Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [170]
‘What do you have to do with the Saracens of Savah?’ said Jerott abruptly; and Marthe looked up, her eyes wide.
‘I wakened … once,’ he said. ‘Were you buying, or selling? Who pays you, Marthe?’
‘You don’t understand,’ she said. In her lap, the loose hands had ground together: between the fair brows a single line showed, of anger and disgust and a kind of futile perplexity. ‘You don’t understand: how can you? You were born into a household, with parents and wealth; you knew your friends and your enemies; you knew your position in life; whom you were fighting for: whom you were against. I am alone. Every man is my enemy.’
Jerott stared at her. She said, loosing her hands and standing up, ‘You wish to travel on your own to Chios and then to the Sublime Porte. It is of no importance. I shall make my own dispositions.’
‘No,’ said Jerott. ‘On the contrary. I want you where I can see you. I want you with me every step of the way. I want you where I can see you when you meet Francis Crawford.’
‘He knows,’ said Marthe. And then, as Jerott took a quick breath, ‘He knows at least that the child is not at Aleppo,’ she added. ‘He has known since Djerba, I think.’
‘Then why …?’
‘Why let us come? Why send us, in fact? Don’t you know, Mr Blyth? Oh, he made sure that the hunt for this child wouldn’t stop: he has sent Archie, I am sure, to scour every Venetian port in the whole Middle Seas in an effort to find where the Peppercorn landed … why do you think that Archie failed to come here? This was the one place he was told to leave strictly alone.’
Why let us come? Jerott’s mind, trying to read that other, more subtle mind, thought of many things: of the strange woman Kiaya Khátún; of the agony of that dark night at Djerba, when Lymond and Marthe had spoken over his head; of Lymond’s unaccustomed voice, saying on the edge of that tragic garden in Algiers, I can’t do without you. And Marthe’s, saying, Yes, I shall take your disciple Jerott, manco passioni humane, and he shall be returned to you weaned.
‘God damn you both,’ Jerott said through his teeth, and, flinging away from her, stood, breathing hard, at the one unshuttered window, unseeing, his hands fists on the sill. ‘You summon and you throw away. You treat love like a bird for the table … Like a pawn, now in frankincense, now discarded and thrown in the dirt. You don’t know what love is, either of you. And God help us and you, if you ever find out.’
Sitting very still in her chair, Marthe had not moved. ‘You speak of me,’ she said. ‘I am happy to exercise your imagination. Who is the other?’
‘You know who I mean,’ said Jerott. ‘Only one other person can hurt as you do. And that is Francis Crawford of Lymond.’
‘Of course,’ said Marthe. ‘He is my brother.’
17
Thessalonika
In one thing, the French Consular Attaché at Aleppo was right. His Most Christian Majesty of France’s good galley Dauphiné, sailed hard and effectively, entered the harbour of Thessalonika under perfect control and dropped anchor, after an eventful voyage, before the month of August was out. And before even Onophrion, soft-footed and deft, had spread his dishes for dinner, His Most Christian Majesty’s Special Envoy, whose acid tongue the ship’s complement, from master to slave, respected and feared, had written and sealed a note for the Beglierbey of all Greece, requesting an audience.
It was taken ashore while Lymond and Gaultier sat down to their meal.
Until now, for reasons of his own, Georges Gaultier had had little to do with the Comte de Sevigny under any of his various titles. Twice before, against his will, he had played a part in Mr Francis Crawford’s affairs, at the behest of the old woman whose word was his will. A third time, he had done so when he had compelled Marthe to come on this voyage with him. But that was the end. In his own line of business, Georges Gaultier liked to control all the odds. The Dame de Doubtance was in Lyons, not here. What he did here was nobody’s concern but his own.
He had not enjoyed the journey. For one thing, the speed had been excessive: