Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [145]
‘Grand Master to those old women? Who wants that?’ said Gabriel. He laughed. ‘After this, my dear, Charles will foreclose on Malta, and the Knights will be flung out on their gallant white crosses. I don’t mind sharpening my knife on a dunghill like Scotland or a sandcastle like Malta, for when the time is ripe, I shall rule over an empire. Stop sidling, my swan. I am going to hurt you, but I am not going to kill you, just yet. You are going to provide me with a deal of merriment still. I do not like being inconvenienced. I wish my friends to note what the consequences are.…’
The fires were dying. In the east, a hairline of light over the sea told that dawn was not now far off, but now it was dark, and in spite of the heat of the day the little chill wind of pre-dawning had risen to stir Gabriel’s turban and ruffle Francis Crawford’s damp hair. He had picked one of the trained horses. Used to the trick, it gave no sign as, still moving gently out through the water, Lymond slid his hand low and began to unbuckle the girth. ‘Incidentally,’ said Gabriel softly, ‘there is a marksman on the beach with orders to do nothing at all but keep his weapon trained strictly on you. Tell me: have you burned any straw lately?’
For the space of a breath Lymond’s fingers unloosing the buckle stopped in their work; and then went on smoothly and steadily to finish it. He said, ‘The worst of fires may be drowned in the sea.’ His horse was still.
‘But we have no fires here, have we?’ said Gabriel. ‘No sparks? No recrimination? No temper? When I think of the floggings some poor, half-demented fools at St Mary’s used to receive, I feel I must reprove this docility. Your mistress flayed? Your son scarred and degraded? Your person made a laughing-stock over the whole Middle Sea? And platitudes are all you can give me.’
‘They cost me least trouble,’ said Lymond. ‘What words could insult you?’
For a moment the smile lost its perfume. Then Gabriel said, ‘What do you propose then? A bedevilment by needles? What must I do to provoke you? You do not, by the way, use my title. I am not yet degraded by the poor Order, you know. In fact, I may say, you may no more unknight me than I may unlady your mother. Tell me,’ said Gabriel, ‘about the beautiful Marthe?’
‘Who can tell about the beautiful Marthe?’ said Lymond levelly. ‘Since she is not signed in the genitive?’
And Gabriel throwing back his head laughed, and laughing gave a mock groan, and said, smiling, ‘My God: my God: why alone are you not my slave? Why do you not adore me, who care for nothing and are distressed by nothing in this world, except what touches your vanity? You wish to wrest your son from my power.…
Have you even discovered that there is not one child, but two? Do you care which is yours? Does it matter to you if one is taken from me and one is left to suffer and rot?’
His hands still, his work abandoned, Francis Crawford stared at the other in silence. Then: ‘Who is the other child?’ said Lymond at last.
In the growing light, Graham Malett’s glorious face was filled with indulgence and joy; he was in power and at peace, with the world on a string at his girdle. ‘Does it matter?’ he said. ‘Never on this earth will you distinguish them, nor is there any person now living who knows one child from the other. To be sure of finding your boy you must now find and take possession of both; to be sure of nurturing your boy, you must nurture and cherish not one but both. Of the two children you have found—you