Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [289]
Khaireddin had recognized Francis Crawford by now. White and docile under the fingers of Philippa and the other strangers who pushed him about, and told him when to stand still, he paid no attention to the other child or the woman, but set himself gamely to please and pacify the men, the dark circles under his blue eyes, which smiled starkly on, although his mouth visibly trembled.
He smiled at them until in the seventh square he came face to face with Francis Crawford: so close that in a normal game, he would have been lost. Then Lymond, looking down at him, said conversationally, ‘Hullo. A strange game, isn’t it? I don’t enjoy it much either. But we have to finish it. Then you choose what we play next.’ And a smile broke over Khaireddin’s face: a genuine smile; the first one, thought Jerott, that anyone there had probably seen. Then he said something in the little voice, so much less fluent than Kuzum’s; and Lymond said, ‘Of course, your shells are still there. Supper first, and then you shall play with them. Goodbye. I have to move, now.’
And indeed he had, for Gabriel’s Rook had moved up to threaten him, and there was no one to mask him who would not instantly be taken. Then Gabriel moved his Pawn to the eighth square and said coolly, triumph barely concealed in his voice, ‘I claim the return of the Knight.’
It was, of course, the rule. Take your Pawn, step by step, from one side of the board to the other and you receive a commensurate privilege: you may replace the Pawn with any missing piece that you wish. For a Pawn, slow, restricted and vulnerable, such a journey was not normally easy. For Gabriel’s two untouchable Pawns, it was the simplest series of moves he could wish. Lymond, turning to the Kislar Agha, said only, ‘May we have the Sultana’s ruling?’ And the Sultana’s articulate voice in return said briefly, ‘The move is permitted.’
So Khaireddin, who had been a Pawn, became a Knight, and Gaultier, suddenly threatened, had to be moved, allowing Gabriel’s Queen to put Lymond in check, from which he could escape in only one direction. It cleared the way, as Gabriel intended, for the advance of the other Pawn, Kuzúm. Jerott said, ‘Francis …’ and then stopped, for there was nothing he could say that Lymond did not already know. And in any case, a moment later, he was on the move, for Lymond sent him, in one simple move, to check Gabriel’s King, and Gabriel, escaping and threatening at once, moved into the next square to Jerott.
The most nightmarish aspect for Jerott of the whole brutal game was this proximity. Enemies and friends passed one another in silence or stood side by side, as he and Gabriel were doing, awaiting Lymond’s next words. You stood in silence because dignity forbade you to canvass. You stood with your eyes elsewhere in case, catching Lymond’s eyes, you found yourself signalling, I am in danger. I am in danger, and unless you abandon your design and help me, in the next move I shall die.
Then Lymond’s quiet voice said, ‘Knight to King’s Bishop’s fifth’; and Jerott was saved; and whatever plan Lymond might have, had again been obstructed, for Gabriel used the freedom of his next move to shift Kuzúm one square nearer the eighth. And Jerott wondered again, as he had wondered all through the game, what would have happened if, reaching out, he had seized Gabriel and, before help could reach him, had managed to kill him. But they had no weapons, and Gabriel was a powerful man, and the mutes very near. He risked failure, and he risked death then, he supposed, for them all. Jerott thought, then, that if Lymond lost and he himself were still alive, between them they might manage it before they were halted. It gave him, in a way, a little fugitive strength.
Philippa stood between the two children. The one she did not know, the boy called Khaireddin, stood, smiling still, without really looking at her: she wondered when he was going to break, and what they would