Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [314]
‘My God,’ said Jerott, and swallowed, the smell of fresh blood in his throat. ‘Do you think he could be anything else?’ Then Archie, standing still behind, put a hand on Jerott’s arm and held it there, warning.
A long way behind, in the silence, Jerott could hear Kuzúm coughing and sobbing, and the murmur of Philippa’s voice. Marthe he had seen already half up the small quarry, where the three other horses were hidden. The pony, its immediate fright over, had slowed down some distance away and was nervously grazing. Archie walked forward slowly and quietly and came to a halt close to Lymond. He said, ‘Ye did that blind? Can ye see now?’
‘No,’ Lymond said.
Jerott’s hands opened. Archie went on, his face hard as teak, ‘Has it happened before? Is there pain?’
‘It happened … after the chess.’
His quick, gasping breathing half stifled the words. Archie moved forward and, barely touching him, slipped his hand inside Lymond’s shirt. ‘Try to tell me. Is there pain?’
‘Yes.’
‘You damned fool …’ said Archie under his breath; and Francis Crawford smiled and half-opened his eyes. ‘But I got you … quite far.’
‘You got us all the way,’ Archie said. ‘There’s a Venetian ship in the harbour at Volos, with a cargo for Malta. My dear lad, we are home.’
They were probably the last words Francis Crawford heard in that place. Leaving him where he lay, Jerott walked back slowly towards Philippa and Kuzúm. He had no idea what to say.
Kuzúm, mercifully, was quiet, his head in her skirts. Philippa said, ‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘It isn’t that,’ Jerott said. ‘It’s worse than that.’ He stared at Philippa, his face blank, thinking. Christ … he married her … From the morning of the escape, the circumstance had left his mind utterly.
Philippa said matter-of-factly, ‘It’s the opium. He is dying?’ Marthe, her three horses hobbled behind her, had joined them swiftly, standing by Philippa’s shoulder, watching Jerott’s pale face.
Jerott said, ‘We don’t know. It is the opium … Archie’s terrified to move him. His theory is that even if he recovers from this exhaustion we have to cut off the drug.’
‘He won’t stand that, surely?’ said Marthe.
‘I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be an alternative. Archie says that to continue now would be tantamount to dying of poison.’
‘He might prefer it,’ said Marthe. ‘He knew what would happen. He has laid wagers with himself, I imagine, for days: how many hours, how many miles towards safety before he has to drop out.’
It was then that Jerott told them of the ship going to Malta. And as they stared at him, silent, he said to Philippa, ‘He would want you and Kuzúm to go on it. I know it will feel like desertion; that all your instinct is to stay; but think of him and not of yourself if you can. What he is paying for now is Kuzum’s freedom,’
‘I could nurse him,’ said Philippa. And: ‘No,’ said Marthe evenly. ‘I shall do that.’
Jerott could not shake her. Immovable as she had been on the Dauphiné, so Marthe now had made up her mind. Archie should go on the Venetian vessel to Malta with Philippa and the child, and from Malta travel with them to Scotland. Jerott, the former Knight of St John, should stay at Birgu with his fellows. There, when Lymond could sail—if Lymond could sail—she would bring him.
It was a plan they followed with only one alteration: Jerott had already made up his mind to stay on Volos with Lymond and Marthe. He consulted briefly with Archie, and then set off to find lodgings, while the girls gathered together what was left of all their possessions, and with cloaks and half-charred timber constructed a stretcher of sorts.
In the end, they left it behind. Jerott was back in an hour, two small mules jogging behind him, bearing a fine horse-litter of hide piled with blankets. With him on a pot-bellied donkey came a priest, his black robe trailing the dust.