Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [159]
Then she turned back, and slammed the door in his face.
The key was on the outside. Jerott turned it, withdrew it and, taking it with him, found the two Janissaries the attaché had allotted him and went out, followed by the sound of furious hammering.
It was dusk when he returned. To get out now, she would have to pass the Consulate guards; and in any case, as Jerott well knew, she was no fool. No woman who knew her Middle East would venture unescorted now. He unlocked Marthe’s door, tapped on it, and turned back into his room without waiting to speak with her.
Next morning, awakened from light sleep by his servant’s touch, Jerott thought, without pleasure, that it was the same rotten business again. He had a headache, and no prospect of remaining anything but distressingly sober if he was to keep his self-willed companion in sight.
But the news was not of Marthe’s imminent departure alone into the stews of Aleppo. Marthe, it seemed, had come to her senses. She wished, for her uncle’s sake, to view the merchandise in the covered bazaar and also to help with any inquiries which Mr Blyth might be making in pursuit of the child. If Mr Blyth felt he could dispense with his Janissaries, she, Marthe, would dispense with her Arab clothing and confide herself to his protection dressed a la Christianesca for the day.
It was a stilted surrender, and the pricking of his senses should have warned him. As it was, he sent off a cordial message of agreement, while reserving the right, childishly, as a bonus for trouble taken, to retain one Janissary if he jolly well wanted.
With their Janissary, scimitared and white-capped behind them, Jerott and Marthe explored Aleppo. He had some officials to visit whom the attaché had suggested, but all the detailed investigation was already under way, he knew, through the tortuous channels known best to the Consulate. To be walking from alley to alley, and meeting people, and asking the same stupid questions was only a method of keeping busy, of stifling one’s restlessness; of persuading oneself that one was here for some good; that a life might be saved if one worked hard enough.
And at his side throughout, there was Marthe … quick-witted and intuitive, articulate and thoughtful. He had loved her for her beauty and for an excellence with which he was already familiar. That day, engrossed together in the fate of the child, he met her mind to mind and fell in love with her, with every grain of his spirit and cell of his body; with the essential finality of death.
If Marthe knew of it, she gave no sign. It was she who found the tekke, the house of the dervishes; and, standing under the gateway, said, ‘Of course Islam is anathema to you. But in some things, my faith and yours are not far apart. The Bektashi think that the fervent practice of worship engenders in the soul graces; and that in the science of hearts the soul may procure wisdom.… I have a favour to ask.’
‘Ask it,’ said Jerott.
‘This is a Bektashi tekke: a place where the dervishes gather for worship and instruction. They do not mind the presence of infidels, nor do they forbid women. Will you allow me to take you inside?’
‘The Janissary——’ Jerott began.
‘The Janissary cannot enter. Mr Blyth, these are holy men sworn to contemplative and utter humility; dedicated to tolerance and devoted to love. The Way is one, they say: the Form is many. There is nothing to fear in a tekke of the Bektashi Order.’
‘It sounds,’ said Jerott, ‘as if they have some of the right ideas. All right. Let’s go in.’
Inside, as they stood shoes in hand, stockinged feet deep in soft carpets and the leather curtain whispering shut just behind them, the darkness was almost complete. The place seemed large. Motionless, his hand on Marthe’s arm beside him, Jerott became aware of the echoing murmur of many voices, muted by hangings, from each side and before him: the air was filled with spice and frankincense, and the sweet, snuffed odour of new, deep-piled carpets, and the churchly smell of warm wax.
They stood, he then saw, in a little vestibule,