Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [48]
It might have worked. It should have worked, even in the pitch dark, with the rain beating on their heads and shoulders and backs, if one single householder hadn’t quarrelled with his wives or his mother; or hadn’t wanted somewhere to die, or to sleep off his kif. Lymond, running first, landed on a roof which should at that season and in that weather have been empty, but wasn’t. The man on whose back he landed screamed like a pig and went on screaming while Lymond rolled over and picked himself up. By the time Jerott landed as well, the alleys on each side echoed with the pad of leather buskins in the mud, and they were surrounded. In a moment, the challenge. And then the shooting would start.
Lymond measured with his eye the distance over the street. There were no bridges here. ‘D’you think you can?’
‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’ said Jerott; and before Lymond could stop him, he backed, ran, and jumped.
He didn’t think, himself, that he would reach it, but surprisingly he did. He had a glimpse of movement below him but he could not be sure whether in the dark they had seen him: there were no torches there yet. His landing posture was a trifle ungainly and hurt, to be truthful, more than a bit, but he picked himself up very quickly and paused to wave brazenly to Lymond, who had already started his run. Then, turning, Jerott walked back to give the other the room he needed to land.
At the back of the roof, where they had been sitting with the utmost patience awaiting him, a group of four men rose to their feet. Jerott opened his mouth to warn Lymond, but didn’t manage it before one of them hit him on the head, and he knew nothing more.
The first face Jerott Blyth saw after that was a black one, which worried him a little, until his sight cleared and he saw that it was human, smiling, and turbaned. The next, beside him, was Lymond’s. He was dressed in a clean white burnous, and apart from the intangible difference which remained in his eyes, he looked both calm and unharmed. Behind his head, a lamp indicated that it must be night still, and a heavenly smell of food reminded Jerott that it must be over twelve hours since he had last eaten. He moved, and the fancy faded a little.
‘And how doth your gate?’ said Lymond. ‘Lie a little longer. As was said of the philosopher Chrysippus: you are only drunk in your legs. I was meant to jump over first.’
‘Was it the Janissaries?’ said Jerott. He had never been inside either the Kasbah or a college of Janisserotz, but this didn’t look like either. He glanced down at the mattress on which he was lying, under a light woollen blanket, and then at the fine glazed tiles in green and apricot and blue which covered the floor of the room. A brazier, placed close to him, gave out a comforting warmth, and in its light he could trace, high on the white walls, an edging of fine stucco carving, and a phrase from the Qur’ân, repeated over and over in light blue and gold. Then he brought his gaze down again, and past Lymond, and back to the smiling dark face which had bent over him in the first place. This time, he knew it.
‘… Salablanca,’ said Lymond. ‘They had seen the Janissaries waiting for us at ail the posterns and portes. He and his friends were trying to reach us first, to warn us. They were all ready to slip us down the roof stairs and smuggle us here to the house of his father, if you hadn’t started to yell.’
‘He could have covered my mouth,’ said Jerott indignantly, sitting up with great success