Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [128]
She had seen his point; but was prepared to argue. How could he expect her to buy something she had not even seen? What if she could not find him; if he were not there; if they took her money and then denied his existence?
Last night Míkál had burnished his leopardskin and combed out his long, fine, dark hair. He had sung to himself, she thought, as if he were very happy, swaying his body so that the little bells of his sash and his dress accented the verses. Now, smiling and calling to those who greeted him in the press, he said, looking up in surprise, ‘Thou readest, Khátún. In the Commissars’ books each boy’s name is written, and his birth, and his price. He will be brought to you.’ And as the crowd opened out before them, and she found herself in the Via Egnatia, with the crowded figures of Galerius’s great arch alive in the sun, Míkál said, ‘Give me your money.’
And taking from her the gold which last night she had unpicked from all the hidden corners of her clothes and her baggage, he moved with his magnificent walk past the stinking heat of the brazier, and flung it, chiming, on the deal table where the Commissars sat. ‘The lady pays,’ said Míkál. Philippa, dismounting, followed him in a hurry and stood, panting, beside him.
‘For what does she pay?’ asked the Chief Commissar. He had black moustaches and wore a very white cottage loaf on his head. He had a long jewelled knife in his sash. Philippa opened her mouth and said in squeaky but impeccable Turkish, ‘I wish to buy back the boy-child bought of the merchant Marino Donati, Zakynthos.’
The Commissar’s small black-rimmed eyes studied her. ‘I see. The name of this child?’
‘His name is Khaireddin, or … I am told his nurse calls him Kuzucuyum. He is between one and two years old, with yellow hair,’ said Philippa. ‘If you will have the money counted, I am sure you will do us the honour to agree.’ There were twenty Venetian zecchinos in Míkál’s handkerchief lying there on the bench. Two thousand five hundred aspers. And a five-year-old girl had been bought the other day for five ducats.
The Commissar did not lift the handkerchief. He did not call for his registers or turn to his clerks. He said, ‘Take thy bounty. Alas, the child you mention cannot be resold.’
Philippa’s heart began to beat very heavily. She drew a long breath. ‘Thy pardon, lord; but I cannot think you know the child of whom I speak. He is of no account, base-born of Christian parents, and too young as yet to train. I assure thee, if he is sold to me, there will result nothing but goodwill for the Sultan.’
The black eyes, narrowed against the sun, were not even derisory. ‘Through a base-born son of a Christian?’
Philippa took another enormous breath, which promptly evaporated, invisibly, through her pores. ‘His father,’ she said threadily, ‘is at this moment bearing to Stamboul for the Sultan a gift of some price from his master, the Most Christian King of France. To reunite son and father would be an act of which surely the Grand Seigneur would approve.’
The Commissar raised a finger. Released by the signal, the clerks opened their books; the slow procession of tax-payers began to move forward; the little weights clinked in the scales as the aspers were poured out for weighing. ‘The child you mention,’ said the Commissar briefly, ‘came from the harem of Dragut Rais at Algiers. I fear thou hast mistaken his origins. He is not for sale. You may have the aid of my Odabassy to find your way without harm out of the city. Allah be with thee.’
The gold thrust into her hand, she was dismissed. Philippa looked round wildly. Míkál had gone. The other pilgrims, intoxicated by the crowd, had already started to disperse: she could hear the bells and the cymbals and the laughter, in trickles and spurts, through all the noise of the throng. Her mule, unattended, had drifted to a stall selling mish-mish and was licking a bowl.
Philippa looked