Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [100]
The merchant’s house, built low on two storeys, was no more than half a dozen small chambers erected round the main stockrooms. The smell of fruit followed Philippa through two bedrooms and along a small gallery: once she opened a door and closed it hastily against a warm hail of small fleshy objects running into her shoes.
Of all the rooms Philippa discovered, the signor’s study was perhaps the most interesting. She stayed there briefly until, impelled by the waves of vibration, she fled to the kitchen below. It was empty. She moved quickly through it, and out into the courtyard, which held two running menservants, a maid having hysterics, and a young man seated peacefully on the edge of a well. Somewhere a child was still crying. She had located the sound in the stables and was making towards them when the young man called out in Italian. ‘It is Jacomo, who is frightened of earthquakes. He is not hurt, signorina.’
Philippa, who spoke dreadful Italian and was not impressed by beautiful young men, said over her shoulder, ‘It is sometimes worse to be frightened than to be hurt, as you may find out,’ and ran on.
The stables were empty of horses. Prone on the straw, screeching, was a negro child of about four. His cut velvet eyes staring at Philippa, he continued to scream, in regular staccato pattern, while she gathered him up in her arms, tut-tutting in calm reproof of his conduct. He stopped screaming. O marvellous one,’ said the young man, still seated behind her. ‘Made breathless by the garden of thy grace. Instead of tears, but dew; amorously biting the lip of the tulip. Jacomo and I crave leave to worship thee.’
‘Why?’ said Philippa. She grinned at Jacomo, who grinned liberally back. ‘That’s just common sense. If you comfort children, they think there’s something to be frightened about. If you scold them, they know it’s all right.’
‘This, I see, is thy philosophy for earthquakes,’ said the young man. ‘And for fire, holocaust and plague: what is thy remedy?’
Sitting down on the well’s edge with Jacomo held firm on one knee, Philippa thought. ‘I’m awfully afraid I should just go on scolding. I don’t like the steamy emotions.’
‘Why, what could befall thee?’ said the young man. ‘These are the sweet passions; the frangible arts. Lacking them, thou wilt become as Signor Marino Donati.’
‘Bald?’ said Philippa tartly; and the young man, who was evidently far from simple, at this simple reply dissolved into a cascade of silvery mirth. Philippa gazed at him with reproof, which developed into a stare of frank interest.
He was a Geomaler, she realized. His sleeveless tunic was of royal purple linen, and his bare arms and legs in their thonged sandals were brown with the flawless tan of the nomad; his smooth cheeks rose-brown, his shining dark hair resting combed and clean on his shoulders. No possessions lay on the soft dust beside him. The richest object about him was a long girdle of silk, thickly embroidered with bullion, which he wore wound round and round his slim waist. At each end was a small silver cymbal; and small bells, sewn to tunic and sandals, made a sudden lyrical sound as, now, he stretched and rose to his feet. Perhaps Greek, probably rich, certainly wellborn, he was a Pilgrim of Love; one of the queer dilettante sect of whom Archie had told her, travelling Asia from patron to patron, giving of poetry, music and love in exchange for a livelihood. ‘You disapprove,’ he said.
Philippa set Jacomo down, but he clung to her, and she kept an arm round him. The bells had stopped ringing and the loudest noises had ceased, but the earth still stirred itself in tremors under her feet, and in the street people called. But for themselves, the courtyard was empty. ‘Disapprove? No,’ she said. ‘Provided that Signor Donati is not your patron.’
He had dark grey eyes, with which he held hers in thought. He said, ‘From today, he is not.’
Philippa grinned. ‘A convert?’
His eyes did not change.