Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [125]
They took boat to Naupactus. It was merely a ferry, crossing the Gulf of Patras to the mouth of the Momos, whose valley north they would follow. Of Naupactus she had a brief impression of Venetian ramparts, water-mills, a citadel with some rather old-fashioned guns, and a sheep’s head a notary gave them, opened and warmed, with the inside minced up and cooked in oil and fat mixed with salt and some sumac seeds. She bought some bread to go with it, much against Míkál’s wishes, and they had a feast, after which he sang her twenty-four verses in Persian from Ummídí, pausing from time to time to translate.
They had lost the merchants bound for Petrasso, but had kept and added to the boys, and had found a vineyard-owner, taking his family up to the terraces. Philippa travelled for a while with the women and children in a small wicker cart with low wheels and round front, pulled by two oxen, while three of the boys rode her mule. They left the family at the vineyard, among the rows of small stiff shrubs, unstaked; but she had a big wooden pot full of grapes at her saddle-bow when she mounted once more. The discord of the bells, she noticed, had almost ceased to concern her.
It was very hot. Through the worst of the day, she curled up and slept on her mattress, the bells sleeping and still all around her; then they would walk and run and dance far into the night, whirling torches and singing, until they found a cottage, or simply a herdsman with a fire and an olive-wood crook, his goats all about him, and would eat whatever they had been given—fruit and pumpkins, un-pressed cheese carried crumbling in goatskins, unleavened cakes baked in cinders and mixed up with sesame seeds. Then they would drink from running water, talk, sing and at length, sharing the fire, would sleep until dawn.
During the four days from Naupactus to Lamia they crossed a mountain range as well as seven miles of plain; and Philippa listened to six hundred couplets in mesnevi verse and a diwan of four hundred gházels, in Turkish metre with internal sub-rhymes. Míkál translated.
At Lamia, having cut off by this device the whole way through Attica, they learned that the children had passed by already, still travelling north on the road to Thessalonika. They were given three wild duck, lost a boy who decided to linger, and joined a wedding party going towards Volos. They were asked to the wedding.
It was a three-day journey along a shore track to Volos, and they sang all the way. The village at which the wedding was held came in sight on the second day, and Philippa, stopping the mule, disappeared into the scrub and reappeared washed all over, in a fresh change of clothes. While she had been away, Míkál had woven her a garland of ivy and poppies. She exclaimed with pleasure. ‘There is that which melts the soul,’ said Míkál, ‘in a young deer walking impulsively, in trust, in grace and in courage. I have opened the book of love … I read and write in it. Thou, too, shalt read.’
Philippa, who had no illusions about her style on a mule, felt her nose become glossy. She said, ‘I don’t know about love; but I know all about kindness. I just wish to goodness you’d all get a good job teaching somewhere.’
But Míkál merely fluttered his beautiful eyelashes and laughed at her. ‘I have it now, Philippa Khátún,’ he said.
They admire, confided Philippa to her diary that night, the Beloved with a chin like an orange, tulip-cheeks and an eye shaped like an egg. Also, what is a four-eyebrowed beauty? Whatever it is, Kate darling, I don’t think it applies to the Somervilles. And so, although it is the very first compliment I have ever received, I don’t suppose it will go to my head.
The Pilgrims danced at the wedding. It was a poor village, but the church was full of flowers and candlelight; the altar swimming with silver; the