Pawn in Frankincense (9 page)

Be kind to her when she comes back. Her love is not only for children but for humanity. She will be a good-hearted and magnificent zealot one day. As her mother is now
.

Goodbye, Kate
. And below he had signed as he rarely did, with his Christian name.

Philippa’s letter, from an afflicted conscience, was not very much longer.

 … if I don’t look for him, no one else will. You know I’m sorry. But I couldn’t leave that little thing to wither away by itself Don’t be sad. We’re all going to come back. And you can teach him Two Legs and I Wot a Tree, and save him the top of the milk for his blackberry pie. He’ll never know, if we’re quick, that nobody wanted him.…

Which had, Kate considered as she scrubbed off her tears, a ring of unlikely confidence about it, as well as rather a shaky understanding of the diet of one-year-old babies.

Neither of Kate Somerville’s correspondents had said much about Marthe, and a reticence about Marthe was the main feature, apart from the foul weather, of the
Dauphiné’s
crossing from Marseilles to Algiers.

Winter in the Mediterranean was seldom cold, but produced rain, and wind, and current, and the small, gusty storm which could make travel impossible for a shallow-draught boat like a galley. Corsairs and fighting craft stayed in harbour during the winter except for the most urgent travel or the most tempting prize: a Spanish galleasse putting into Cádiz, full of Mexican bullion, or another coming out of Seville with converted Spanish ryals in stamped cases for the Low Countries. There might be a shipload of troops and munitions being rushed to a rising: there would certainly be the sporadic journeys of the merchants, the pilgrims, the spies, who could not put off their duties till summer. There was always the fishing.

For the
Dauphiné’s
task, the urgency was relative. A journey to Constantinople would not take less than four months at that time of year, and might well take a good deal longer. Again, once arrived there might be a wait of several weeks at least if Sultan Suleiman were absent, say on a summer Persian campaign. If the King of
France’s prodigious clock-spinet failed to arrive in the Sultan’s hands before the next winter, no one would be surprised.

On the other hand, according to the Dame de Doubtance, Oonagh O’Dwyer was in Algiers. However fleeting Lymond’s association with her, thought Philippa, he
had
tried to free her last year, when Dragut found and took her to Tripoli. To do her justice, according to Jerott, Oonagh O’Dwyer had not wished to be freed. She had not intended to burden Lymond or to inform him of his impending offspring. It was Gabriel who had done that. And it was Gabriel who was drawing Lymond now to Algiers, with Oonagh O’Dwyer as the bait. So, concluded Philippa, clarifying the thick fogs of quixotry, there was no immediate rush indicated to free Mistress Oonagh O’Dwyer, as the said Mistress Oonagh O’Dwyer, if alive, would certainly be kept alive until Lymond reached her; and if dead, was unlikely to alter that attitude even if the
Dauphiné
went down with all hands.

‘You do grant,’ said Jerott, approached with this view, ‘that there might be a certain naïve interest in proving
whether
she’s dead or alive?’

‘Yes,’ said Philippa. ‘But there’s no
hurry
. That’s the point.’

‘I’m not arguing,’ said Jerott. ‘I like living, too. But try convincing M. le Comte de Sevigny, that’s all.’

In fact, the weather was the final arbiter. No master was going to keep a galley at sea overnight in the Mediterranean in winter in any case, and the port-hopping wind which took them bowling stormily across the Gulf of Lions to the Spanish coast and thence to the Balearic Islands changed the next day to a southerly wind with a fine cross-swell which suited the journey to Algiers not at all, and the insides of the
Dauphiné’s
passengers even less.

Philippa, with hitherto no more than cross-Channel experience, was thankful to find that the iron stomach of the Somervilles had apparently been granted her. She could have put up with being sick before Lymond, but not before Marthe, with whom she shared the chambre de poupe next to the Master’s own cabin.

Marthe, it was obvious, was not the motherly type. Nor was she the sisterly type. Possessed of perfect English when it was required of her, she displayed also perfect self-command, perfect courtesy, an exceedingly well-equipped mind and a cultivated and unalterable coolness towards Francis Crawford and all his lesser companions. During most of the journey she read: occasionally she spent an hour with the captain, who welcomed her as an experienced traveller and a beautiful young woman; occasionally she and Gaultier would sit on a hatch-lid and talk.

Lymond she had hardly exchanged a dozen words with since they met: at their daily formal meal with the Master she sat, her cool, sardonic blue gaze resting on him as he spoke, and contributing
herself almost nothing at all. She made no inquiry about the purpose of their proposed halt at Algiers, and none about Philippa’s presence on board. Philippa had a feeling that she was completely informed on both counts. It did not do to forget that the Dame de Doubtance stayed in Georges Gaultier’s house.

For friendly company, Philippa had Fogge to fall back on—a broken reed, as Fogge was not a Somerville and took to her bed straight away. That left Jerott Blyth and Lymond himself, who, watchful during the rough weather, rescued her from Fogge’s side and took her up into the raw grey daylight to see the ship in full operation.

He knew a great deal about it. As she walked the high gangway between stem and stern, looking down at the two long ranks of oars with their chained rowers—nearly three hundred of them, unwashed, unshaven, naked to the waist; as she was shown the sakers and demi-culverins arming the bows, the chains to prevent main and mizzenmast falling inboard during battle, and below, the divided rooms of the hold, for stores of food and barrels of wine, for munitions and sick men, for the captain’s coals and the officers’ baggage, for the livestock which a seaman, bucket in hand, was feeding as she passed—Philippa began to realize how much.

