Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [292]
The mocking voice; the cruel, pointless move were more than Jerott’s lacerated nerves could stand. His anger rose and this time exploded, not against Gabriel but Gaultier, of the loud, high-pitched voice, fastening on to his reprieve; demanding of Lymond the move which would take him away from that threatening Bishop. Jerott started to move; whether to rush at Gaultier and to fell him, or merely to shout, he hardly knew yet himself. But Lymond’s hand closed on his wrist, and held it with a pressure which squeezed it, bone to bone and muscle to muscle, as if a machine had opened and snapped shut its jaws. Then Lymond said, his voice very soft, ‘Don’t hurt him. He’s only a goat tied to a rock, to occupy our attention until Gabriel makes his next move.’
‘What move?’ said Jerott.
‘The last move,’ said Lymond, and he smiled at Gabriel as he spoke. ‘King’s Bishop to King’s fourth: checkmate in one.’
‘… You can avoid it,’ said Jerott.
‘This time,’ said Lymond. He was speaking, it seemed, less to Jerott than to himself, or to Gabriel or to some bodiless interrogator, combing his mind. ‘Next time, no.’
‘And so?’
‘And so,’ said Francis Crawford; and for the first time he lifted his eyes and looked full at Jerott. ‘Look at the board.’
Jerott turned. So did Archie and Philippa, but Gaultier did not look. He was intent on Lymond: willing Lymond to utter the words which would take him to safety, and he signed, from time to time, in his anxiety: a sigh caught with a sob. Presently even that died away, and the profound silence in the room made itself felt: a silence which continued until Jerott himself could have shouted, or fallen down on his knees, with the ache of it. The cool triumph on Gabriel’s handsome face faded, and a shadow crossed the magnificent brow. Then he looked at Francis Crawford, and Lymond said, ‘You were too intent on your own slaughter; too ruthless; too greedy. You have pushed me until I have no alternatives left. You must take the consequences of that.’
Gabriel did not speak. But Philippa made a queer sound, suddenly, on a too-sharply intaken breath, and beside Jerott, Archie the phlegmatic, the stoical, said in a high sudden whisper, ‘Oh, Christ! Oh Christ, the bairns.’
Oh Christ, the bairns. When the orphan weeps, his tears fall into the hand of the beneficent God. Gabriel had planned it, this delicate checkmate, with Lymond’s King locked in his place, with no possibility of escape; with every possible route filled or covered by an enemy piece, or by the two children.
Or by the two children. In his next move, the move he was never to make, Gabriel would have put Lymond’s King in check so that Lymond could free himself in one way only: by taking a child.
So Gabriel had intended. So, with all the power in his hands, he had made his delicate, malicious moves to this point, and so all the pieces around Lymond were there in position, except the second locking Bishop, whose move Lymond had forestalled.
Graham Malett had forgotten one thing. Far off, unregarded on the edge of the board, stood Lymond’s Queen, and Georges Gaultier, his own Bishop, still there in his corner. And in a straight line, from Queen and from Bishop there ran a free, shining path to each child.
In three words, Lymond could direct Marthe, his Queen, down that path to the death of Khaireddin. Or instead, he could send Gaultier, square by square, to take the Bishop played by Kuzúm. Either move would free him from all fear of checkmate. More …
Either move would checkmate Graham Malett instead.
Oh Christ, the bairns, thought Jerott flatly. Oh Christ, one of them; Kuzúm or Khaireddin, who must now pay for the life it had never had; for the happiness it never had; for the stranger’s sin which begot it, and the stranger’s quarrel which brought it here. One life to save seven, and the horror facing Philippa as Gabriel’s mistress. One life pinched out on a harpstring, and Gabriel’s King would be locked in checkmate, as Lymond’s was to have been. One life, and Gabriel