Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [197]
Listening, with the ears of suffering and boredom, Jerott recognized dimly at least that to Gilles the old city of the Byzantine emperors was more real than the city of Suleiman: as he spoke of underground cisterns, baths and palaces, of the Forum of Constantine and the purple pillar beneath which, Cedrinus had written, twelve hampers of holy writings had been buried; of the Gate of Diana showing the contests of Gygantus, the thunderbolts of Jove, the Neptune with Trident; of the triple bronze snakes from the Shrine of the Oracle at Delphi, whose three heads ran with milk, with water and wine; as he told of the golden pyramid of cupids whose flying bronze image revealed how the wind blew.
He heard of the Sacred Palace with the Halls of Pearl and of Gold; of the Throne of Solomon with its golden lions and its rose trees of gilded bronze with jewelled and enamelled birds on its branches which sang in harmony as the lions roared and music played while the Emperor spoke to his subjects. Of the mystic phial of the Sigma whose wine flowed through a golden pineapple into a silver basin filled with almonds and pistachios. Of the jewelled reliquaries and the looted statues of marble and bronze; of the great library with its works of philosophers, poets and scientists; works of horoscopy, astrology, numerology; manuscripts in Persian and Hebrew and Greek; fragments of original scriptures …
‘You should write about it,’ said Jerott one day, stemming the flood, and Gilles, jolting about on his mule, the ichneumon on his shoulder in the folds of his cloak, raised his eyebrows and shrugged. It was Pichón, the secretary, who came alongside later and whispered, ‘His papers were lost, Mr Blyth, on the journey he took with the Sultan and M. d’Aramon five years ago. All his notes for just such a book, and a deal of original writings he came across in his research. All lost as the army travelled through some defile not far from Bitlis. A disaster for the world. He has never forgotten it, or been able to bring himself to start over again. It is better not to open the subject.’
With which Jerott, having succeeded better than he had hoped, most heartily agreed.
For on his other side rode Marthe, the exquisite enemy, whose presence for him was a physical anguish which did not grow less. Marthe, the cold and the treacherous, whom he wanted; and who was sister to Francis Crawford of Lymond.
He is my brother, she had said in Aleppo; and staring silently back at her, the lines of anger still on his face, he had known beyond doubt that it was true. No freak of genetics, pranking through generations, could account for two people, man and girl, endowed each with the same wayward mordacity; the same isolation; the same double-edged gifts. After a long time, Jerott had said, ‘Does he know?’
Sitting as she had sat throughout, her hands loose on her lap, Marthe answered without any movement. ‘He guesses, I think. Once, he came near to asking; but you may be sure he will never question too closely. He is far too afraid.’
‘Afraid?’ Afraid to acknowledge, to provide for an illegitimate half-sister? It was the oddest thing Marthe had said. If it were true, thought Jerott; no wonder she was bitter. And yet if Lymond had suspected the truth—and looking back, play by play and prick by prick, Jerott suddenly realized, with extraordinary clarity, that of course he had—why had he chosen to ignore it completely? To treat her, from the day they first met, with a hostility hardly disguised?
Pride? Hardly. The loud-mouthed brown-haired egotist who had been second Baron Crawford of Culter might have sown his wild oats over half Europe, surely, without reflecting upon the honour of his wife Sybilla or either of his two sons. If there was a byblow fallen on hard times, one did what one could. Lymond was not a poor man. Neither was Richard, the third Baron, his brother. Jerott said, aloud, ‘I don’t understand.’