anybody so long as you take Gabriel. Do you understand?’

‘Of course,’ said Lymond. Jerott looked at him, his black brows painfully knitted, until Marthe, putting out her hand as he had done, drew him firmly away. ‘Leave him,’ she said. ‘Leave him alone.’

The children would not stay in their places. Kuzúm cried; and Philippa finally, in desperation, got permission from the Sultana and walked across the bright squares to Gabriel’s side, where she crouched, her robes spreading around her, between the two unhappy Pawns. Behind her, Gabriel laughed and said something under his breath, and the man playing Queen sniggered in return. To the left, also behind her, she could see out of the corner of her eye Gabriel’s Knight and his Rook, and to her right his solitary Bishop, an unshaven lout in yellow. Then on the opposite side of the board Lymond, suddenly smiling, led Marthe to her place as his Queen, with Jerott his Knight on her right, and Gaultier and Archie playing Bishop and Rook on his left. They had tossed dice, Philippa knew, for the privilege of starting, and Lymond had lost. Then the Kislar Agha, looking at both sides in turn, said, ‘Begin,’ and stepped back off the board.

Gabriel had changed into white and gold, as befitted a King and the side he was playing. From him spilled a placid and mighty confidence: the ease of a brilliant mind which knows its own power. He looked at Lymond, smiling, as he called the move which, clearly, the Kislar Agha repeated. ‘Queen to Queen’s Rook’s fourth.’ And the man on Gabriel’s left, grinning, walked down his line of white diagonals and stopped, turning round, to face a range of clear spaces at the end of which, exposed, stood Lymond’s King. ‘Check,’ said Gabriel. It had begun.

By some coincidence, or perhaps by no coincidence, Lymond’s high-collared robe was embroidered jet black on scarlet, matching the red of the squares. His arms, in his own lace-edged shirt-sleeves, hung relaxed below the short sleeves of the robe and his face, in a curious way, although concentrating, was also relaxed; as if with the onset of this one cosmic problem a thousand others had somehow dissolved. He saved himself with a move of no importance: ‘King to King’s Bishop’s second!’ and, walking one square diagonally to his left, escaped Gabriel’s check. Gabriel’s voice answered him, amused, ‘Queen to Queen’s Rook’s eighth.’ And as Jerott was still working that out, Gabriel’s sniggering Queen walked up and stood just beside him.

Jerott looked round. Behind him was Marthe. Behind her, Gaultier and Archie still stood in line. In all the blank squares of the board there was no piece of Lymond’s which could prevent Gabriel’s Queen from taking himself, Jerott, at the next move.

Looking at the mutes, Jerott wondered if they understood, or if the Kislar Agha would have to tell them.… He wondered, in an academic way, what he would do if Lymond ordered him to move, exposing Marthe to his neighbour and thus saving himself at Marthe’s expense. He didn’t think Lymond would. Then Lymond said prosaically, ‘Queen to King’s Rook’s fifth. Check,’ and he was saved.

Marthe, the proud Marthe’s knees were shaking as she walked down the straight path towards Gabriel’s King. Jerott saw her robe trembling and was grateful, for his own hands were wet and wanted to quiver: he clenched them hard. Gabriel, a shade of a frown on his face, was preparing to move as King out of trouble and in the next move, Jerott supposed, he himself would be moved safely out of the way. Then, if Gabriel wanted blood, it would mean also the sacrifice of his Queen, for Gaultier, in his path, was safely covered, as Marthe had not been.… And Gabriel, Jerott thought suddenly, would have taken great pleasure in removing Lymond’s Knight from the board, at almost any expense, whereas he was unlikely to spend a Queen on poor Gaultier. Which was why Lymond had done what he had done.

Jerott let out his breath very slowly as the two moves were accomplished and stood, his heart like a drum in his chest, for Gabriel’s following move.

His next ones were also attacking, and Lymond’s defensive. Gabriel’s Rook moved up the board, harmlessly, and Jerott himself moved down, towards Gabriel’s end of the files. It was while he was there that, suddenly, he found himself under attack from an unexpected quarter. Gabriel had moved up one of his Pawns.

It was the Queen’s Pawn, Kuzúm. He had no wish to go, and stood crying in the middle of his square until Philippa lifted him and carried him bodily to the one next to Jerott. Where, thought Jerott, he
threatens me, if he only knew it, with death. And looking round for his succour, saw suddenly, standing guard at the end of the line, Lymond’s Queen Marthe looking at Lymond.