Coming back, he showed her the cordage of the two lateen sails, now tight to the wind, and explained, as the bos’n’s silver whistle blew, that they were rowing
à quartier
, using a third of the oarsmen at a time, in order to help the galley to hold a few points nearer the wind without exhausting the rowers. ‘One depends on them and them alone during battle, so one cherishes them, as you can see,’ Lymond said. His face, when she glanced at it, was as totally unimpassioned as his voice. ‘These benches, and these, need the most powerful oarsmen. It’s usual to stock them with Turks, but we’ve avoided that this voyage, for obvious reasons. These are mostly Flemish and Spaniards, or criminals culled from French prisons.’ But she knew that already, as they jerked back and forth on the smooth pinewood benches, by the letters burned in their backs.

Later, struggling with tangled hair and soaked skirts in her cabin, Philippa spoke of that tour, and Marthe listened, impeccable as always, her bright hair tucked inside a close cap and her quilted skirts still without blemish. The long mouth tilted a little, as Philippa finished. ‘It is a sobering thing, one’s first close view of a galley. Were you impressed by the
vogue avants du banc des espalles?
’

‘Where they used to have Turks?’

‘Where for two years they had M. Francis Crawford,’ said Marthe. ‘Did you not know?’

‘He knew I didn’t,’ said Philippa.

‘But he could be sure that, sooner or later, someone would tell you. He has to perfection, M. le Comte, the art of living his private
life with as much public attention as possible. You don’t agree?’ She was smiling. She had an enchanting smile.

‘I really don’t know him well enough,’ said Philippa, ‘to pass an opinion.’

It was the last time she was able to walk about the ship. After Formentera, the southerly wind freshened, and the silver whistle shrilled in their ears through the uproar of the seas and the creak and whine of the manœuvring galley as the sheets were pulled in and released on each tack. The brown backs of slaves and seamen glistened with light rain under a chalky grey sky, and spray fell rattling on the gangways as the hoarse voice of the Master shouted to helmsman and
comite: ‘Notre homme, avertissez qu’on va mettre à la trinque … Forte! Forte!…
’

The striped sails bucked and flapped and swelled again as the galley’s beak swung round, and Philippa thought, clinging to the prow rail with Jerott balancing beside her, ‘Tonight we shall be in Algiers, and perhaps we’ll wish ourselves back, and in a worse storm than this.’

Then Lymond, arriving noiselessly from the direction of the helm, touched her arm. ‘
Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter
. Otherwise meaning, the girl with the well-mannered stomach gets the most fun at sea. Would you mind, my formidable Philippa, if I asked you to retire to the captain’s cabin for a spell, along with Marthe and the melancholy Fogge? There is a galley advancing towards us in a profoundly single-minded way. You know what to do?’

Philippa smiled back, her hands cold. What to do when attacked at sea, lessons one to ten. They had spent their first morning at sea being trained, remorselessly, by Francis Crawford for this precise event. ‘I know what to do,’ said Philippa. ‘Offer them the raspberry wine and keep them talking till Mother comes in.’

‘They’re not allowed raspberry wine,’ said Lymond. ‘But you’ll think of an alternative, I’m sure.’ He hesitated.

‘You told me so,’ supplied Philippa.

‘I told you so, quite mistakenly. You are a perfect asset to any ship. This is only a precaution: I shouldn’t worry yet,’ said Lymond cheerfully. ‘He’s probably only coming to ask for a try of the spinet.’

He wasn’t coming to ask for a try of the spinet. Sitting on the Master’s well-worn mattress between Marthe, calmly expectant, and a whimpering Fogge, Philippa knew by the sudden hail of commands, the thud of bare feet on deck and the abrupt veer of the boat that the menace was real. What
was
she, the oncoming galley? A robber, manned by murdering renegades; a fighting ship of the Spanish
Mediterranean fleet, hoping to capture or sink the lilies of France; an Algerine corsair, hating French and Spaniards alike, and bent on money and slaves?

The swinging lamp gleamed on the swords lying beside them; on the bare racks where the officers’ arms had been stored; on the ladder leading up from this one tiny room to the hatchway above. They were here, the three women, because the captain’s
gavon
lay under the poop, where stoving-in was unlikely, and because they had there an escape route on deck, but no door to the rest of the hold. Whatever the outcome, at least they were free of chance injury. And if pure robbery were the motive, the ship might be boarded and ransacked without their being discovered. There was enough in the chests in the main hold to satisfy most passing raiders. And the clock-spinet, of course.

Marthe said, ‘Listen.’ It was a low, rumbling thud, rolling the length of the deck above them. ‘They’re lifting the footrests to row
à toucher le banc
. He’s going to try and outsail them.’

Philippa had seen them row like that, leaving harbour, chained feet on the
pédagues
, arms and bodies leaning towards the loom of the oars. She remembered the oars entering the water, fifty-two blades as one; the surge as the slaves, second foot thrusting the bench, crashed back on their seats, arms outstretched, red-capped heads turned to the prow while the loom performed its semi-circle, touching the bench in front as it passed. It was the magnificent ceremonial stroke, too hard and fast to keep up for long; the
tout avant
measure of war. They felt the pull of it now, as the ship shuddered and drove through the water; the hesitation as Lymond’s voice suddenly spoke, followed by the Master’s. The beat changed. They felt the walnut walls of the little cabin press against them and tilt; a sudden outbreak of running in bare and shod feet, and a new, low-pitched rumble which seemed to come from the bows.