Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [287]
Then Lymond opened his eyes, and Jerott thought of Pierre Gilles and what he wanted to say, and moved to touch his silk shoulder. ‘Francis.’
For a moment Lymond didn’t turn, and when he did, the blue gaze, utterly detached, looked through Jerott. Jerott said quickly, ‘Francis … if there is any doubt: any doubt at all of the outcome, sacrifice anything and anybody so long as you take Gabriel. Do you understand?’
‘Of course,’ said Lymond. Jerott looked at him, his black brows painfully knitted, until Marthe, putting out her hand as he had done, drew him firmly away. ‘Leave him,’ she said. ‘Leave him alone.’
The children would not stay in their places. Kuzúm cried; and Philippa finally, in desperation, got permission from the Sultana and walked across the bright squares to Gabriel’s side, where she crouched, her robes spreading around her, between the two unhappy Pawns. Behind her, Gabriel laughed and said something under his breath, and the man playing Queen sniggered in return. To the left, also behind her, she could see out of the corner of her eye Gabriel’s Knight and his Rook, and to her right his solitary Bishop, an unshaven lout in yellow. Then on the opposite side of the board Lymond, suddenly smiling, led Marthe to her place as his Queen, with Jerott his Knight on her right, and Gaultier and Archie playing Bishop and Rook on his left. They had tossed dice, Philippa knew, for the privilege of starting, and Lymond had lost. Then the Kislar Agha, looking at both sides in turn, said, ‘Begin,’ and stepped back off the board.
Gabriel had changed into white and gold, as befitted a King and the side he was playing. From him spilled a placid and mighty confidence: the ease of a brilliant mind which knows its own power. He looked at Lymond, smiling, as he called the move which, clearly, the Kislar Agha repeated. ‘Queen to Queen’s Rook’s fourth.’ And the man on Gabriel’s left, grinning, walked down his line of white diagonals and stopped, turning round, to face a range of clear spaces at the end of which, exposed, stood Lymond’s King. ‘Check,’ said Gabriel. It had begun.
By some coincidence, or perhaps by no coincidence, Lymond’s high-collared robe was embroidered jet black on scarlet, matching the red of the squares. His arms, in his own lace-edged shirt-sleeves, hung relaxed below the short sleeves of the robe and his face, in a curious way, although concentrating, was also relaxed; as if with the onset of this one cosmic problem a thousand others had somehow dissolved. He saved himself with a move of no importance: ‘King to King’s Bishop’s second!’ and, walking one square diagonally to his left, escaped Gabriel’s check. Gabriel’s voice answered him, amused, ‘Queen to Queen’s Rook’s eighth.’ And as Jerott was still working that out, Gabriel’s sniggering Queen walked up and stood just beside him.
Jerott looked round. Behind him was Marthe. Behind her, Gaultier and Archie still stood in line. In all the blank squares of the board there was no piece of Lymond’s which could prevent Gabriel’s Queen from taking himself, Jerott, at the next move.
Looking at the mutes, Jerott wondered if they understood, or if the Kislar Agha would have to tell them.… He wondered, in an academic way, what he would do if Lymond ordered him to move, exposing Marthe to his neighbour and thus saving himself at Marthe’s expense. He didn’t think Lymond would. Then Lymond said prosaically, ‘Queen to King’s Rook’s fifth. Check,’ and he was saved.
Marthe, the proud Marthe’s knees were shaking as she walked down the straight path towards Gabriel’s King. Jerott saw her robe trembling and was grateful, for his own hands were wet and wanted to quiver: he clenched them hard. Gabriel, a shade of a frown on his face, was preparing to move as King out of trouble and in the next move,