Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [113]
‘You know what they are,’ said Jerott. ‘He was taken by ship from Monastir by the silk-farmer’s sister in an English bottom bound for Scanderoon. Whether they landed there we don’t know. We can only follow and try to find out. If they are found in Aleppo, no doubt Mr Crawford will ship the child home immediately. If they are not, he is perfectly capable of pursuing them both without me. I’m afraid my own affairs are beginning to require my attention.’
However much I try, don’t let me turn you against me. But since Marthe had joined them at Bône, Jerott thought, the man who had spoken those words had not been the same person. Or perhaps it was he himself who had changed.
The Peppercorn, sailing east with a good deal of cargo to unload, ran into unpleasant weather after two weeks between Malta and Candia, and had to lower her sails.
The silk-farmer’s sister, who was an old friend of the captain’s, was largely unaware of it: she had moved into his cabin a long time ago and was cementing the friendship with hashish. The cook, shredding salt meat and biscuit for the officers, took a bowl below now and then for the child Khaireddin, whom the woman had put in the gunroom. There was no light, but room enough for his pallet, and at night he shared the room with the comité and one or two others who ignored but did not ill-treat him. Only, alone during the first day of the storm, he could not keep his feet, being so young, and, rolling and sliding, was tossed for a while between the stores and the walls until, wedged in a corner, he fell abruptly asleep.
When he awoke he was still alone, and one of the crates, shaken loose, was knocking about in the dark. He had learned not to cry, and made no sound in fact until, the ship tilting still further, the security of his corner suddenly dissolved, and he found himself again sliding to and fro in the dark, the loose cases beside him.
When the comité unlocked the door the child had screeched himself into hysteria and the silk-farmer’s sister, irritated, gave him a thrashing. Then relenting, she lifted him on to his mattress, which the carpenter had nailed to the floor, fastened him to it safely with a lashing under his arms, and checked that the crates had been safely re-corded. He smiled at her hugely as she finished, and attempted, with distraught eyes, to press a kiss on her hand. When he screamed again, through the night, the comité got up, cursing, and tilted the ale-jug against the child’s mouth.
It worked like a miracle. Finding his night’s sleep assured, the comité, as time went on, felt better disposed to the child. He cut the dirty fair hair which tangled over his eyes; picked off his lice; and, since he was always wet, found the boy a box full of straw to sleep in, tossing the soaked mat overboard. Then, having made the gunroom habitable, the comité largely forgot about him, except to observe to the silk-farmer’s sister, in case she had not already noticed, that the brat could hold his drink like a man.
12
Djerba
The prisoners on Djerba were taken out of the palace in the afternoon when the sun, low in the blue sky, had lost the worst of its heat, and led to the arena where, flanked by the Aga Morat’s open-fronted pavilions, they sat under awnings on Turkey carpets covered with cushions, and prepared to watch his Arabs perform.
Emerging from the depths of the palace in his own clothes, his hair still damp from the baths, unscented, unsmiling, Lymond did not speak to Jerott, although he answered Kiaya Khátún’s greeting with formal correctness. Marthe, her eyebrows lifted, said, ‘Good morning, Mr Blyth. Smile! You look like a toad in a creel full of flowers,’ and walking past him, still smiling, put her hand on her uncle’s arm. Onophrion followed. Güzel, watching them, her face thoughtful, left the palace a little later, with her attendants, to take place of honour beside the Aga Morat himself