Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [13]
‘But if it is dead, then Mr Crawford is free to kill Gabriel,’ remarked Philippa, her mud-coloured eyes ingenuous in her very plain face.
‘Quite,’ said Jerott. ‘Which makes it seem very possible, doesn’t it, that it is in Gabriel’s own best interests to keep the baby alive?’
‘But inaccessible,’ said Philippa thoughtfully. ‘But inaccessible.’
‘So why are you going to Lyons?’ said Philippa. ‘It’s not on the way back to England.’
Jerott eyed her austerely. ‘For protection.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Philippa prosaically, ‘that on the whole we run more risks with Mr Crawford’s protection than without it.’
The following week, within sight of Lyons and its frieze of occupied gibbet and wheel, they became involved, not accidentally, in a Protestant-baiting, despite all Lymond could and did do. The crowd came upon them suddenly, and with them a masked dummy, borne on a hurdle with its limbs dangling, broken in ritual to represent a heretic condemned but so far uncaught.
In a narrow faubourg, without possibility of retreat, Lymond’s party reined in single file and stopped on command: no one spoke. No one knew how, in passing, the rag-filled dummy was freed from its hurdle and slung over the saddle of one of Master Zitwitz’s servants whose horse, taking fright, bolted off through the throng, maiming with its hoofs as it went.
In a climate sulphurous with religious dissent, it was more than enough. The crowd, a rabble of four or five hundred, turned on the cavalcade in their midst. Philippa had time to see the reddened faces, the open mouths, the upflung hatchets and pikes; and then her horse, hauled round by Lymond’s hand on the bit, turned and raced off by the way they had come, a detachment of Lymond’s armed men surrounding her and her maid. From the shouting behind, she knew that Lymond himself, with Jerott and the rest, was momentarily holding the road.
She shouted then, but the men-at-arms round her wouldn’t let her stop. Instead, they brought her in a broad sweep to the river they had been about to cross over, bargained swiftly, and when, a moment later, Lymond and the rest of the company appeared, riding hard, she was already in the ferryboat and half-way across, her horse swimming alongside. Kneeling in the boat, screaming encouragement, she saw them one by one launch into the water, stones splashing about them, until finally they were out of reach of the bank and the crowd, still yelling, began to disperse.
Standing safely on the opposite bank with her dry maid, her dry escort, and a company of streaming horsemen, Philippa said scathingly, ‘That’s men for you. Cover the lady’s retreat, the book says. A hundred years ago, maybe. And what stopped you from coming with me just now? I can swim, you know.’
Onophrion Zitwitz, as so often, materialized at her side. ‘M. le Comte,’ he said, his face less than rosy under the sad strands of his hair, ‘hoped, without success, I fear, to save that poor ill-advised servant of mine.’
‘Oh, Christ, it wasn’t his fault,’ said Lymond. Unclasping the dead weight of his long cloak, he slung it to Salablanca and remounted as he was, his bare head darkened and rivulets from his chain mail drenching leathers and saddlecloth.
‘Was it staged, then?’ Jerott, also remounted, rode alongside. Lymond said, ‘Don’t be a fool, Jerott,’ and turning, continued with the string of orders he had begun when interrupted. Philippa said patiently to Jerott, ‘All right. So you were gallant. And how did you persuade four hundred people to let you ride after me in the end?’
‘It’s easy if you know how,’ said Jerott. ‘Francis emptied his purse on the street as we went.’
‘Oh,’ said Philippa. ‘Tonight we sing in the streets?’ She waited, and then said, ‘What’s wrong? It’s not just Master Zitwitz’s servant? You know I’m sorry about that.’
‘You perhaps didn’t notice my crack over the knuckles just now,’ Jerott said. ‘That was because three men were picked off and killed altogether