Pawn in Frankincense (88 page)

The word broke Philippa, as an iron smashes a lock. Air rushed into her throat and tears blinded her eyes, running over her fingers as she pressed them fast to her lids. She moved then a little way on to the board, towards the light of her life, and then stopped, her lips trembling, as Marthe began her steady walk, a trifle stiffly, towards the small boy at the end. He noticed her coming and Marthe smiled at him faintly, still walking, and said to Philippa as she passed, quietly, ‘Leave him to me.’

So Philippa turned and knelt by Kuzúm, but gently, so that the other child would not see and be hurt, and gathering the child’s bright head in her lap, covered his eyes.

Marthe had almost reached Khaireddin when he became frightened and, his face crumpling, suddenly made towards Francis Crawford. Halfway there he halted, bemused by the look on Lymond’s face and after a moment said in a small voice, ‘I’ve ‘topped being a bad boy. I’ve ‘topped.…
Mo chridh
is a good little boy now.…’

And at the Gaelic, Jerott said, ‘Dear God in Heaven,’ and looked away from Francis Crawford, whose face was that of a man tortured with thirst, or lack of air, or the bitterest hunger. Then Jerott saw that the mutes were closing in, and that in a moment the child would reach Francis’s arms, and he began to run, to spare him the last terrible betrayal.

But Míkál got there first, and swept the child into his own embrace, all carnation and jasmine and soft hair and bright tinkling jewels. ‘Come, my love,’ said Míkál, ‘and say goodnight to the dark.’ And held him close, full of a sweet young compassion, as the little boy died.

Francis Crawford, who had commanded it, watched the killing take place. His belly heaving, Jerott kept his eyes there as well, for what Francis saw he must know, although he hardly knew why. They had used a knife, so the child’s face was not distorted: Míkál, when it was over, laid him down and wiped a trace of blood from the small lips. Then he lifted Khaireddin again, gently, to carry him out; and Lymond moved swiftly from Jerott’s side to where the fine hair, curling like silk, lay on the Geomaler’s arm; and bending his head, kissed the dead child, as he had not kissed the living, full on the mouth.

Then he turned, Thanatos of the dark underworld claiming his chosen; and walked straight to Gabriel.

Gabriel struggled. He talked and shouted and promised glory and riches, and finally cursed as men seldom venture to curse, the malevolence dripping on to them all as he twisted and rolled in the hands of the mutes. His men did not help him. He spat in Lymond’s face as finally, every limb pinned, helpless as a baron of beef, he stood, his white and gold silk grating against the smooth white and blue of the tiles, while the Kislar Agha, without a word, gave Lymond his sword. It was a good weapon, about four feet long, with the hilt set in perfect gold fish-scales and the sheath sewn with coral and diamonds. There were even a line or two of the Qur’ân engraved on its blade.

Lymond got the mutes to free Gabriel just before he killed him; partly, thought Jerott, because he could not bring himself to execute a motionless man, and partly to manhandle him. He did, laying aside the sword, and Jerott looked away from that. He thought, towards the end, that Gabriel had reached the end of his wits, for although he fought, it was without conviction, and the promises and threats he was shouting were gibberish. Then Lymond flung him
against the wall and drove the Kislar Agha’s sword into his chest up to the hilt, and again four more times. He stopped himself at that, with a strength of will as great as any he had shown that afternoon, and flung down the sword. The red silk robe showed nothing, although it glistened stiffly, where it caught the new lamplight. Gabriel, in a stained heap on the ground, was quite dead.

Silence fell. Breathing very fast, his yellow head bent, Lymond remained looking down at the dead man, his hands flat on the bloodstained tiles at his back. Jerott retreated; and did not know Marthe was watching him until her dry voice said, not unkindly, ‘If you are going to be sick, get it over with outside and come back. We’re going to have a full-scale collapse on our hands in a moment.… How much opium does he need?’

Looking at her, Jerott forgot the agony in his guts for a moment. He said, ‘Your cheeks are wet,’ and when she shook her head impatiently, the single deep line like Lymond’s between her fair brows, he took hold of himself and said soberly, ‘Archie will do it. How did you know?’

‘That he was an addict? I know the Levant,’ Marthe said. They were pulling Gabriel’s body away: the eyes, the blue of Kúzum’s or the blue of Khaireddin’s, were open and vacant. His men had long since been dealt with, the mutes filing out. Lymond hadn’t moved and Jerott, hesitating, turned to the throne.

Roxelana had gone. Marthe’s cool voice said, ‘She left a command with the Kislar Agha. Tonight, we are to have the hospitality of the selamlik, with all they can offer. Tomorrow we shall be escorted from the Seraglio; the child and Philippa also.’

Jerott looked round. The room had emptied itself but for the Kislar Agha and the black eunuchs waiting there by the dais, and the Janissaries on guard at the door. Three men in leather jackets had taken hold of the painted chess cloth and were rolling it up. The patches of blood had not yet dried on the paint, and their fingers were red. They jerked it a little under Gaultier, who had sunk down, spent with relief, his head on his knees, and he looked up and rose, stumbling out of their way. Philippa had already moved, her face bone-white, fiercely protecting Kuzúm, who had broken down into tears; and locking out everything else. Archie had gone over to Lymond.

Lymond didn’t look up. But when Archie’s brown hands, fumbling, tried to unfasten his surcoat he looked down and said, ‘Why …?’

Archie said, ‘It’s stained, sir. They want to give you another.’

Then Lymond lifted his head and said flatly, ‘But I wasn’t anywhere near him.…’ And Jerott, listening, realized that it was
Khaireddin of whom he was speaking; and that the death of Gabriel had already gone from his mind. After so much toil and effort and agony, Gabriel’s end had made no impression; had meant nothing compared to what had happened before; had been only an intermission in the acts of a tragedy. Jerott said harshly, ‘Let’s get home; and to hell with selamlik hospitality.… Archie, what can you give him?’

