Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [168]
There was no urgency. As the sky darkened and evening fell, Jerott sat in his room, staring with unseeing eyes at the wall, thinking. When someone knocked on his door and asked him to go to the attaché’s chamber, he was already prepared for what he would hear.
The child was not in Aleppo, and was highly unlikely ever to have been in Aleppo. ‘It is strange,’ said the attaché, doing his best under bothering circumstances, ‘that M. le Comte thought it necessary to send to Aleppo in the first place. The ship Peppercorn you speak of is an English bottom, and does not call at Ottoman ports.’
‘They said something of the sort at Scanderoon,’ said Jerott. ‘We thought there was an English agent here perhaps.’
‘There are negotiations, but so far no one,’ said the attaché. ‘Meanwhile, English ships, you understand, may call only at those ports under the control of the Seigneury, such as Crete and Candia, where you have already been. Sometimes, depending on the weather, the Peppercorn calls at these places, but she has only one regular port of call at this season, and that is to load mastic on the island of Chios.’
‘Chios. In the Aegean?’ asked Jerott.
‘Between Samos and Lesbos, yes. It is ruled by Venice but pays tribute to Turkey. You do not know it? It is a garden, Mr Blyth,’ said the attaché. ‘Flowers, and trees, and great red partridges, tame as chickens. And the handsomest women in Europe, to be had for a song. They understand these matters better than in Aleppo,’ said the attaché, who had become vaguely aware of a certain undercurrent of atmosphere in the Consulate, and in any case wished to be free of visitors before the Consul came home. ‘Each girl pays a ducat a day to the Captain of the Night, and she may do as she pleases. You will go to Chios?’
‘I want to reach M. le Comte before he arrives at Constantinople,’ said Jerott. Gabriel and Francis, he had been thinking all evening. Gabriel was alive, and Francis did not know. Francis travelling; believing he was safe at least from that quarter. Francis arriving in Constantinople, and Gabriel’s men there, awaiting him.
The attaché was shaking his head. ‘If M. le Comte left Malta when you did, M. Blyth, he will be in Constantinople by now. Or long before you might reach him. It is October soon, M. Blyth, when the winds are strong and the galleys are laid up, and even trading vessels spend weeks in harbour. You would never reach him in time.… But to go to Chios, this would take you part of the way, and maybe discover the child for you en route?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerott. ‘Could I get a ship at Scanderoon for Chios now? Or how long would I wait?’
The attaché looked doubtful. ‘There is none there today, and it is now late in the season. You would do better, Mr Blyth, to go overland. You might join a caravan; or M. Gilles would be happy, I am sure, to go with you, with a suitable escort of Janissaries: the way is very familiar to him.…’
Jerott wasn’t listening. He interrupted. ‘You said that there was no ship in Scanderoon today bound for Chios.… May I ask how you can possibly know?’
The attaché smiled. ‘You do not know of our magic channels for news? I know by pigeon post, M. Blyth. Between all the main trading-centres along the coast, and between Scanderoon and here, they fly daily with the message tied by a thread to the leg. They take four hours to travel the eighty miles which probably took you three or four days, and we have all the news of shipping as it arrives, and they likewise learn in Scanderoon when the big caravans from Persia come in. It is a charming method. They have names, even, the little ones,’ said the attaché fondly.
Marthe, standing among the Baghdad pigeons in the factor’s courtyard at Scanderoon … Gaultier, fondling Kiaya Khátún’s doves in the palace at Djerba …
Jerott stood up.
The attaché got quickly to his feet. ‘You wish me to arrange this then? To travel by land to Chios, yourself, Mademoiselle, M. Gilles and M. Pichón? There will be many good men to escort you: the Sultan’s army is already travelling south