Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [272]
Seams of blood and sweat bright on his face, Lymond did not speak this time, but turned his head fully away; his lips shut hard; his breathing in spite of himself uneven and quick. Gabriel’s face remained pleasant. ‘You won’t take a little? Then have it all, my sorry, hungering slut,’ he said lightly; and as the men on either side of Lymond forced round his head, he stepped forward, the cake in his hand.
Philippa dropped Kuzúm. It was all she could think of to do, and her heart ached for the lost, bewildered child he had become in a matter of hours. But the movement and the wild, hoarse screaming he started brought all eyes towards her and gave Lymond a second: a moment’s grace to postpone the sickening humiliation which Gabriel planned.
Lymond used the moment. His hands were tied, but he could wield the weight of his body: he could kick, and could bite. As their grip loosened he tore himself half out of the hands of his captors and flung his shoulder against Gabriel. The opium dropped, smashed on the floor, before Gabriel’s hands, reacting instantly, came up to grip him; and the others, doubled up and grunting under the wild, sudden attack, pounced in their turn and threw Francis Crawford, still twisting and fighting below them till he lay half dazed, winded and bloody on Míkál’s fine carpet.
Míkál, kneeling beside him, looked up at Gabriel with lustrous eyes. Gabriel, imperial in Venetian crimson and sables, stood and stared with distaste at the man on the ground.
‘Violence?’ he said. ‘The mark of a fool. You are distressing the child. Perhaps you will have more care for the other when you reach the Seraglio. He should be there by now, along with Abernethy, your devoted mahout. You may even recognize others of those you have dragged to their damnation through your insufferable conceit.… Since you are so wild I think our friends should remove, for safety, whatever senses you may have left.’
Philippa covered Kuzúm’s eyes as they delivered the blow that turned Francis Crawford over and over and left him unconscious at last at their feet. Prone on the bare boards, he shared the covered cart which took the Janissaries and herself to Topkapi, but he was far from waking, and Kuzúm sobbed all the way, afraid of the blood and the way his body was shaken by the jolt of the wheels. They stopped at the Bab-i-Humayun, and again at the Ortokapi, where she and Kuzúm were made to get down.
She did not see what happened to Lymond, nor would anyone answer her questions. Inside the Gate of Felicity they took Kuzúm from her. His screams and her own shaken voice arguing must have wakened that part of the harem until the child’s voice was suddenly cut off by a hand over his mouth, and she was taken in turn by two of the black eunuchs she did not know, and thrust into a strange room, which was locked. From the noises outside, she thought they were taking Kuzúm to the nurse’s courtyard, and prayed that it might be so, and that Tulip was there. Then, because she felt too sick and too weary to cry, she sat silent and wide-eyed by the barred window, and waited for dawn.
25
Constantinople: The Divan
Lymond woke, shivering, while it was still dark, every muscle a stiff and separate pain. He was lying on matting; his own rolled kaftán under his head, and his wrist was lifted between someone’s fingers, quickly removed. Then a weak candle flickered alight, and he saw Jerott kneeling beside him; and Archie’s dark turbaned face in the background. He smiled at them both and said to Jerott, ‘How in hell did you. ‥?’ He was overtaken before he finished by a convulsive yawn and, still smiling a little, put both hands up and over his face, shivering still. Archie disappeared into the darkness behind him.
Jerott said, ‘We’re in the Seraglio, I think in the Third Court. They sent word to the Embassy that Marthe was ready to come out, and asked for an escort. Then when I got here they locked me up on my own. Archie joined me a few hours ago. I don’t know where Marthe or Onophrion are.’
Lymond said, ‘Onophrion came