He had only to order the move, and Gabriel’s Pawn would be swept off the board. Lymond smiled at his Queen and said, ‘Rather a drastic way to end two-year-old tantrums.… Jerott, you’ll have to get out of it. Knight to Queen’s Bishop’s fifth …’ and the moment was over.

For the time being, Jerott found himself left alone after that. There was a move by Gabriel’s Queen which forced Lymond on to a white square but otherwise didn’t do any harm. Then there followed some play between Marthe and Gabriel’s Bishop, which brought Archie also into the game and gave the Bishop an anxious time until Gabriel sent his Queen over and, next to Archie, the Rook. Lymond’s answer was to send Archie straight down the board to check Gabriel’s King.

There was only one move Gabriel could make, and he made it. Lymond moved Jerott on one of his staggered moves forward, and said, ‘Check.’

Gabriel couldn’t resist it. By moving up, he threatened Jerott as well as moving out of check. Lymond let him do it, and then removed Jerott, neatly exposing Gabriel to attack by his Queen. Gabriel had a choice of two squares, and he chose the wrong one. On the eighth square Archie the Rook, alone and forgotten, confronted Gabriel’s Knight over four empty spaces, and Gabriel’s Knight was no longer protected. ‘Rook to Queen’s Knight’s eighth,’ said Lymond’s voice quietly. ‘Rook takes Knight.’ Except for Archie, everyone stood very still. Archie Abernethy walked along the four empty squares and, on reaching the fifth, laid his hand on the shoulder of the man standing there.

Even then, Gabriel’s Knight did not quite understand. When he did, he made the mistake of trying to run for it; and the mutes, surrounding him near the door, were not able to exercise their usual skill. He made a queer noise, within the circle of men, and the carpet rucked where his falling foot dragged it. The Kislar Agha said, ‘Take him away,’ and the mutes returned to their places, while the Janissaries saw to the body. They all stared after it, thought Jerott, as if no one until now had really believed it would happen.… It had happened. Philippa, he saw, was kneeling talking, her arms round the children. Lymond said, ‘Your move,’ his eyes very bright. Gabriel, his jaw firm, brought on his Pawn.

It was a little time before Jerott realized what he was doing. Until that, he saw the two pawns as a bitter obstruction. He had watched Lymond forgo move after move where he might have taken a piece except for the infinitesimal risk that Gabriel might attack first, throwing away his own man in order to make sure of Lymond’s. The lines of attack open to Lymond were therefore not
many, and made even fewer by presence of the two sacrosanct Pawns. Whenever he made an opening, it seemed a Pawn stood in his way, a Pawn belonging to Gabriel, which could take Lymond’s pieces quite freely but which Lymond himself could never remove, because the part was played by a child.

Khaireddin had recognized Francis Crawford by now. White and docile under the fingers of Philippa and the other strangers who pushed him about, and told him when to stand still, he paid no attention to the other child or the woman, but set himself gamely to please and pacify the men, the dark circles under his blue eyes, which smiled starkly on, although his mouth visibly trembled.

He smiled at them until in the seventh square he came face to face with Francis Crawford: so close that in a normal game, he would have been lost. Then Lymond, looking down at him, said conversationally, ‘Hullo. A strange game, isn’t it? I don’t enjoy it much either. But we have to finish it. Then
you
choose what we play next.’ And a smile broke over Khaireddin’s face: a genuine smile; the first one, thought Jerott, that anyone there had probably seen. Then he said something in the little voice, so much less fluent than Kuzum’s; and Lymond said, ‘Of course, your shells are still there. Supper first, and then you shall play with them. Goodbye. I have to move, now.’

And indeed he had, for Gabriel’s Rook had moved up to threaten him, and there was no one to mask him who would not instantly be taken. Then Gabriel moved his Pawn to the eighth square and said coolly, triumph barely concealed in his voice, ‘I claim the return of the Knight.’

It was, of course, the rule. Take your Pawn, step by step, from one side of the board to the other and you receive a commensurate privilege: you may replace the Pawn with any missing piece that you wish. For a Pawn, slow, restricted and vulnerable, such a journey was not normally easy. For Gabriel’s two untouchable Pawns, it was the simplest series of moves he could wish. Lymond, turning to the Kislar Agha, said only, ‘May we have the Sultana’s ruling?’ And the Sultana’s articulate voice in return said briefly, ‘The move is permitted.’

