Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [303]
Today, perhaps, the Gate of the Dead would perform its true office for a small boy whose heritage no one knew; who had lived in squalor and perished in fright. A sacrifice to diminish the soul. A sacrifice to colour all the rest of one’s days.
In silence they crossed the water and, hardly speaking, they landed. Philippa carried Kuzúm. Lymond had come for her before leaving, his eyes steady, and she had returned his greeting, her face and voice equally peaceful. A well-governed exercise. Except that you could see still, about his eyes and his brow, the marks of the murderous thing which had touched him when Khaireddin had died.
They disembarked, and found horses waiting to take them up to the Embassy.
Chesnau was waiting, ignorant of everything save for the news that they were all returning that morning. One deduced, from his face, his relief that no diplomatic intervention was necessary: no international incident had taken place. Lymond said nothing about Gabriel. He merely asked for their boxes to be packed and arrangements made for them to leave as soon as the Dauphiné could be provisioned.
Their most unexpected welcome, dislocated with emotion, came from Onophrion Zitwitz. Onophrion the unregarded, who had been sent back to the Embassy on Jerott’s detention and had remained there ever since, consumed with anxiety. Activity of all things was the emollient he desired: he flung himself into the preparations for departure; the monumental architect of other men’s projects; and Lymond asked for the chaplain.
In the plain and pungent philosophy of Philippa’s life, bridal visions had never intruded. Flaw Valleys with Kate and Gideon, their laughter and music had been all she had ever desired. She remembered the wedding in Greece, all sunshine and dancing; the crowned girl and boy with tinsel in their dark hair; and how she had pitied them. But now, preparing for another wedding with a table for altar in a damp Turkish study, and the smell of ink and expediency instead of incense and roses, Philippa thought again of the bride, blushing, receiving her shoe-buckles; and the Pilgrims of Love, giving their hearts and their laughter and the moonlit song of the lyre. And Míkál’s beautiful voice: The fountains make thee thy bride’s veil; the lyre spins thee thy ribbons; the mallow under thy foot is the hand of thy bridegroom.… Sometimes, one must travel to find what is love.
She let her mind go just so far; and then, with gentle hands, closed the door she had opened. Then, wearing not her Turkish robe but a plain woollen dress of her own, her hair unbound; with no paint and no jewels but a small silver brooch long ago bought by her father, Philippa walked with Onophrion to the place of her wedding.
Lymond was not there. He came a little late, quickly, changed too into his own doublet and hose, neither too elaborate nor too discourteously simple. They both, thought Philippa flatly, knew all the nuances that etiquette demanded. He gave a comforting smile, and then took his place by her side.
The priest was old. Philippa could hear the witnesses, Jean Chesnau and his chief secretary, shifting a little behind her, impatient with the slow voice. Outside, Onophrion was keeping the door. Of Jerott and the others there was no sign.…
Marthe had no interest in marriage. Marthe was in brief and competent charge of Kuzúm, who was worried by Fippy in a strange dress which fitted her middle, and no kohl on her eyes. Philippa thought suddenly, with a frisson which ran like wind through her nerves, Now she is my sister.… Then she felt Lymond glance at her swiftly, and forced herself to forget it.
The words of the Mass went over her head. She made her mechanical responses, and heard his voice, sealing his pledges. Other people married young, to men they didn’t know, and had no dispensation such as she had. To sleep alone; to plan her own destiny. A virgin married,