Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [66]
And to that, since, had been added the scraps of knowledge they had. That in Djerba the child had been nursed by a negress called Kedi in the harem ruled by Dragut Rais’s mistress Güzel. That from Djerba, child and mother had been taken to Algiers, where both had been sold on Dragut’s departure for Prevesa in the autumn. And that before the mother’s death, the child had been sold, through one Shakib, to Ali-Rashid the camel-trader.
But that last, Jerott knew, had not been made public. And, looking around him in the open space they had chosen, far from where the Dauphiné lay berthed, he wondered how much of the original message had been understood. Children abounded. Piccolo to the bass stridencies of protest and acclaim by their sires, children cried and laughed, screamed and whimpered. Under the mild, grey sky scraps of bare flesh rolled and crawled and staggered among the swathed and sheeted adults: flesh coloured from grey-white to coffee; flesh supine in bundles and baskets or across sheeted knees; flesh ragged-shirted and mobile. Lured by the incense of silver, families had crossed the mountains, by mule or donkey or camel, to deliver their offering. Others, infected by the disease of excitement, had snatched up a child that morning from tent or hut or the bare sand itself, and brought it boldly to show. The two hundred children now being brought to Jerott and Salablanca, one by one, ranged from the shadowy head and curved plastic limbs of the infant to the firm walking toddler, shouting in Arabic; the dark hair curling over his infested dark skin.
Jerott had been afraid it would be impossible. It was not. All but eighteen of these children had dark hair. And of the three fair-haired boys with blue eyes, only one was remotely near the right age.
It was wrapped in rags in a woman’s arms, and lay staring unseeing, its blond skin flaccid and its breathing shallow and harsh. Jerott said, ‘This child is sick. What is its name, and where was it born?’
‘It was born in Djerba, Efendi. I have nursed him for Dragut Rais himself, and the great lord had him branded. See!’ And bending, the woman turned back the rags.
His guts rising within him, Jerott looked at the raw and glistening flesh thus revealed. ‘When was that done?’
‘In October, Efendi. Before Dragut Rais left.’ Her brows, drawing together as she closed the child’s covering over its wound, were as fair as the baby’s.
Jerott said gently, ‘If the Imám here allows it, wilt thou unveil?’
She was frightened. The blue eyes flickered from Jerott to Salablanca and back. ‘Wherefore, unveil?’
‘It is for the child,’ said Jerott. Without looking at it, he could hear the sawing tick of its breath.
‘It is for the money? The child will have money if I unveil?’
Forgetful of all Lymond had said, Jerott opened his lips. It was Salablanca who spoke, with stern compassion. ‘He can have none if thou wilt not.’
She would have needed little persuasion anyway, Jerott supposed. It was already unseemly that alone she had come and spoken with men, and infidels moreover. But there were no tears on her face, which was fair and heavy and comely, and the exact print of the child’s. Again, Salablanca said what had to be said. ‘Alas! It is the son of a black-haired giáur woman we seek. Thou hast a fine boy: see to him.’ And, bending, he assisted Jerott to rise, with an iron hand round his arm, and with that same grip, murmuring apology in Spanish under his breath, he drew Jerott from the place.
The crowd, disappointed, ran alongside them as they returned to the ship, and but for the Imám, sent for at first light that morning, they might have had more trouble than they did. The fair-haired woman and the baby, lost in the swirl, Jerott did not catch sight of again.
It was not Salablanca’s fault. His rush of urgent apologies Jerott brushed aside when they were installed once more aboard; but he could not discuss it with Onophrion or the Gaultiers