Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [200]
The house of the Syrian woman was tall and wreathed in vineleaves. A discreet notice, in Greek and in Turkish, directed custom to the garden gate at the back. Jerott, reading it, was aware of a burst of laughter from the alley behind him, but was unaware until he turned and found himself surrounded that the laughter was directed against himself.
The men were all, he thought, dellies: the roving adventurers from the north who, dressed in wild-beast skins and with little else but their weapons, earned their livelihood by their strong arms, and attached themselves to anyone who would pay them.
These were dressed partly in skins and partly in folds of coarse cotton. They had good boots on their legs, and strong swords at their sides, and there were perhaps five of them, rolling together. They were drunk.
Jerott, who was alone, and on the French Consul’s advice without his dress sword and dagger, cursed the mischance that had brought them. It was possible, and, from their jeers and their cackling laughter as they approached him, very probable, that they were merely after some sport. Caught where he was, he was fair game. He might also be expected to have on him at least the price of his proposed entertainment. Eyeing the happy quintet as they closed in on him, Jerott decided with resignation that this time discretion was preferable. Beside the front door at his back there was a bell-pull. He backed to it, grasped it and heaved.
The five men stopped. Opposite him and to right and to left ran a blank wall. No help there, and no help it seemed from a chance passer-by, for the alley, so far as it went before curving out of sight on each side, was completely deserted. Behind him, the bell jangled into silence without eliciting more than renewed sounds of derision from his tormentors: as he pulled again, Jerott said calmly, in Greek, ‘You look as if you would know, friend. Are they the right sort in here? Whom would you recommend?’
One of them at least was sober enough or had enough Greek to understand. The man nearest to Jerott, broad-shouldered and with a fringe of red beard, grinned, showing the yellowed stumps of his teeth, and said, ‘They will lay you out well, giáur.’
‘I trust,’ said Jerott unhurriedly, ‘it will be the other way around.’ Damn the women. It came to him that assaults from the street were perhaps not unknown at this house. No matter how long one rang or one knocked, they would probably take good care to ignore it. At the back, if he could only get there, they would have their clients’ entrance, and probably one or two of a guard. Meanwhile, he did not need to turn to know that the wall in which the front door was set was both windowless and too high to scale.
Ah, well. ‘They are out. A pity,’ said Jerott; and ignoring the ring of men, turned, casually, as if to walk away to his left.
They jumped on him just as, at the last second, he wheeled and ducked in the opposite direction, his hand already holding the knife he always carried, inside his doublet. He cut at the sword-arm hurtling down on him; dragged himself free of one over-extended grip, broke another; half dodged a cudgel on one side of his ribs and cut a slice through the muscle of a bare, hairy thigh. Then he was off like a hare with the pack of them after him; up the side of the building and praying that the garden gate by which the Syrian lady’s clients might enter was unlocked, narrow and handy.
It was handy. It was narrow. It was not only unlocked but open. And not only open but completely blocked by a satisfied client, in the act of letting himself out.
He was a very little man, in a turban; and hardly, Jerott supposed, with regret, at the top of his strength. But he was too hard-pressed just then to pause to consider. Jerott flung himself at that half-open door with a wordless bellow of warning, and flinging the little man back with his shoulder, spun round to push the door shut against the onrush