Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [308]
It illumined also Lymond and Jerott, running noiselessly back to the flock, and waving them on. ‘Now,’ said Francis Crawford, and, as Philippa snatched up Kuzúm, he put a hand on her elbow and raced with her down to the dip and towards the uprising ground.
Georges Gaultier got there first. He must have known that the trap had been sprung; that believing them all to be in the chamber by now, or at least round and in the short passage, their adversaries, whoever they were, had swept round into chamber and passage, hoping to trap them. But if he knew, it made no real difference. All that mattered was that Lymond was leading the way on through the main channel, and past the way to the treasure.
So Georges Gaultier ran. He ran past Jerott and Lymond and Philippa, down into the flickering light of the junction, and swung round to face the short passage, arms upraised, the light full on his face. ‘Don’t take it!’ he shouted to the anonymous faces, staring at him behind the massed torches. ‘Don’t take it! It’s mine! I’ll pay you for it! I’m not with the others: I can prove it. I found it all, and it’s mine!’
He didn’t even see the arrow that killed him. It flew arching from the bright lights and took him full in the chest, so that he stumbled, his knees sagging, and fell forward, his hands raking the rubbish, without hearing the sonorous voice which addressed him. ‘Come then, M. Gaultier,’ it said. ‘Come and get it.’ And added, still rich, still soft, still deferential even in its smooth cadences, ‘I really should not advise you now, Mr Crawford, to lead your friends through past the junction. There are six bows trained on the opening where poor M. Gaultier stood, and the light is now excellent.’
‘Onophrion Zitwitz!’ said Philippa.
The unseen speaker had heard her. ‘Ah, the bride. How many of you are there, I wonder …? I need not tell you, madame, that your groom is a master of trickery. But for poor M. Gaultier, I believe he might have escaped, for the moment. And I had made up my mind that twenty-four hours more of life was all that M. le Comte de Sevigny should have.’
‘Twenty-four hours more than Graham Reid Malett?’ said Lymond softly. First in that headlong rush down the passage, he had stopped dead as Gaultier darted out past him, Philippa swinging against him; and slithering to a halt in turn, all the others behind him had stood still, concealed in the shadows, and watched Gaultier’s murder take place.
‘Twenty-four hours more than the greatest man who ever lived,’ said the hard voice of Onophrion Zitwitz. ‘It is more than I promised myself. But you will die the death he would have wanted for you, and your assorted friends with you.’
‘Gabriel sent you to join me at Baden?’ Lymond’s voice, coolly interested, told nothing of the speed with which, turning the assorted friends round, he was in process of dispatching them to safety, back along the long path to the cistern.
Onophrion’s voice halted him and them. ‘If you go back, you will meet still more of my friends. It will have taken them a little time to find a new boat, but when they have found it, they know what to do. I paid a call on M. Gilles while you were all in the Seraglio, didn’t I mention it? He wasn’t at home, although my watchers knew he hadn’t emerged. What were you doing, Master Gilles? Making an inventory? At least the house was quite vacant when I got in, and I could search it at leisure … the secret was not hard to find.… Yes, Sir Graham asked me to join you at Baden, and to tell him all that you did. I would have laid down my life for Sir Graham.… Alas, I could not prevent you from killing him.…’
‘The mutes were good at it too,’ said Lymond pleasantly. ‘He made himself