Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [228]
The roads were plain; and with their guides and their drivers and their Janissaries they were well protected. But this time they were thrown more on their own resources than before: their fellow travellers were evanescent and few: for audience, for entertainment, for sympathy, they had only themselves.
The most experienced traveller among them was the first to adapt. Pierre Gilles was still more than capable of the outrageous pronouncement; the onorous intonation, the exposition in French and bastard English and the purest of Latin on every phenomenon met by the way. But it was muted and measured, and in its way, often welcome. The hostility he could not help displaying, sometimes, to Marthe appeared no more, with an effort, than the tart impatience of the old with the young. On Jerott he enjoyed lavishing, at times, his powers to instruct and to shock.
With the half of his mind and the fraction of his heart which were free, Jerott warmed to the old fiend; while hypnotized, as the hare by the snake, with the presence of Marthe.
She too, out of necessity, had sheathed the barbs of her weapons. The brittle gaiety she had brought from Aleppo had changed into tranquil sobriety. Cool, deft and imaginative, she added to the ease and comfort of an uneasy and uncomfortable journey and if she spoke, spoke of practical things. Once, she went with Jerott to the shack of a blacksmith, and helped him choose the thin iron shoes from the unperforated shapes, big and small, hung round the booth, and watched the smith fit it cold, crouching, his shins crossed, supporting the hoof.
The coins he was given in change were small and blackened. Even before they left the booth, Jerott sensed her excitement, and when Gilles later identified them it blazed out, her eyes sparkling, her face illumined with eagerness. They were from the days of Alexander: worth something for their antiquity: worth more for the wonder of their existence. Then the flame was extinguished, and she was careful again.
Of her, Jerott asked no questions. And only once, approaching the snows of Olympus, with the city of Bursa ahead, did he ask Gilles about his precise plans.
For a moment, the old man was silent, riding along, his feet in their great leather boots dangling, shovel-stirruped, half to the ground. ‘Plans. I find them unnecessary. If some papers of interest propose themselves, I shall examine them. I have an offer from the Seraglio Librarian, and another from one or two monasteries. I have in mind a leisurely stay, perhaps in the city. You will reside at the Embassy. I shall call if I need you.’
There was no object in pointing out yet again that he was not a paid employee; that he was concerned with a quest of his own; that the length of his own stay in Constantinople was problematical at the least. Jerott said, ‘You mean to stay in the city? Where?’
Pierre Gilles cleared his throat. ‘Anywhere not entirely unsuitable. The girl here has an uncle who is buying a workshop between the Bazaar and the Hippodrome. They can give me a bed.’
Jerott Blyth reined in and stared at him. ‘Gaultier is buying a house? He and Marthe are staying in Constantinople?’
‘So it appears. There will be plenty of work for him,’ said Gilles roughly. ‘Few other clockmakers in the city: no one who can work with Western musical instruments. No other agent for antiques. He’s a Christian, but the Moslems don’t care. So long as he pays up his taxes.’
But Jerott, riding on, was silent. He had been wrong. He had envisaged at worst a quick confidence trick: a swift act of treachery. But to throw in their lot with the Ottomans was something again. If Gaultier, that careful man, was uprooting his business and investing in property, it meant that whatever happened, he was sure of security. Or that the prize was so big that he could afford to lay out and lose in the process the price of a house?
Gilles said, ‘If you look over there, you will see the horses bringing down the snow for Suleiman’s sherbet. The ajémoghláns do the work regularly, and it’s taken to the Sublime Porte and