The surcoat was open, but Lymond ignored it, standing still, his hands spread on the wall. Archie said, ‘He’s had all he can take. He carried it with him. I can’t give him any more.’ Archie paused, and then said to Jerott, ‘We can’t leave the Seraglio, sir. Not if it’s a command. Mlle Marthe has already told the Kislar Agha we’d prefer to go out tonight, but they say it must be tomorrow. He’s waiting now, sir, for us to follow him.’

Marthe’s voice said quietly, to Jerott and Archie. ‘You go. Take the others. I’ll bring Mr Crawford.’

Archie hesitated only a moment. Then turning to Jerott he made up his mind. ‘She’s right. Come, sir. Let them be.’

Marthe watched them go. Then she turned to her brother.

Quiet and firm, her light voice addressing him made no concessions to tragedy. ‘You are not going to fall. This is shock. Put your hand on my arm.’

There was a long pause; then without really seeing her Francis Crawford did remove one hand from the wall and stretch it, groping, before him. Marthe took his palm then in hers and, drawing him from the wall, supported him lightly. ‘It’s all over now. Leave it. You can change nothing by staying.’ The voice, so like his own, was quite even. ‘The moment is past. The chessboard has gone; and the people. You must let me take the room from you too.’

Outside, it was dusk. On the way to the threshold she had slipped off his stained surcoat and he stood beside her now in the European clothes he had worn at Míkál’s house, torn a little where Gabriel had manhandled him, his face still bruised and his lip cut and swollen from it.

But Gabriel was dead. And beside her, the man Gabriel had so scornfully challenged now stood, wit exhausted and self-command fallen away: all consciousness reduced to a single lens projecting, over and over, a small boy running; and stopping, frightened, to beg; and Míkál’s voice saying,
Come, my love.… Say goodnight to the dark
.

Archie would give no more opium: not yet. Lymond was too near the edge: too near the limit of the drug: the place where, driven beyond their means, first the body relinquished the race; and then the mind.
Madness cometh sometime of passions of the soul, as of business and of great thoughts, of sorrow and of too great study, and of dread
. Marthe said, thinking aloud with that austere, sexless mind, ‘Would madness be kind?’

They were waiting for the Kislar Agha to return and conduct them to their quarters. Lymond shook his head slowly, his eyes looking at nothing, and Marthe said again, watching him, ‘Would it be kind? The spinet is there. Shall I play for you?’

And the calculated cruelty of it stung him awake. Within the dead wastes of his mind she struck a spark: a spark of new shock, which must have glimmered, for the first time, on the days and months and years still lying ahead. Lymond looked at her, his eyes open and living, and said, ‘Leave me here. Please go and follow the others.’

Blue eyes stared into blue. ‘No,’ said Marthe. ‘Such things will not last. Music makes you a coward because you have no other key for your passions. One day it will come. And you forget. You have one child to see still to safety. I think you owe that to him, and to Philippa. Think … when Philippa goes back home from this, what will become of her? Will a convent accept her? Or will she become as Janet Fleming, the courtesan she is now trained to be? She has not considered these things. You must do this for her. Escape into self-destruction by all means; but not until your duty is done.’

The Kislar Agha was coming. Francis Crawford stood beside Marthe and awaited him, drugged and dizzy in his torn clothes, and said nothing more.

The day appointed had come. And in it he had indeed received, as Gabriel promised, the anvil sunk in his heart.

When the time came, he walked collectedly enough by Marthe’s side through the garden to the rooms set aside for their quarters. Then the head eunuch left and Lymond, groping, put both hands on the doorpost and rested his wet brow on his wrists. Marthe said, ‘Yes. You are going to faint. But it will be more comfortable here than in that death-chamber. And here we shall see that you wake.’

They had put a blanket for Kuzúm in Marthe’s chamber. She watched Philippa settle him, fussing; before observing with faint and familiar irony, ‘I don’t intend to eat him, with lettuce. If he’s a quarter as fatigued as I am, he will sleep until morning.’

Philippa pushed back her hair. The moment when Kuzúm was asleep and she had no more to do was one she had tried not to think of, ever since leaving the Throne Room. She said, ‘I’m sorry. It must be so irritating. I know he’ll be all right, of course.’ She hesitated, and then said, pallidly cheerful, ‘Have you heard what they’ve done? I’m the prize in the chess game. They’ve put me with Mr Crawford in the same room.’

For a moment Marthe stared at her. Then she said pleasantly, ‘I’m sure Mr Crawford will have no objections. But if you want it changed, I imagine you have only to ask the maids, or the eunuchs.’

‘I have,’ said Philippa. They won’t. I’ve even seen Kiaya Khátún. She says if we move, Roxelana will be offended.’

‘I see,’ said Marthe. After a moment she said, ‘By all means then; we must not offend Roxelana before morning. What does Mr Crawford say to an odalisque in his bed? Is it a bed?’

Philippa laughed a little. ‘It’s a European four-poster,’ she said. ‘He’s awake now, I think; but I haven’t seen him. They’re bringing us supper soon in the other room.’

‘Then you can break the news to him then.’ Marthe studied the other girl for a moment. ‘Will you take advice?’

Philippa’s brown gaze was direct and her answer as simple. ‘About Mr Crawford? I think you know him much better than I do.’

Unexpectedly, the thick fair lashes fell. ‘In some things. For example … he will not, I think, find it logical to live with what he has done today. I have told him that you are his responsibility. While he believes that, he will continue to protect you. I tell you this, so that you will understand what is happening. He will measure his life by your helplessness.’