Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [235]
‘I know that.’
‘Thou dost not know why?’
‘No.… There have been other times like it; but never lasting so long. This time … it was bad,’ Lymond said.
‘Until now? The pains have gone?’ asked Míkál.
‘Almost.… What did you give me?’
‘Hâkim … it was opium,’ said Míkál gently. ‘Enough to send sweet sleep to the strongest of men for twenty-four hours. Yet after an hour thou art awake and in pain, for thy body knows this drug and will not be satisfied. In this cup is the rest of thy sleep; and thy death, if thou must continue its slave.’
You have all the afflictions of the highly-strung, Sybilla had said to him once, long ago. All your life you will have to disguise them. And so, as with everything else, he had set his teeth through each attack and gone on. Until he realized, with his mind darkened with fantasies and with every nerve burned stark to the quick, that this time there was something finally, fatally wrong. ‘Where is Ishiq?’ Lymond said quietly. He had managed, at least, to pull himself up and sit like a sane man on his rug.
‘Asleep, over there. He knows merely that thou hast paid him, as I suppose, to take the place of his master. With thine eyes covered he could not guess thy need of the poppy. Nor did he break faith with thee. For five days I and my friends have sought thee in vain. Thy betrayer, beautiful as a bird, is the colour and form of thy voice.’
‘My debt to Ishiq I know. My debt to you I am beginning to learn. Míkál, I do not think it possible that I could have come to rely on opium or anything else without my own knowledge. How could it be?’
‘There is an old Turcoman saying, The soul enters by the throat. For many months, thy body has fed on it, Efendi, to make thee thus distempered without it.’
‘Without it?’
Míkál was patient. ‘This illness, lord, is suffered by those who need opium and cannot obtain it. Always before there has been one at hand to give it to thee, in whatever secret manner it is administered. Now thou art away from thy enemies and they laugh, for without it, thou wilt be sick unto madness.’
Every camp has its traitor, Kiaya Khátún had said. And Francis Crawford knew the traitor in his. He said, Thank you. It is clear now. I have only one thing to ask. Is there a remedy, or must I take opium until …’ He did not finish. He had seen this with other drugs: the mindless dervishes, led by their keepers. The mad, communing with God. Greater and greater doses, to produce less effect, until mind and flesh, besotted, fell slowly to pieces. To end, with nothing accomplished. Know that this world’s life is only sport and play and gaiety and boasting among yourselves, and a vying in the multiplication of wealth and children. Indeed, Gabriel was great.
‘There are two paths,’ said Míkál. Thou mayest shun the drug. This is the great illness thou hast tasted, exciting in mind and body a commotion from which the reason may steal away, as the diffusion of the odour of perfume.’
‘And the other?’ His voice this time was under control: the Meddáh’s voice, pleasant and light. He could not steady his hands, or marshal the tuned body slipped out of tone, but the soul was still there, thought Míkál. Resting his hands delicately on his crossed legs, he answered.
‘The other course is to withdraw thyself day by day from the drug, disregarding thy senses and tied to thy purpose, as to the piece of wood stuck in the wheat pile, round which the bulls and cows tread and turn. It will take many weeks during which I shall stand thee in stead of thyself, for thou wilt be languid and faint, as a man with a wound which will not be staunched.’
‘There is no time for that,’ Lymond said. ‘What I have to do must be started now; and I must be able to do it. When it is finished, I can take your first course, or your second.’
In his purple silk, the fine hair laid on his shoulders, the bells bright on his ankles,