Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [261]
‘It is possible,’ said Jerott. He added, curtly, ‘It was my fault. Mr Crawford had no idea until I told him that I had sent Marthe with the message.… We can do nothing but wait. I can’t go near Lymond now in case I endanger him.’
‘You are watched. Of course,’ said Gilles. ‘So you remain at the Embassy throughout all, fretting. You know, I take it, the expression, “Alter ius non sit, quisuus esse potest?” What, for example, if the girl and the two children are rescued, leaving Marthe to suffer in the Seraglio in their place? Or do you agree this would be just punishment for her misdemeanours?’
‘I know the expression,’ said Jerott. ‘At the moment I am another’s, and not my own. What I think doesn’t matter.’
‘I see,’ said Pierre Gilles, watching him. He said, after a moment, ‘I believe I should like to meet your friend Mr Crawford.’
‘The world is full,’ said Jerott wearily, ‘of people who might have wanted to meet Francis Crawford, and who are going to be disappointed. So, among other things, Marthe has to be expendable.’
‘And the treasure?’ said the usurer Gaultier. ‘Is that expendable too?’
The eyes of Gilles the scholar remained on Jerott’s dark face. ‘Yes. Of course it is,’ he said. ‘We also are being required to wait, and to fret. He has forced you to think, has he, this friend of yours?’
Herpestes had jumped on his lap. Jerott stroked him slowly, without looking up. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘You and he between you.’
It seemed like virtue rewarded when, a day later, a page from the Seraglio appeared at the Embassy in the afternoon requiring M. Chesnau to send an official to escort home the Khátún adjusting the spinet, who had suffered a slight breakdown in health. There was no question as to which official should go. Jerott was out of his room, his lined cloak over his arm, as soon as Chesnau told him the news, and was halted only by Onophrion’s great bulk on the threshold, his voice deferential, but his face lined with concern. ‘If Mr Blyth would allow me to accompany him? The young lady may well need attention …?’
He had thrown together, even in that short space of time, a neat emergency roll including aquavitae and a thick robe, hood and rug. Jerott, his mind busied with confused thought and emotions, was thankful indeed to have conducted for him the practical side of the journey. None was better than Onophrion at obtaining a boatman quickly, or horses at the far side, for themselves and the Janissary, with mules for the two servants bearing his burdens. They left in a matter of moments, and were at the Imperial Gate, the Bab-i-Humayun, inside the hour.
Onophrion had been before, with Lymond. Jerott, whose first visit it was, had an impression of great spaces filled with men and horses and the tall white caps and blue robes of the Janissaries, walking in groups or marching in small, brisk detachments. Chiausi took them through the first court to the Ortokapi Gate and between the feathered files of the Kapici: in the Divan Court they were greeted by the Bostanji Bashi, who led Jerott alone to the Gate of Felicity.
They had an affable, if formal, conversation on the way, their voices sounding loud in the strange Seraglio silence. In the gateway, as had happened with the Ambassador, the Bostanji Bashi halted, and directing the way to the retiring-rooms, asked Jerott to wait. He hoped they were looking after Onophrion. Above all, he hoped they would be speedy. For what he knew and they did not was that, before darkness fell, Philippa and both children should be out of the city.
Only then did it occur to him,