Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [271]
Lymond said, ‘Míkál!’ and then was silent, his face very white.
Philippa was greeny-pale too, with big circles under her eyes. She had seen Gabriel immediately and was staring at him, her nose pointing to the rafters, when she heard Lymond’s voice and turned, her chest heaving.
‘Hullo!’ Lymond said lightly. ‘The ancient and godly yeomanry of England. Come and join the club. Isn’t he heavy?’ His eyes, without expression, rested on the small bright head on her arm, and then returned to her face.
‘It’s all right,’ said Philippa raggedly. The change in him paralysed her. He must have known it, because he smiled at her suddenly, his voice familiar and steady, and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m sorry about the rats in the roost, but you can’t always choose your——’
Gabriel shut his mouth for him, rising in a single smooth movement and taking the palm of his hand sharp as gunshot against Lymond’s face, first on the one side and then the other.
‘Control your nerves,’ said Gabriel pleasantly. He added to Philippa, ‘Do you know what an opium addict is like? Have you seen them in the street, foaming at the mouth like chafed boars and howling like dogs? You should learn what to look for: the diminished pupils, the slackened skin; the unsteady hands.’ He caught Lymond’s neck suddenly between iron fingers and, as he tried to fling himself free, fetched him another blow on the face which cut open his lip, blood running fast down his marked chin. His head turned away, Lymond had closed his eyes for a moment: opening them, he turned back and looked Gabriel again full in the face. ‘Violence. The mark of a fool,’ he said.
‘One flavour sets off another,’ said Gabriel calmly. ‘You do not know what is still to come. Like Väinämöinen to Vipunen; I shall sink my anvil further into the flesh of your heart; I shall install my forge in a deeper place. You felt that blow? Then you must be in need. Shall I bring you what you crave? Where is it: in your robe? In the purse they have unbuckled?’ Stooping, he picked up Lymond’s satchel where someone had thrown it and, unfastening it without haste, opened it to the light.
‘Alas!’ said Gabriel. ‘A seditious foreigner; and also a thief. Observe!’ And putting inside his hand, he withdraw a sparkling fistful of jewellery. ‘Purloined from my own chamber. It is known that you have spent all you have. Must you repair your own fortunes by robbing another?’
‘I wish I’d thought of it,’ said Lymond briefly. The accessibility of Gabriel’s costliest belongings was thus simply explained.
There were other things in the satchel too: a box in gold leaf and some uncut stones, and a tespi, a prayer string of pearls itself worth all of three thousand pounds. Gabriel laid them aside, and at last found what he wanted. Philippa, all her strained attention on Lymond, saw his muscles harden, like a man expecting a sluice of cold water. Then Gabriel held something flat in his palm: a small marbled cake, tawny yellow in colour.
‘How much do you want?’ asked Graham Malett, his voice liquid with sympathy. ‘Two drachms: three? You need a killing dose now, don’t you, to keep your brain clear and your nerves steady and your purpose intact? A killing dose, often. How much would you like?’
Kuzúm had wakened. Empty with fright and exhaustion, he lay against Philippa’s crumpled robe, his heavy blue eyes open on the incomprehensible scene. Lymond looked neither at Philippa nor the child. ‘None,’ he said dryly. ‘Your concern breaks my heart.’
‘This much?’ It was close enough even for Philippa to smell: the pungent high-seasoned savour of it must have filled Lymond’s senses. ‘Between the teeth,’ said Gabriel, gently insistent. ‘Since