Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [131]
It looked down, Philippa noticed, as it stepped into the first tray of jam, hesitated, and for a moment was even in danger of sitting. Then, with admirable devotion to duty, it stepped into the other four trays without pausing and pursuing the clear imprint of twelve jammy hooves over the bleaching cloths, heeled precariously round the gate into the garden and disappeared, followed by a growing number of adults. The last Philippa saw of it was a flash of wary blue eyes, a hamster grin, and a cone of thick yellow hair, resting levelly on its belligerent eyebrows. Under her veil, Philippa’s larynx shrank to a pinhead and her eyes swam with unwanted water. She snorted.
‘I speak,’ said a voice behind her in English, ‘to Mees Somerville?’
You cannot whirl round in a floor-length robe and two veils. Achieving the change of direction with dignity, Philippa found herself opposite an elderly Imam quite unknown to her: a soft-skinned Turk in the turban of the Haji who has made the sacred journey to Mecca, his grey beard brushing white woollen robes, his prayer beads hanging in his sash. He smiled. ‘Forgive me: I frighten you,’ he said. ‘I am Bektashi Baba, an elder follower of Haji Bektash Veli, of whom you may have heard. The Beglierbey, who prays to be excused, has asked me to see you. You will do me the honour to seat yourself and take qahveh?’
Now where, thought Philippa, seating herself warily on a pile of fat cushions, have I heard that before? And then she remembered: the house of the Dame de Doubtance in Lyons, and the harsh voice saying, ‘My cousin will bring you some qahveh, which you will dislike until your taste is formed.’ Philippa sat very straight, remembering not to pull on her veil, until the tray was brought with two cups by a Greek slave in a snowy tunic and laid on a small stool before her; and the Bektashi Baba, slipping out of his soft shoes, climbed the three shallow steps and, after seeking permission, seated himself at a discreet distance on the same divan. The slave poured the hot coffee, and waiting as Míkál had taught her until he had left, she unhooked her veil and lifted the cup.
It was the same aromatic burnt mud. Nostalgia poured in on her. She set her jaw and drank, as the Bektashi Baba smiled again and gently spoke. ‘Now, my child, you will tell me everything and I shall help you. Why you, an English girl, should travel alone with the Pilgrims, inquiring after a base-born child you have never met.… This is true, is it not?
‘Everyone keeps asking me that,’ said Philippa, peevishly. ‘It can’t be so very rare to find a child sent for tribute by mistake. I’m trying to buy it back before anyone gets into trouble, that’s all.’ She put down her cup. ‘You didn’t frighten me, but I just wondered how you knew my name.’ Attack, little flower, Kate had said calmly to a tear-stained Philippa once, after an inquisitorial visit from a much-hated aunt. Answer rude questions with naïve questions as near to the bone as you can get them.
On Bektashi Babas, the technique had no effect. Her companion merely raised bushy grey eyebrows and said, ‘From Míkál, naturally, I learn it. The matter interests the Beglierbey, for his information from the merchant Donati led us to believe that the child was a godson of a Knight of St John. You have told the Commissars this is not so. It is possible therefore that the child you seek is not the one brought from the merchant Donati.’
‘The child I seek,’ said Philippa with brittle clarity, ‘is between one and two years old, is called Khaireddin, and is branded with the mark of Dragut Rais, in whose harem he was placed