Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [243]
The far door with its splintered frame closed softly behind them, and their footsteps could be heard moving through the other dark rooms. Lymond did not move or speak. Jerott, behind him, dropped suddenly on the worn cushions and holding his face hard in his hands, said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You are sorry now,’ said Lymond without expression. He turned, his face stiff, and stood looking at Jerott. ‘Now that you have seen him. He has been living like this, and suffering like this since he was born. That is why I am here. For that, and to kill Gabriel,’
Jerott dropped his hands. He said in a low voice, ‘Why did you let him go back?’
Lymond continued to look at him. ‘He is watched. We are not ready for him to disappear yet; only for him to know us and trust us. There are others to be made safe.’
Jerott’s dark face was lined. ‘Philippa, in the harem? Francis, what can you do? And who else? You can’t mean Gabriel’s child? That was your son, man, who went out just now. That was the child Kedi nursed; the one I found with the silk-farmer. What better proof do you want? That and his looks … and his guts.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lymond. ‘If that is a compliment.’ He turned round, and finding a chest by the brazier, sat on it. ‘As it happens, I’ve seen the other child too. There is nothing to choose between them, for looks or anything else. The other is under Gabriel’s shadow as well.’
‘But Kedi,’ said Jerott, aghast. He tried again. ‘It is known that Kedi brought up your baby. Every independent scrap we know confirms that. And Kedi was with this child, Khaireddin, when I found them. The babies could not have been changed before that without Kedi knowing.’
The fire had gone from the blue eyes: only a tired irony showed there. ‘What did you promise Kedi?’ said Lymond. ‘What future did you paint for her and the child, once you had rescued them? Freedom, comfort and happiness; no more whippings and misery. She would have called the child Jesus of Nazareth if she thought that was the infant you wanted.… Of course she would know, none better, if Joleta’s child had been substituted for the one she had cared for. But she wouldn’t necessarily admit it. That was why she was killed. As for Philippa’s child, there is no proof there either. Joleta’s baby was taken when young to Dragut, and returned to the House of Donati many months afterwards. Whether it was the same child or not, no one, it seems, can now say. Children alter. Joleta is dead, and Evangelista Donati and her brother.… Does it matter? Should it matter which child is which? What would your Grand Master say, Jerott?’
Jerott looked back, his grey gaze heavy and straight. ‘I should not like to give my life for any child of Joleta and Gabriel.’
Lymond said curtly, ‘No one expects it of you.’ But he added, ‘Would you stand back and watch that child suffer and die? No? Then I promise you, whatever its parentage, you could not do it either for the boy they call Kuzucuyum.’ And surprisingly, considering the dark face of the man at whom, in cold blood, he had thrown his long dagger such a short while before, Lymond laughed. ‘A sentimentalist to make troubadours flinch. You didn’t answer my question.… It doesn’t matter. Tell me your news.’
In essence the story was easy to tell, if you omitted everything of substance about your visit to a tekke of Bektashi Dervishes in Aleppo, and your subsequent suspicions of a beautiful woman called Marthe. Of the kinship between Marthe and Lymond himself, Jerott said nothing. He talked at length about Gilles and his encounter with Archie at Chios, and he gave an account finally, if a brief one, of the house Gaultier had taken south of the Bezestan to share with his niece Marthe and Gilles. Lymond chose to question him in some detail about that, and about the relationship between Gaultier and Gilles. On Marthe, he spared Jerott’s feelings. Or perhaps, reading between the lines, he guessed more than he wished to put into words.
At any rate,