Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [110]
He stopped. The last flight of steps he had climbed had brought him out on the corner bulwark of the Palace: below him, faint in the starlight, rolled the sandy plain, feathered with palms, and the silvered arena where lay the Arab encampment. Behind him, a light voice spoke, known to him in every timbre and cadence and damnable mockery. ‘Moping, Mr Blyth?’ said Marthe herself.
Very slowly, he turned. Once before she had stood thus with the moonlight behind her on the deck of the Dauphiné, and his heart, against his will, had hesitated and caught. Tonight, she had bound her hair in a plait which fell to her waist, and the gown which robed her from neck to foot smelt of myrrh. Waiting; studying him, she saw all the colour leave his face, and heard the sharp breath he took to relieve the constriction over his heart. Walking forward, she laid her arms on the wall, and drew breath in her turn.
‘Moping, on such a night for happiness? African roses in the moonlight, and a lover, sleepless, roaming the garden … I saw you from my window,’ said Marthe’s silver voice thoughtfully. ‘I saw you, dark and beautiful and restless, walk by the fountain, and I thought … to reach the nadir of tasteless and vulgar fatuity, I ought to plait my hair and walk out to meet you. Have you lost him again?’ said Marthe with interest. ‘He does get mislaid easily.’
But this time she had been too cruel, and too clever. Drawn so wantonly close to the pinnacle, Jerott could do nothing but fall. Quick as she was, she could not escape his two hands, trained soldier’s hands, dropping with the weight of the pillory over her shoulders and arms, or his voice confronting her, insistent, striving to be understood, ‘Marthe. I love you.’
He said it again, under his breath; driven suddenly into shock by the feel of her. Marthe studied his face. After the first second she made no effort to move or to escape: her face showed neither apprehension nor any of the actual pain he was causing her.
Instead, she said, ‘It seems we are sparing no cliché. You impertinent oaf of a schoolboy.… It’s because you can’t have Francis Crawford that you want me. That’s all.’
His hands did not fall: as the cock is snapped back by the trigger, so his unlocking grip sprang apart, and she was free. Jerott drew breath twice and let it out without speaking; and then stood still, breathing raggedly while the seconds passed, his face haggard with shock.
If Marthe felt any shred of sympathy she showed nothing of it. Bland and austere in the moonlight, she merely stared at him, curious, as he searched for something to say or to do. How long he stared back at her neither of them knew; until, all the lines of his striking face blurred with revulsion, ‘No,’ he said. ‘Oh, no. You’re wrong.’
‘You didn’t know?’ said Marthe. ‘Then it’s quite time someone told you, isn’t it? … Don’t apologize. I am not easily outraged. As you know, they are very broad-minded about these matters in Islam.… Or if you don’t know it, Francis Crawford certainly does.’
Jerott said, ‘He has made no … Marthe, this is madness! What are you talking about? I tell you I love you. You. Not anyone else.’
She was picking a spray of orange-blossom to pieces. Leaning on the smooth wall, the fat golden plait shining beside her, she let the white petals fall, one by one, down into the abyss below, the crushed scent filling the air. ‘I am quite wrong about Lymond? Tell me, why did you come out tonight?’
After the slightest pause he answered, ‘Because I couldn’t sleep.’
Her fingers working, she spoke without looking at him. ‘Because you were worried, perhaps; as a good captain should be, when his commander is missing without explanation? How many nights has he spent away recently?’
‘One or two. Several,’ said Jerott.
‘And would you like to know where he is?’ inquired Marthe. ‘I would take you to see him, except that he will be very comfortable and possibly sleeping by now. Also we might have some trouble leaving the palace.’
Jerott Blyth