Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [19]
Philippa drew a deep breath. ‘Mr Blyth says you can read people’s thoughts,’ she said. ‘So why ask me?’
‘So that you may ask yourself. What a silly question,’ said the Dame de Doubtance. ‘So Mr Crawford is setting off for Constantinople, and Mr Blyth has now announced that he will accompany him? But why not? It is an amusing prospect. Francis makes austere company at present, but he will improve. And another will come, surely, to take you back home.’
‘Archie Abernethy is coming from Sevigny. One of Mr Crawford’s men. The one who used to tame elephants.’ She waited, but as the old woman made no comment on that, she continued. ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that Mr Crawford and Mr Blyth are going to Constantinople by way of Algiers.’
‘Well?’ The Dame de Doubtance was interested.
‘Because you said Oonagh O’Dwyer was there.’
‘What an extraordinary fuss there has been,’ said the Dame de Doubtance raspingly, ‘about that irresponsible Irishwoman and her improper child. The woman has paid her price and Francis his. She has not the slightest need of him now. He will find that out soon enough in Algiers.’
‘The nuns we met in Baden were paid to send him to Algiers, too,’ said Philippa; and met the yellow, considering stare with a brown, obstinate one of her own.
‘I see,’ said the Dame de Doubtance at length. ‘I see. It occurred to you that I too might be an agent of Gabriel’s. Francis, I am sure, would avenge your death very prettily; but I am not. There is a trap awaiting him in Algiers, placed there by Graham Reid Malett: Francis knows this very well. Algiers is a town run by proscribed men, refugees, criminals and corsairs, paying tribute to Turkey. He knows this too. If he wishes to see Oonagh O’Dwyer he has certain odds to overcome, that is all. Ah, here comes your qahveh.’
Behind her, a woman had come into the room, silently, in a swirl of musk and some thick, hot scent which Philippa could not identify. Her dress, unlike the Dame de Doubtance’s, was rich and new: a black silk velvet trimmed with sable, and with a girdle set with jewelled enamels. Philippa, expecting a contemporary of her hostess, saw instead a clear olive face, vividly defined with black brows and heavy, coiled black hair; a long, straight Greek nose and reddened lips, cut softly and full. ‘My cousin,’ said the Lady of Doubtance, watching Philippa’s face as the young woman, advancing, laid a small tray before her and sank smoothly into a chair. ‘… Whom you may call Kiaya Khátún.’
The cousin wore, Philippa saw, turquoise earrings like pale blue sparrow’s eggs, and baroque pearls in rayons all over her black velvet slippers. The family was, of course, in the business. Accepting a cup of hot liquid mud from the ringed hands, Philippa said, ‘Thank you, Kiaya Khátún.’ It smelt of burnt nuts, and pepper, and toffee, and tasted quite awful. She drank it all, including the silt at the bottom, and returned her relentless brown stare to the other two women. Kiaya Khátún, she observed, had orange palms and painted her mouth. ‘… And has Oonagh O’Dwyer’s son paid its price, too?’ inquired Philippa.
‘O England,’ said Kiaya Khátún. Her voice, mellow and strong, held an accent or a mingling of accents Philippa was unable to name. ‘O England, the Hell of Horses, the Purgatory of Servants and the Paradise of Women.’ She turned her splendid eyes on the soothsayer. ‘She will be like Avicenna, and run through all the arts by eighteen.’
‘… The baby, I gather, doesn’t matter,’ said Philippa, keeping to the subject.
Settled back in her tall chair, the tarnished brocade cast about her, the Dame de Doubtance brought her attention back to the girl. ‘Is it not enough to discover the mother? The child is safe, so long as Graham Malett is unharmed: is this not sufficient? I need not remind you of the ridicule his father would suffer—and rightly suffer: you have discovered that for yourself when you renounced so nobly your plan to accompany him as dry-nurse.