Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [286]
Christ, thought Jerott; and, in spite of the shivers in the small of his back, nearly laughed. Míkál, of course, would be preserved by Kiaya Khátún, if not Roxelana. No one could afford to antagonize that restless, moneyed race of strange children of love. And in his place, implacable to the end, Marthe had let them send for her uncle. Jerott wondered if they had searched the house when they found him and what else they had found. And what Gilles had said.… Then Marthe came in herself, very straight, and something almost a smile on her face as she walked up to Lymond and, meeting his gaze briefly, ranged herself at his side.
His gaze on the door, Lymond spoke to her. ‘You were right, it seems, to fear and despise us. Man has brought you to a death which any woman could have averted. There is no reparation possible for what I have done to you.’
Marthe was looking at him still, a faint smile in her eyes. ‘Relieve your conscience of me,’ she said coolly. ‘You have enough to answer for. Mr Blyth may go to the devil for me, as I shall for my uncle. What part shall I play?’
Then Lymond looked at her and said, ‘The Queen: what else?’ and Jerott knew he was giving her the principal piece and the most agile; the one which he could most swiftly move out of trouble. For to be taken was death. And it came to Jerott at last that while he himself had been carping and backbiting and quarrelling Francis had been bracing himself slowly and quietly for the most terrible rôle of his life: the role of God with seven lives in his hands, and two of these children.
To kill Gabriel, Lymond must take the King he represented. To do so he must use his five pieces, and use them better than Gabriel, who in turn would try to take Lymond’s King. Not only that, but he must use them somehow without a piece being taken, for a piece taken by either side meant that the person playing that piece laid down his life. Lymond must therefore light with this venomous handicap: that none of his pieces must be imperilled. And worse than that, must defend himself against Gabriel, who would care little, Jerott imagined, for his own men, but who could rely on one thing absolutely: that under no circumstances whatever would Francis touch his two Pawns.
Only half conscious of his surroundings, Jerott watched Gaultier come in, panic-stricken and pallid, stammering with anger and accusations aimed at Marthe and at Lymond. He saw Philippa enter, carefully groomed with her head held very high, and take her place by the throne as the Kislar Agha directed. Then, deaf to Gaultier’s hoarse voice, he watched the negress bring in the two children and, walking over, leave them at Gabriel’s side. Beside him, Lymond stopped speaking and Jerott, his fingers like fish-hooks, leaned over and dragged the old man, struggling and exclaiming, to his other side. In his softest voice Jerott said, ‘Be quiet. Or the mutes have orders to throttle you’; and there was a sudden silence. The door opened and Roxelana Sultán entered with ceremony and, mounting the throne, was seated. Porters brought and unrolled over the carpet a painted cloth on which sixty-four squares had been laid out, coloured alternately in red paint and white.
The chessboard. Beside Jerott, Lymond closed his eyes, and Jerott’s mind, once launched on its unaccustomed effort of imagination, tried to follow his thoughts. Every move was potential death for Jerott himself, for Marthe, for Archie or for Gaultier. Every move must be thought out twice over: once for its purpose and once for its risk to his pieces. If Lymond were too careful and keeping his players lost his King in the outcome to Gabriel, Gabriel could choose to kill not only Lymond but all his friends with impunity.
So this was no sport, no impersonal battle, no exhibition of vanity or childish adventure embraced out of pique. This was an ultimate trial of every quality all his life Lymond had squandered: of speed and wit and clean, objective