Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [101]
‘Why Lesbos?’ said Philippa.
‘Why not? The child would offer thee something.’
Entranced by the self-sufficiency that took as natural her interest, while evincing no curiosity at all about herself, Philippa had forgotten the boy. It was true. Rummaging inside the cut-down shirt he wore, the child had hauled over his black wool a piece of grease-polished string and, attacking it with his teeth, was attempting to free the blackened token through which it was strung. Putting her hands over his, Philippa said, ‘No, no. My goodness, what would your mother say? You can give me a kiss; that’s all I …’
After a long space, she added, absent-mindedly, ‘… want.’
‘The ring troubles thee?’ asked the Geomaler. ‘Why?’
She said it in her head twice, and then said it aloud. ‘Because I have its twin.’
‘How?’
Splat like a pike. Philippa, desperately following her mythical fortune, said simply, ‘I’m looking for a European child, a white child about eighteen months old called Khaireddin, who was brought up by Dragut. The ring was supposed to help me find him.… How did Jacomo get the twin ring?’
‘Jacomo? Jacomo was brought from Algiers as a slave with his mother along with one or two other children, some white. When the other children left, Jacomo was given the ring.’
‘It belonged to one of the other children? Whom did it belong to? Where did they go?’
With a shiver of bells, the Pilgrim seated himself again, without answering, on the rim of the well. ‘But I do not understand. He is thy child?’
‘Use your common sense!’ said Philippa. And then looking down, her face red, she said, ‘Heavens. Steamy emotions.’
‘So thou hast learned one thing about thyself today,’ said the young man thoughtfully. ‘I think I may teach thee much.’
‘Manners, for a start,’ said Philippa, still blushing. ‘I’m sorry. I feel strongly because … because of the injustice of it all, not because it’s mine. Its father and my mother are old friends, and then the baby fell into bad hands and is being used as a kind of hostage against its father——’
‘By Signor Donati?’ asked the young man sharply. ‘No. That is unlikely. But by him for whom he works? That, perhaps.’
Philippa did not answer. There was no need. For good or ill the truth was out. ‘I am right, I see,’ said the Geomaler. ‘The child was confided to Marino Donati by this same Knight of St John who conspires with the Turks?’
‘Who what! What do you know about Gabriel?’ said Philippa, sitting bolt upright. ‘Oh, bother, here’s Archie.’
The Geomaler smiled. ‘By the harbour,’ he said, ‘there is a house painted blue, owned by one Ziadat. I shall be there. My name is Míkál.’
‘Mine’s Philippa,’ said Philippa. She hesitated.
Míkál smiled again, and still smiling, drew the child Jacomo from her side to his. ‘No living thing has ever suffered through me. Assure thyself of this,’ he observed.
‘I know,’ said Philippa. ‘I’m sure,’ she added, more convincingly. ‘It’s just that I was hoping you’d make an exception for Graham Reid Malett.’
Sheemy had sold his pearls, for a sum with which he seemed guardedly pleased. Philippa heard all about the transaction, in boring detail, all the way back to the harbour, where they bought some pies in a cook shop and sat on the harbour wall, eating them. Half-way through these, Archie had time to address her. ‘Yon was damned dangerous, running about in an earthquake. Where did you go?’
‘I didn’t like it,’ owned Philippa. ‘But it seemed such a good excuse to explore. And I found out …’ She stopped. Then fumbling under her cloak, she brought out, laid flat on her palm, the two gemmel rings, from the Dame de Doubtance and from the child Jacomo’s neck. ‘I found out Oonagh’s baby was there.’
In absorbed silence, they heard her tell of Míkál. Pilgrims of Love were not outside Archie’s experience. He had, she had found, a wide