Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [127]
She said, ‘I can’t think why, Míkál; but when I was at home we didn’t think of it; and of course I’ve been travelling since.’
‘Sometimes,’ said Míkál, ‘one must travel to find what is love.’
‘Sometimes,’ said Philippa stoutly, ‘one must travel to find what is kindness. I know what is——I know what love is.’
‘Thou knowest the love of old women,’ said Míkál. He sounded cross. The youngsters who had been running at her side had moved away, tired of the foreign speech. He said, ‘I read thee Anvari, Jelál and thou dost not tremble. The fountains make thee thy bride’s veil; the lyre spins thee thy ribbons; the mallow under thy foot is the hand of thy bridegroom.’ In the torchlight, the deep, dark eyes opened on hers. ‘Khátún, what is his face?’
‘A lemon?’ said Philippa.
Much later that night, when they had spread their mattresses at a farm which had made them all welcome, and all was silent at last, Philippa wrote up her diary. We are close now, I think. The Children passed through quite recently. They took the bride’s little brother Philocles, but no one spoke of it except to extol the brave new life he would have. I have had two poems addressed to my liver. I have solved a mystery. Do you remember the boy in the buttery who grew a hairline moustache when he was courting, and lost a sock in the milk? That, my dear, is a four-eyebrowed beauty.
You didn’t ever happen to mention, Kate dear, whether you wished to start curing a son-in-law ready to lay in, so I take it you don’t. I very much don’t, rather. I want to grow old and sour all by myself, at Flaw Valleys, modelled on my old and sour mother. Anyway, who could be sure of a husband in this country? Sneaking off, for all one knew, to some four-eyebrowed lout in the buttery.…
They caught up with the Children of Devshirmé on the outskirts of Thessalonika. Since the night of the wedding Míkál had been less adhesive, though he spent a little time eliciting precisely her interest and indeed her irritating single-mindedness on the subject of this unknown child Khaireddin.
He received no satisfaction, since Philippa had no satisfaction to give. Kate approved of the child’s father, and so did she. Kate all her life had championed the underdog, and so therefore did she. And what more oppressed puppy in all the world was she likely to find than this one?
‘It is a crusade,’ said Míkál at last. O Soul Sensible, when wilt thou waken?’
Philippa knew that one. There are three degrees of souls: Soul Vegetable, Soul Animal and Soul Sensible. Common Sense is a pond into which the five streams of the outer senses flow. Soul Sensible has two faculties: Virtue Motive and Virtue Apprehensive. Virtue Apprehensive. ‘He’ll have grown. They change a lot. You maybe won’t know him,’ said Philippa.
‘He may be dead,’ said Míkál, hopefully. ‘If he is dead, where shall we go?’
They were testing the tribute-money by the Arch of Galerius. As each person brought forward his tax, the gümüsh-arayân, or silver-searchers, weighed the coins, and then poured them into the little oven within the big iron charcoal-burner. The metal was red-hot, but in spite of the fumes and the blistering air the people of Thessalonika pressed round, watching uneasily. No one would expect all the coins to be true. But over a certain proportion of base metal and double the fee must be paid in these little horned aspers, with their message drawn in the silver: KING OF KINGS, RULING OVER KINGS.
Philippa reined in her mule. She had passed, at Míkál’s insistence, the tented city ringed with Janissaries which lay on the brown grass outside the walls. She must speak, said Mikal, to the Chief Commissar of Devshirmé, or to an Odabassy of Janissaries, at least. In this, the richest city of Thessaly, taking tribute would be a long affair, conducted in the city itself by the Commissars and their clerks, with the Janissaries to keep discipline and the strong arm of the Sanchiach who, with his Spahis, governed Thessalonika for the Beglierbey,