Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [53]
For a moment, Jerott was silent. Then he said, ‘There’s a saying. Dio dà i panni secondo i freddi.’
Lymond turned his back on the coast of Algiers. He put his hands on the rail and returned Jerott’s stare and said, ‘Yes. It was cold. And God gave of his comfort accordingly, but with modifications from outlying quarters. The wheel spindles on those carbines are faulty, and all the key-spanners are missing.… Let us,’ quoted Francis Crawford largely, with a sudden scathing theatricality, ‘let us imitate the swallows, the storks and the cranes, which fetch their circuits yearly, like nomads, and follow the sun.’
And as if he had so commanded it, the light above their heads burst its watery films and drove warmingly on the ridged backs of the rowers, on the seamen and courtiers and officers and on the heads of the two girls standing, brown-headed and fair, on the poop, as the Dauphiné turned east, and away from the cold.
6
Leone
Having worked extremely hard at his job, having fought for his life, and having undergone considerable strain with the briefest of rests in the previous thirty-six hours, Jerott passed that afternoon on board the Dauphiné in something of a dream, and at dusk, having seen her safely anchored for the night just off the Barbary coast about thirty miles east of Algiers, he checked that he was no longer wanted, and stumbled below to sink into sleep.
Philippa, watching him go, noticed that Lymond had not yet succumbed. There was, of course, a great deal to do at the outset of a voyage of this length, They had unloaded some of their cargo and taken on fresh stores of fruit and water and livestock, which had to be properly stored. The dirt of the harbour had to be cleaned away, and all the temporary dispositions made for staying in port. They had found two stowaways: Christian slaves who had slipped on board unseen, and these had given rise to concern because recent wholesale defections to visiting French ships had made the Viceroy unduly sensitive to such happenings.
But all these, thought Philippa, were properly the business of the ship’s master and of Onophrion. She eyed Lymond as he moved about; wishing she were older; wishing she were a man, and battling, too, with a weight on her conscience. Oonagh was dead. Believing the child too to be dead, Lymond would now make his way direct to the Sublime Porte. But what if the child were alive? What if it had crossed the sea safely, and could be traced through the address the Dame de Doubtance had given her, on the island of Zakynthos?
Go alone with Abernethy, the old woman had said; and she had promised. And what if, after raising false hopes, the child proved after all to have died? She carried her problem into supper, found Lymond was not there, and carried it out again.
Because of the warmth of the night, the tents had not been put up. After the long stint of rowing, the slaves were already half asleep, curled in their chains, although there were lights round the fougon, and the smell of food hung on the air. Subdued talk came from the rambade and the benches flanking the galley, where the chiourme sat or lay, and she could hear voices below, where the hatch-covers had been opened to let air into the holds. Lymond she found, elbows crossed on the rail beside the unguarded tiller, in complete darkness, staring down at the invisible water. Changing her mind, Philippa turned and began to beat a retreat.
‘Philippa?’
He had seen her. She said, ‘It’s all right. I thought I’d dropped something.’
Lymond said, ‘Come here. I want to speak to you. I don’t mind company: it’s only food I don’t want.’ He waited until she came slowly up beside him, and then spoke gently. ‘You know, Philippa, we can’t take you with us: not now. Kate would never forgive me.’
Philippa took a long, shaky breath, and kept her voice steady. ‘You mean, now the baby’s dead, you don’t need me?’ she said.
There was a little pause. Then he said, ‘Jerott told you?’ And as she nodded her head in the dark, ‘I see. Yes, that’s partly the reason. The other is that the … issue between