Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [257]
How small, beside that, was Marthe’s smarting ambition; the old man’s rightful disgruntlement: his own silent hurt. The change had come, and must be accepted. The treasure was unimportant now in its own right except in the one aspect which Gilles had detected: as a bone between dogs. There was a wider vision, he was beginning to see, which Gilles had and which Francis had: pursuing a vendetta which was universal far more than personal: a self-imposed mission to destroy a brilliant and powerful man whose vicious ambition could throw nations into the arena like the beasts of the Hippodrome. Jerott knew then, with his head if not his heart, that in trying to save the children, they had all been wrong. Nothing mattered but Gabriel’s death.
Francis had known that, in St Giles, when he had chosen to kill rather than beg for the life of his son; and only Philippa’s intervention had saved Graham Malett. A second time, after the horror at Algiers, Lymond had been dissuaded only by Marthe, in the long darkness of the aftermath, from seeking out Gabriel on Malta and killing him then, without regard for the child. Dissuaded by Marthe, who had no interest in Lymond or child, but wished merely to pursue her own objective, unhampered by the death of an envoy. And a third time Lymond had attempted it, at Zuara; when Jerott, commending his courage, could not disguise his disgust: at a nature so exigent, so governed by intellect as to be unmoved by the fate of a boy.
But that was before he had seen him with a cowed and beaten and terrified child, murmuring to it as it played with its shells. They were all wrong. But who among them now had the will and the inhumanity to take Gabriel’s life, and sacrifice those of Philippa and the children?
One person, it appeared. Climbing out of the boat and up the ladder into Gaultier’s house Jerott turned to face Marthe; ignoring Gilles; ignoring Gaultier sitting rocking, his hand to his shoulder. His voice was perfectly calm. ‘You will take your brother’s message to Philippa Somerville, and you will deliver it, correctly and fully, under guise of repairing the spinet. Or I shall bring the Janissary into the house.’
She had of course expected it. She had been afraid perhaps of worse: that he would hand her regardless to the Seraglio and attempt to use the treasure for barter. She did make one last attempt. ‘You would throw Master Gilles to the wolves?’
‘I would tell them the truth,’ said Jerott. ‘That he did only what he was forced to do, and for no personal gain.’
She did not say, You would throw me to the wolves? although she could have had no illusions about her own fate if he denounced them. Instead she gave a short laugh. ‘So this,’ said Marthe, ‘is true love. I made my only error, I think, in Aleppo. A rape on the floor of the tekke would have avoided this nuisance. But to tell the truth, I judged you incapable.’
He took the flat of his hand across her face then: the hard, soldier’s hand, which made an impact like the sound of the breaking of sticks, and left her fine skin staring livid; and then colouring fast with bruised blood. ‘I hope,’ said Jerott, breathing softly and hard, ‘that you never meet those who will judge what you have done. How would you recognize love? Or compassion? Francis at least has learned that. You avaricious little slut … do I call in the Janissary; or will you do as I say?’
Her face was unflinching as a tablet of stone. ‘I shall do it,’ she said. ‘Since I must, to be free of you. Go then and find you a whoremonger. What use to you—any of you—is a mind and a soul, when all