Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [190]
The new Ambassador was on the rambade, where he had been walking for the past hour; up and down, his yellow hair soaked and tangled, his flying cloak ruined with salt. Despite the long summer’s sun and the sting of the wind, his skin above the dark cloak was as pale as a troglodyte’s, and marked faintly with stresses which had not been there when, six months ago, as Gaultier said, they had started their voyage.
Salablanca’s death, of course, had been a blow. There was concern for the girl. But more than that; with an effort of imagination one saw perhaps what it meant to take a year, virtually, out of one’s life to perform a duty towards two young unknown children, for whom one felt responsibility, but no bond: to leave the live world; one’s career, one’s affairs to spend empty days on land and on shipboard, travelling, waiting; being forced to wait for an object one did not even desire, except with one’s intellect. To Mr Crawford, the death of Sir Graham Reid Malett was the justification for such a waste. Now, he must feel the justification was indeed small.
Lymond had seen him. Buffeted by the wind, he came back slowly over the gangway and paused, his hand on the doorpost, his eyes on the food-laden table. ‘After all your effort,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Your Excellency will not dine?’
‘I think not,’ said Lymond. ‘Will you tell the captain I have gone below for a space? Call me, if you wül, in an hour.’
Onophrion Zitwitz, a man of great experience, looked at his master’s strained face and was of a sudden inspired. The injuries Lymond had received at Thessalonika had been treated that night by the Beglierbey’s own physician, and Lymond had not mentioned them since. But after the death of Salablanca the new Ambassador had had no personal aide to look after either his physical welfare or his grooming and both, all too obviously, had been neglected.
Onophrion Zitwitz, taking a calculated diplomatic risk, leaned forward and shut the door to the deck. ‘If Your Excellency will sit down,’ he said, with considerable firmness in that sedate, well-drilled voice, ‘I shall pour you some aqua-vitae and ask the barber-surgeon to come.’
‘What: for a blood-letting?’ said his master. But he left the door and sat down, with precision, where Jerott, drunk, had once sat; and after a moment, without speaking, dropped his head on his arms. So Onophrion, waiting neither for the barber-surgeon nor the spirits, unfastened Lymond’s cloak and as much as he could reach of his doublet, and slipping in his plump, soap-smelling hand, located the wad of stiff, fraying bandage which bound his right shoulder.
Without comment Onophrion withdrew his hand, and taking the sharpest of the knives which lay on the table, slit unhesitatingly through velvet and lawn and the bandage itself until he laid bare the neglected sword thrust, swollen, angry and raw.
Without moving, Lymond said, ‘Would it not be better below?’
Master Zitwitz looked at him. ‘If you can climb down, Your Excellency. The wound is poisoned.’
‘I began to think so,’ said Lymond. ‘But then it pained me only at intervals. It didn’t seem worth a commotion.’
With Onophrion Zitwitz there was never a commotion. In five minutes Lymond was below decks and the surgeon was on his way; and hot water; and Master Zitwitz had even, at the back of his mind, a menu for the small trayful of