Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [320]
Until Jerott, exploding ill-advisedly like a soldier and not like a former Knight of St John, said, ‘Then when are you going back to see them in Scotland?’ And Francis Crawford said, ‘Never.’
He left the day after that, before Jerott or Marthe was awake, to keep his appointment. Before he went, he had taken leave in his own private fashion of each, though he made sure neither knew it. He had satisfied himself of their future, both immediate and distant, now siowly bonding together. And he had acknowledged, with all the generosity of which he was capable, the gift of his life and his reason.
The note he left required Marthe not to follow him, and Marthe, he knew, would force Jerott to honour it. He laid his plans well, choosing an hour when he was fresh, and able to ride, he believed, a measurable distance. He escaped from his room, left the precincts and acquired his prearranged horse with no incident at all, and merely the expenditure, as throughout his discreet dispositions from sickbed, of a modest outlay in bribes.
One may, however, be fresh as a rose in a bedroom, and by no means the terror of mules on the road. This, he acknowledged, gravely, after a mile or two; and after five was not acknowledging anything at all except a strong impulse to vacate the saddle. None the less, he reached the crossroads near his objective at precisely the hour he had planned and, leaving the hard-beaten, uneven track, picked his way between trees to a place where another road could be discerned, this time going west. Within sight of the road, but concealed from chance travellers by the low scrub and bushes, Lymond tied his reins and slipped from the saddle.
There was nothing to unpack. He had no saddlebags with him; no clothes and no money; no food and no drink. He had his sword in its sheath and his cloak on one shoulder, and somewhere a vestige of flamboyance, which led him to slap his horse on the rump, and to watch it canter, kicking, into the depths of the wood, saying, ‘In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Let there be love.’ Lymond stood swaying for a moment, watching the road; and then subsided on to the turf.
When the heavy coach with its two horses and four armed outriders came along and pulled up, in a trembling of dust, he was lying in the short grass, its shadows swinging over his face. A blackbird, feeding close to his hand, flinched and sped away chortling as the outriders dismounted, scimitars jolting bright in the sun, and after a little searching, bent and lifted him, his head moving loosely, over into the coach.
This was little else than a cart with a Gothic arched cover, but it was more than palatial inside, with benches ranged by the luggage, and cushions on the carpeted floor. The men laid him on these, at the feet of the one other person the carriage contained, and saluting, withdrew. A moment later, to the sound of whip-cracking and the yelling of voices, the vehicle groaned into motion again.
Lymond stirred. Above him, there was a slow smile on the lips of his companion. An arm lifted, removing a veil. And a small hand, fine and soft and exactingly jewelled, stretched out to touch Francis Crawford’s fair hair in a light and pensive caress.
‘It is well,’ said Kiaya Khátún. ‘You are here; and we have begun on our journey together.’
THE LYMOND CHRONICLES BY DOROTHY DUNNETT
“The finest living writer of historical fiction.”
—Washington Post Book World
THE GAME OF KINGS
Dorothy Dunnett introduces her irresistible hero Francis Crawford of Lymond, a nobleman of elastic morals and dangerous talents whose tongue is as sharp as his rapier. In 1547 Lymond returns to defend his native Scotland from the English, despite accusations of treason against him. Hunted by friend and enemy alike, he leads a company of outlaws in a desperate race to redeem his reputation.