Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [120]
Looking down, breathless, from above Jerott, Lymond answered. ‘We only make sport.’
‘Thou wilt try the swords, Efendi?’
‘Hell——’ began Jerott, and was cut off by Lymond. ‘We’ll try anything. Call the others off, will you? Jerott, you take one horse and I’ll have the other.’ He dismounted with credit while they were still moving, with two neat somersaults, from the horse to the ground, and Jerott, with success, did the same. The other riders, pattering up, dismounted: there was an air of less than kindly expectancy. Jerott said to Lymond in English, ‘My God: do you know what you’re …’ and broke off as two horses were led up. They were saddled, and fixed to the saddle on each side, erect and cutting-side inwards, were three razor-sharp swords.
‘What better?’ said Lymond. ‘We have the field to ourselves. They will be at this end, and we shall be at the other, escaping.’
‘Through the guards?’ inquired Jerott sarcastically.
‘I thought,’ said Lymond reflectively, ‘through the back wall of the Aga Morat’s pavilion. Keep your elbows in, Brother.’ And with extreme care, he mounted, and took bow and quiver.
Jerott looked at his horse. He had to mount, sit between those six vertical blades and, riding at full gallop, shoot at the mark, three times on approaching and three times turning, after he had gone by. He visualized that turn, flexing his shoulders. All right; it put them in possession of swords. They even had a bow each and a quiver of arrows. They had, as Lymond said, the field to themselves with no other horseman ready to shoot or to strike.
But they were also making straight for the Aga Morat’s pavilion, on either side of which his turbaned guard stood, hedging all the back of the crowd, knife and scimitar ready. Escape on any other side of the square was impossible, the crowd was too thick. Escape of any kind, to the Aga Morat’s mind, was presumably unthinkable, as long as they did what they were assumed to be doing: putting up a performance. That meant that, swords or not, he had to shoot, or do his damned best to shoot, until the last moment. He became aware that from the glittering cage of his saddle, Lymond was watching him. Jerott said, matter-of-factly, ‘I think you’re out of your mind,’ and, lifting himself into the saddle, took up his bow.
They rode side by side on the disembowelled sand, among the discarded arrowheads and the splintered litter of display: a fragment of turban-cotton, pinned by a dart, trembled in the late afternoon breeze from the sea. In the west, against the rubicund sun, the green valance of palm trees was turning to fretwork and a pitch torch, lit somewhere high in the palace, caught Jerott’s eye with its flame. Marthe, her long-sighted eyes on the two men, spoke, murmuring to her uncle. ‘They are not drunk.’
Georges Gaultier, his eyes fixed on the arena, replied without turning round. ‘It is not possible. You saw what Blyth drank here alone.’
‘It wasn’t harech,’ said Marthe.
Gaultier turned. ‘He was stinking of it. I tasted some on my hand when the cup spilt.’
‘The first cup,’ said Marthe. ‘The container held only water.’
Georges Gaultier continued to look at her. ‘Then?’
‘Then they plan to escape. It is none of our business,’ said Marthe. ‘He will go to Aleppo.’
‘And we?’
‘We shall go to Aleppo too. Why should they keep the Dauphiné when its patron has gone?’
‘You are right. She will not hurt you,’ said Gaultier. ‘Zitwitz and the Moor must take their chance.’
Jerott was nocking his arrow. Onophrion, he thought. What happens to Onophrion and Salablanca if Francis walks out? Or whatever happens, perhaps it’s worth it, to save the