So Khaireddin, who had been a Pawn, became a Knight, and Gaultier, suddenly threatened, had to be moved, allowing Gabriel’s Queen to put Lymond in check, from which he could escape in only one direction. It cleared the way, as Gabriel intended, for the advance of the other Pawn, Kuzúm. Jerott said, ‘Francis …’ and then stopped, for there was nothing he could say that Lymond did not already know. And in any case, a moment later, he was on the move, for Lymond sent him, in one simple move, to check Gabriel’s King, and Gabriel, escaping and threatening at once, moved into the next square to Jerott.

The most nightmarish aspect for Jerott of the whole brutal game was this proximity. Enemies and friends passed one another in silence or stood side by side, as he and Gabriel were doing, awaiting Lymond’s next words. You stood in silence because dignity forbade you to canvass. You stood with your eyes elsewhere in case, catching Lymond’s eyes, you found yourself signalling,
I am in danger. I am in danger, and unless you abandon your design and help me, in the next move I shall die
.

Then Lymond’s quiet voice said, ‘Knight to King’s Bishop’s fifth’; and Jerott was saved; and whatever plan Lymond might have, had again been obstructed, for Gabriel used the freedom of his next move to shift Kuzúm one square nearer the eighth. And Jerott wondered again, as he had wondered all through the game, what would have happened if, reaching out, he had seized Gabriel and, before help could reach him, had managed to kill him. But they had no weapons, and Gabriel was a powerful man, and the mutes very near. He risked failure, and he risked death then, he supposed, for them all. Jerott thought, then, that if Lymond lost and he himself were still alive, between them they might manage it before they were halted. It gave him, in a way, a little fugitive strength.

Philippa stood between the two children. The one she did not know, the boy called Khaireddin, stood, smiling still, without really looking at her: she wondered when he was going to break, and what they would do with a blindly hysterical child on their hands. On her other side, her own Kuzúm was quiet and a little tremulous, but she knew now that he would manage, unless the game went on too long.

She had explained as much as she could in her friendly voice, and her warm, firm clasp of his shoulder, helping him from one square to the next, had steadied him: when she moved him, he pulled her head down for a kiss. She had looked at the other child then, smiling, and touched his bright hair with her hand and felt him flinch like an ill-treated horse. The desperate smile did not alter. Marthe’s eyes were on her then, Philippa found. And across half the board, Marthe sent her a smile like her brother’s: light and cool and encouraging. Philippa, her hands shaking, smiled back.

There was a long pause. In a moment, thought Jerott, Gabriel’s remaining Pawn would reach the eighth square and would be exchanged, as had his first, for a piece of infinitely greater power. Thus Gabriel would have not merely two Pawns, but two attacking pieces played by the children which could not be taken. And one piece more on the board than Lymond possessed. Then Lymond said, ‘Rook to King’s Bishop’s sixth: check’; and Jerott knew he was going to try and prevent Kuzúm’s reaching the eighth square by attacking Gabriel’s King and engaging him until somehow checkmate could be achieved. Jerott moved; and so did Gabriel, threatening
Archie; his face expressionless, who stepped forward and put Gabriel for the third time in check.

Then Gabriel escaped, as he had done before, by threatening Jerott; and, as had happened before, the manœuvre had to cease so that Jerott might be saved, lifting the pressure from Gabriel’s King for the one necessary move. Gabriel, smiling, said ‘Pawn to Queen’s eighth;’ and Kuzúm made his last move as a Pawn after all, with little gained for Lymond, Jerott thought, but the repositioning of his Rook. Jerott put up his hand and moved his fingers slowly over his brow, which contained a ringing headache such as he had never experienced before in the whole of his life. He had stopped wondering what Lymond felt because he could not conceive him at the moment as flesh and blood: a man of frivolity, who had outraged the fat bathers of Baden; a man who had slept at his side on the
Dauphiné
; a man he had drawn from the waves at Zuara: a volatile exhibitionist who had shared with him that crazy display of trick riding in Djerba. For all of them now, even Gaultier, grey-faced absorbing the moves, Lymond was only the disembodied voice of a disembodied intellect, the last Fate controlling their lives.

Kuzúm had become, unsuitably, a Bishop. For a moment Jerott wondered why, until he realized that by his position Lymond himself was now in check and, having to move, was presenting Gabriel with yet another chance of free action.