Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [167]
In an age of eccentric scholars, he had a reputation all his own: this shrewd old man with the powerful frame and flamboyant stride and extravagant temper. Fluent in the classical languages and at home in half a dozen others, he had always gone his own way, loosely armed with someone’s commission: travelling with the French Ambassador d’Aramon in the wake of the Sultan; resting at Rome to write up his notes and publish his books, loosely under the patronage of some Cardinal. And always with Herpestes on his shoulder.
As the afternoon wore on, and the anatomist, up to his elbows and over in a frenzy of work, either did not hear what he was saying or barely took time to answer, Jerott stopped talking and confined himself to his notes. Only once, as Gilles’s pet slipped softly from the bench where he had been sitting and streaked, long and grey and deadly, to pounce on something at the edge of the courtyard, Jerott glanced round at the bright eyes, and the sharp black muzzle and the feline whiskers, and said, ‘What do you call him?’
‘Herpestes,’ said Gilles. He worked for a moment, then straightening, stretched and wiped a hand over his streaming brow. He looked at Jerott. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’
Jerott grinned. ‘Only because I knew about him. Herpestes ichneumon, a genus of digitigrade carnivorous quadrupeds of the family Viverridae. They have them in Egypt, as house pets for rat-catching.’
‘You have had a good tutor. I see no reason,’ said Gilles, still inspecting him, ‘why you should not come to Constantinople with me and help that fool Pichón. Your Latin is rather poorer but you have at least a strong stomach.’
‘I am honoured,’ said Jerott, amusement struggling through the stone ballast occupying the place of his guts. ‘But I was trying to explain, I am staying here because I am looking——’
‘For some child the Turk is amusing himself with. I recall. But did you not also say that in a day or two you would know from the attaché whether or not the boy has been in Aleppo? If the attaché finds the child for you, you may send him home and come to Constantinople with me. If not, you said, did you not, that the child would probably in any case now be dead?’
‘If he’s alive, he’ll still be in danger,’ said Jerott. It sounded limp. ‘I shall have to go back home with him. And if he isn’t here, I’ll have to go on trying to find him.’
Pierre Gules had just made a plan, and he did not wish it disturbed. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What is this you fear for the child? He is ill, or delicate? We shall initiate inquiries from Constantinople, and it will be found. The Grand Turk is more powerful than a little consular attaché.’
It was a long time since Jerott had taken orders from a stranger. He said curtly, ‘I am afraid it would be too late. The child was a hostage for the life of Sir Graham Reid Malett, one of the Knights of the Order on Malta. Sir Graham was killed in the battle of Zuara last month by the child’s father. As soon as the news reaches its keeper, it will be dead.’
‘One moment,’ said Pierre Gilles. He lifted his beard and stood, arms akimbo, screwing up his face against the mellowing light falling through the stretched linen over his head. ‘The light is going. What mysteries my friend here has left, I think he must keep. And the Consul, if he comes back tomorrow, will wish the use of his courtyard perhaps. Yes, I think we may consider that we have done. Herpestes!’
The ichneumon ran towards him and leaped on his shoulder. The sweating labourers, summoned also by signal, came and received their instructions. The anatomist turned back to Jerott, untying the strings of the apron and peeling it off, to Herpestes’s annoyance. ‘You say, Blyth, the urgency comes from the death of this knight Graham Malett?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerott.
‘Then,’ said Pierre Gilles heartily, ‘there is no urgency. The knight Graham Malett is alive, though no longer a knight. It is a joke, I fear, against Malta the length of the Coast. Have you not heard of the great new Pasha just installed in Zuara? He is your dead