Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [124]
She bought also two linen squares, which she wore, breathing heavily, over her face and head. Into her pouch she put the handful of little squared aspers they gave her as change: the rest of the money Archie had left her was sewn into her smock, or else wrapped round with thread in the mending-things she packed, with a spare set of clothes, in her saddlebags. Behind her saddle went a little wool mattress, a quilt, and two light, long-haired rugs, bound in a roll.
She had no stockings, but Míkál obtained for her a pair of red leather shoes with pointed toes and thongs, classical style. He also brought for her several very beautiful handkerchiefs, for which he would take no payment, saying she was to receive them as a gift. She wondered, in her waxing sophistication, in what kind of coin he had paid for them.
There were a dozen, finally, in the party which accompanied her out of Zakynthos. Five of them were Geomalers like Míkál, dressed for travel in purple smocks more or less like his, with whole unsewn skins on their shoulders as cloaks, tied in front by a knot in the forelegs. They had no baggage, other than their cymbals and bells, and sometimes a little book of Persian love sonnets, or a staff, or a garland of flowers. They all had long hair, some of it loose and shining like Míkál’s, and sometimes thick and sticky with dressing. The other six comprised two boys, a weaver, a bow-maker and two merchants going to Petrasso.
Only the merchants were mounted. The others ran at her side as she rode docilely down to the harbour, on Míkál’s instructions: the tops of their heads smelt of turpentine, and the rain of bell-sounds mingled with greetings, chanting, laughter and snatches of song reminded her of a children’s party Kate had once arranged at Flaw Valleys, when the cook’s illegitimate niece had been sick.
There was a frigate there, bound for Morea. No money changed hands that Philippa saw. The little party, chanting and jingling still, swept on board with the merchants, and in a matter of minutes she was sailing out of Zakynthos, bound east for the coast of Morea.
With some trouble, Philippa stifled her questions. She was to follow the four-yearly course of the Children of Tribute, which was always the same. From village to village and city to city of occupied Greece she was to travel east and north in their footsteps towards Usküb in north Macedonia, where they gathered, Míkál said, before entering Stamboul itself. He would take her. He would protect her. And once she had found and bought the baby Khaireddin, he would set them both on board ship for home.
The Pilgrim with anchusa wound in his hair had a mad scourge of a bell in F sharp. In her lighter moments, Philippa wondered if Míkál’s friends would allow her to cull them, say to two major chords and a diminished seventh in G.
They arrived at Petrasso. It was a city, rich with the currant trade, but Philippa saw none of it. The children had gone the easy way, along the Gulf of Corinth to Athens: three days’ soft travel alongside the water, and then a climb through bare rock to the ruins of Corinth, the Isthmus; Megara.
Míkál spoke of Old Athens: ‘It interests you? The walls are there; nearly six miles of them round, but there are few houses within them now, though a great many ruins. But ruins one can see anywhere.… Aşk olsun!’ He smiled, his voice caressing, and the man he had addressed returned the greeting: ‘Aşkin cemal olsun!’ and stopped to speak. Philippa was getting used to this exchange, hour after hour. ‘Let there be love!’ and ‘May thy love be beautiful!’
She looked at the chipped marble horse-trough in the crown of the street, which had once been a classic sarcophagus; deep-fleeced lambs were still incised on its flanks. The vagaries to which the terms ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ were subject never failed to surprise her. Then Míkál came away from his friend with his hands full of radishes, and the matter seemed of minor importance.
She was not allowed to see Athens.