Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [32]
Such things were not unknown, or even all that uncommon. For centuries Scotsmen had travelled and trained and settled in France. Lymond and his brother had both been to university in Paris, and his father and grandfather both had lived and fought all over France. Of course, somewhere, perhaps generations ago, they shared the same blood. They shared too, obviously, the same overbearing pride of blood. It struck Jerott as ironical that after all they had suffered in the past over Lymond’s relations with women, there should be something quite as disturbing about this instant, mutual antipathy between himself and the girl.
It was with uneasiness that he saw her materialize, a dim shadow in the damp, lukewarm dark, beside Lymond and himself as they let slip the anchor that night outside the famous mole with its octagonal lighthouse, and under the low black hills where the thirteen thousand houses of the capital of Barbary, this Hell-mouth, the centre of Earthly Darkness, glimmered block upon block, a white triangle climbing the slopes. The anchor-chain rattled, and: ‘Hâte le vif! Recouvre le mort!’ said Marthe’s light, pricking voice, repeating the comité’s command. A Levantine idiom, concerned with paying out cable. But Jerott, favouring her with his magnificent black stare, turned and walked across to the rail.
He heard Lymond say placidly, ‘Don’t be too witty. All Hassan Pasha’s fleet is in there: probably about ten galleys and another fifty ships of war. Apart from the free Moors, the Spanish Moors, the Arabs, the Turks, the Jews, the merchants, the renegade Christians, the corsairs and the Viceroy’s own fighting men, there are also about six thousand Janissaries and five hundred families of Turkish-trained Spahis.
‘As far as they are concerned, this is an alien ship full of alien heretics. Because it suits Turkey to remain friendly with France, the Viceroy and senior officials will probably contrive an appearance of friendliness. Don’t be deceived. We are one big happy party and we must continue to look like one big happy party, or a sugar-cane to an onion it’ll be hâter le mort for the lot of us.’
‘You advise prudence?’ said Marthe. ‘They say, be an old man quickly, who desires to be an old man long.’ Standing straight and arrogant, her bright head tilted, the binnacle candles lighting the thick lashes and delicate profile, she drew attention, with force to both her youth and her looks.
Once before, Marthe had inquired blandly how old Lymond was. Jerott, who knew, had not thought fit to tell her. And Lymond, now, the indifferent blue gaze sweeping hers, merely threw her a couplet. ‘Chi asini caccia e donne mena, Non è mai senza guai e pena. I suggest you cease driving the ass, and the ass may then continue to escort the lady.’
Philippa, newly arrived, tugged Jerott’s sleeve. ‘Was that as rude as it sounded?’
Jerott turned. ‘No,’ he said mildly. ‘From where I was standing, it was more in the way of a warning.’
Philippa, who had just been forbidden, with Marthe, to set foot on shore, was in no amenable mood. ‘Huh! Discipline!’ she muttered.
‘Yes, discipline,’ said Lymond, turning also. ‘And I’ll give you some foreign wisdom on that score as well. ‘L’absence de discipline est la source de tout mal: quiconque n’obéira pas, l’amiral devra l’éventrer.’ If I find any woman has moved from this ship tomorrow I shan’t eviscerate you, but I’ll land at the next Christian port and put you all in a convent. ‘Good night.’ After a moment Philippa realized that it was she and not he who was about to retire; and descended the hatch stairway huffily, Marthe stepping calmly behind her.
Down below: ‘What happens,’ demanded Philippa, ‘if they all go ashore tomorrow, and they never come back?