Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [31]
Half an hour later, sand had begun to fall on the ship and visibility dropped to a mile. Half an hour after that, it was perfectly dark and a thick and ochreous mud, borne on a light, tepid rain, fell on crew and galley alike. Reversing her stroke and her benches and travelling on compass bearings and in life-preserving discomfort, the Dauphiné turned and made her way, direct under oars, to the North African port of Algiers.
At supper-time Marthe and Philippa were allowed to emerge, picking their way over a mysterious silt, to come and dine with the captain. Lymond, arriving undisturbed from a talk with Onophrion, was sociable in a perfunctory way. ‘How was it below? Rather tedious, I’m afraid.’
‘Not at all,’ said Philippa. ‘We were laying wagers over whether we’d rather be raped, or resigned to a smug little victory.’
The lazy blue eyes opened, gratifyingly, in extravagant calculation. ‘Why not have both? We can arrange it.’
Marthe said dryly, ‘Philippa wishes only to say thank you, and so also do I. They say in Italy, don’t they, that the boat will sink that carries neither monk, nor student, nor whore.… How good that we have Mr Blyth.
‘How good that we have Mlle Marthe,’ Lymond replied. His clothes, freshly changed, were impeccable and his brushed yellow hair, free of sand, was lit guinea-gold by the gleam of the lamps. ‘Of her fellow men so charming a student.’
And before the spark of blue eyes meeting blue, Philippa’s undistinguished gaze dropped.
4
Oonagh
The woman, of course, is in Algiers, the Dame de Doubtance had said. And what had the nun said, in the steaming water of Baden? I was a slave in Dragut the corsair’s own palace … I was at the branding of all his poor children … She might have been queen of Ireland, she told me: that black-haired Irishwoman with the golden child on her knee.
… Piffle, Jerott Blyth was thinking to himself as, dressed overall, they lay overnight in the outer harbour at Algiers, awaiting permission to enter. Drooling, dangerous piffle. A trap framed by Gabriel on the premise that no man in Lymond’s position could afford to neglect the obvious gesture. A trap which, whether from amour-propre, nostalgia or a sense of personal responsibility, Lymond was intending to spring.
Last year in Scotland, the bond between Jerott and Francis Crawford had been forged, and it had seemed to Jerott then that he understood for a little the kind of man Lymond was. Then they had separated, Lymond to cross to the Continent in pursuit, it was believed, of Graham Malett, and Jerott to carry out orders and convey their company of foot and light horse into France.
He had known, when Philippa appeared and insisted on travelling with him, that he would receive no welcome from Lymond. A personal vendetta—if it were no more than that—between Lymond and Gabriel was a common thing, understood and respected. The kind of maudlin susceptibility which could wring its hands all over Europe in the wake of an indifferent mistress and an unknown and unwanted infant was something other entirely. Jerott did not know, even yet, whether Lymond had had intentions of setting afoot any inquiries, during this curious embassy, about Oonagh and the child. He had gone to Baden, he was beginning to believe, as he had drifted through other notorious centres of gossip, in order to find out what he could of Graham Reid Malett. But Philippa’s coming, and the subsequent news of both woman and child, had forced Lymond into an irritating and preposterous role.
He had responded by prohibiting them all from his confidence. After that first, unchecked outburst of anger, Lymond had confined his exchanges with Jerott, as with everyone else, to the ordering, in efficiency and comfort, of their journey; and to the small-talk, albeit witty, immodest and allusive small-talk, of everyday