Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [54]
‘And Marthe?’ said Philippa jealously.
‘Marthe also, I hope.’
But Philippa, struggling with the implications of all that, was suddenly pierced by another sickening thought. ‘You’re going to try and kill Gabriel? Now it won’t harm the baby?’
There was another little pause. Then Lymond said carefully, ‘He must die, Philippa. You must understand that.’
‘But he’s on Malta. If you touch him, you’ll lose your own life.’
‘So long as he dies, what does that matter?’ said Lymond with sudden impatience. ‘In any case, I’m not discussing Malta at present. Even if we don’t get a good wind in the morning, we can be in Sicily in two or three days. Make quite sure you’re ready, that’s all.’
Thinking wildly, Philippa Somerville stared at him, his face no more than a high-lighting of the dark. She was free. She could go to Zakynthos with Archie. But——
But if the child was alive, she would have to trace it before anything happened to Gabriel. Or by the terms of the pact, on Gabriel’s death, the child also would die.
Restlessly, Lymond had moved back to the rail. Her first instinct had been right, Philippa thought. Tired probably beyond sleep, he had no prospect of being alone except here, for the short space during which the master was at supper with the rest. She opened her mouth to talk about Zakynthos, and instead turned on her heel, thumped down several ladders, extracted a powder from Archie and a cup of wine from Onophrion, and proceeded to try to turn Jerott out of his cabin.
Jerott, three-quarters asleep, stared at Philippa, glanced at the empty bunk bed beside him and said, ‘Well, for God’s sake, that’s his affair. If he wants to come below, I shan’t disturb him; I’ve had enough of him today. Leave him alone.’
Marthe, who had come to watch, stood amused in the doorway and said, ‘She wants to nurse him. It’s an interesting experiment. But he has lost his temper so often today, perhaps he has no more to lose.’
His eyes shut, Jerott added his last word. ‘Look, Philippa: don’t. You can’t expect him to behave as he should. You’ll regret it, and so will he, afterwards.’
At fifteen, Philippa was immune to that kind of adult abjuration. Stalking out of the cabin, potion in one hand and skirts in the other, she climbed all the ladders up to the poop and marched across to her victim.
He was still there at the rail. She saw the dark sheen of his doublet; and his folded arms, on which his bent head was resting. She said, ‘Mr Crawford?’ stoutly, and this time there was a pause before he lifted his head, turned and saw her.
He had perhaps been asleep. Certainly, his face was bemused; and at first he didn’t seem quite to recognize her. Then he said, ‘Oh Christ. The bloody wet-nurse again’ and, with a vicious blow of the hand that jarred her arm to the shoulder, jerked the heavy cup from her grasp and sent it flying into the sea.
‘They said you’d do that,’ said Philippa.
He had been going, she thought, to lay hands on her; but at the sound of her voice his arm dropped, and he brushed past instead, without speaking, and left the small deck. She watched him swing along the high gangway going nowhere: to the crowded castle; to the crowded planks at the side, when he suddenly stopped, his hand on the mainmast. A second later, his voice rang out; then the comités whistle shrilled, urgently, again and again and again.
The ship leaped into life. Rattling steps plunged up from the cabins; the master jumped to the tabernacle and somewhere there was the rumble she had come to recognize: the rumble of guns being run out. The ship went suddenly dark, and Archie Abernethy, who had appeared out of nowhere beside her, said, ‘He says you’re to get down and stay down, until you’re teilt to come up.’
Philippa didn’t stay to be told twice. She ran, and as she ran, passing Jerott kneeling by the gunroom