Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [312]
By the time they landed, the girls were asleep, lulled by the salty wind and the comfort after the jolting dust of the saddle. The man who pulled up the boat told them of the company of troops they had just missed on the way. They had gone to all the villages and taken the horses: there was no horse to be had for ten miles to the east, and troops strung out all over the road. ‘But only to the east, Lord,’ he said. ‘If you are going west, you have missed them.’
His brother had horses, and some food. The price Lymond paid for them took more than half of their small stock of money, but at least they were mounted and again on the road. On the way, Jerott apologized.
Lymond said briefly, ‘It seemed unlikely that Míkál was taking so much trouble purely to fend off Onophrion.… We shall have to use our wits. They have faster, fresher horses than we have and good ships if they need them. If the news about us has reached this point already, it’ll be all over the archipelago in a matter of days.’
‘So?’
‘So we continue. What else do you think we can do? We want a Venetian ship trading with Malta, or a Venetian state where we can wait for one. For that we’ve got to go south and west. We take turns scouting ahead.’
Jerott was silent. The journey had been punctuated by weary quarrels aggravated by Lymond’s impatience. The witty, intolerant tongue whipped them all on until, in the end, Jerott rode without answering, his eyes blazing, his mouth shut on his fury. Archie took it in silence.
The hell of it was, Lymond was right. Their hopes lay in Malta. There Leone Strozzi and the Knights of St John would give them shelter and rest, and when the time came a perfect escort for the rest of their journey. Once in France it would be easy to arrange Philippa’s journey to Scotland with Kuzúm, a strong armed retinue and Archie perhaps to go with her. Marthe, one supposed, would return to that queer household in Lyons, or the house in Blois where the Dame de Doubtance sat in her web. Jerott himself … he thought little about it. Home to Nantes, perhaps, and then to join Lymond’s company wherever it might be fighting. Or perhaps not to join Lymond’s company. His tired mind could not decide.
What Lymond’s own plans were, he had no idea. Discussion began and ended with hour-to-hour problems, and the all-consuming one of reaching a suitable ship. Meanwhile, travel became more and more difficult. Once they nearly ran into a patrol and had to split forces, Jerott hiding the women while Archie and Lymond drew off pursuit.
The next time, in the hills near to Volos, Archie rode off to scout and didn’t return. Jerott, scouring the district in daylight, found him finally with a broken-legged horse, and taking him up on the crupper made his way back to the shack where he had left Kuzúm and the two girls sleeping, with Lymond on watch.
He saw the flames of its burning from two hills away, and heard Kuzúm screaming from closer than that. Driving the laden pony round the last ridge, Jerott saw before him the hut, burning bright as a taper with a group of men fighting before it. Closer, he saw Philippa running, Kuzúm in her arms, into the coarse grass and scrub. Then in the whirling group of battling men he saw Lymond’s bright head, and beside it another as fair, her arm rising and falling, the glint of steel in her fist. Three assailants, and Lymond and Marthe.
Jerott shrieked, tearing downhill, and one man fell to Lymond’s sword as he looked round. The other had Marthe’s arm by the wrist, his blade lifted, when Lymond knocked it away and engaged him, Marthe falling back gasping. The third man wheeled and ran, and Jerott, dropping Archie by Lymond, spurred his foundering pony to follow.
The running man was a delly, the same breed whom Jerott had outfaced in the partridge garden at Chios- He turned, his eyes glinting, at the sound of the hooves, and then changing direction, made for where Philippa stumbled over the rough ground, the little