Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [52]
‘It would overturn him. He is distraught,’ said Marthe readily, and with that cynical, brittle blue gaze smiled at Jerott Blyth’s dark face. ‘To pass over grief, they say, the Italian sleeps; the Frenchman sings; the German drinks; the Spaniard laments, and the Englishman goes to plays. What then does the Scot?’
To Jerott’s mind sprang, unbidden, a picture of the sword Archie Abernethy was trying to clean at this moment below. ‘This one,’ he said, ‘kills.’
At noon, Salah Rais along with eighty attendants presented himself on the quay beside the Dauphiné to break bread with his host. Resplendent in silks, velvets and jewels, with the slaves capped and shirted and the ship dressed with streamers and tassels and hangings of blue silk brocade, the Special Envoy and his entourage welcomed him, and under the awning dispensed talk, food, music and non-alcoholic refreshments.
No shadow of significance was allowed to dim the flowing periods or interfere with the interminable courtesies. No reference was made to the Knights of St John, to the inconvenient return of the Agha, to the Special Envoy’s interest in certain inhabitants of the city, or to various incidents and inconveniences which had come to light during the night. There were, perhaps owing to the fact that a princely gift at the King of France’s expense had been dispatched that morning to the Agha, no hitches at all. Only immediately before retiring and after presenting Lymond with a copy of the Qur’ân, tastefully enclosed in a solid gold and pearl box, did Salah Rais, through his interpreter, murmur something about bullets.
The query died on his lips. Before him on deck, already borne by his escort, there passed crate after crate, already opened, and revealing the shining balls cradled within. As the procession creaked over the gangplank and began its journey on shore up to the palace, the Viceroy rose to bestow his blessing and thanks for the open heart and generous Christian hand of royal France.
He left; and so did the eighty. On shore, Onophrion and his minions, aided by the improvident of the town, began to clear off the feast. Like a well-oiled machine, already rehearsed and well used to submission, the ship prepared to take rowing stations and leave. Jerott, standing by the poop rail with Gaultier and Archie, watched the awnings drawn back, and the pilot depart for the outer harbour to survey the weather.
In an hour, the ship was clear for departure. Under a cloudy sky, in a light, lukewarm air, Marthe and Philippa joined the little band at the poop, and finally Lymond came himself with the captain. ‘Notre homme, avertissez que nous allons partir: que le canon soit leste pour tirer le coup de partance.…
‘Boute-feu!’ The bark of the cannon. ‘Leva lengue!’ Silence. ‘Tout le monde fore du coursier et tout le monde à sa poste!’
Like puppets, they jumped, thought Philippa. Seamen to the rambade; pilot to the poop; the comite to the coursier, the helmsman to the tiller, the gunners to the prow. Only the slaves, being chained, had no need to run. At a blast of the whistle, they had already stripped off their shirts: at another blast, naked to the waist, they bent forward, the calloused hands repeating their pattern along the great looms of the oars. The whistle blasted again and again, and the Dauphiné started to move.
Philippa stood on the tabernacle a long time, watching the glittering white-robed assemblage on the quay blur and dwindle, and the perspective of house and college and minaret, of trees and gardens, of the corsairs’ palaces, and the Viceregal Palace and the Kasbah, crowning it all, become a flat white triangle on the hilly African slopes.
Perhaps because there was, in the end, nowhere else he could go, Lymond stood with them also, without speaking, and watched it pale and recede. Georges Gaultier, standing at his niece Marthe’s side, suddenly turned and addressed him. ‘You are a hard man, sir, to give firearms to folk such as these. I trust you never have cause to regret it.’
‘Your sentiments also, Jerott?’ said Lymond. The light voice mocked.