Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [79]
Only then did the Syrian, turning, give a last order. One of the men, dagger stuck in his sash and hairy arms pilled with itching wisps of blue fleece, walked over to where the child sat silently hunched, its thumb in its mouth. It made no sound as the man scooped it up, one-handed, under the arms and walked with it to the door. The little boy only came to life on the threshold, as they passed the stout form of the silk-farmer. Gasping a little from the spreadeagled hand gripping his chest, the child ducked his head and, his eyes seeking the Syrian, pressed a conciliatory kiss on his captor’s muscular arm.
It was one hour before midnight when the last man out of the warehouse upset the brazier, with care. Because of their forethought, nothing burned but the silk, and the smouldering flicker as worms and cocoons dissolved into vapour and ash was hidden from all Mehedia’s high towers by the sealed windows and door. By the same token and with the same foresight, the sealed windows and door kept in the ash and the vapour.
The ash was harmless. The vapour was concentrated hydrocyanic gas.
At one hour after midnight the guards on the landward gate of Mehedia, who were Spanish and thoroughly schooled in their jobs, distinguished a camel-train, surprisingly making its way down towards them. Although the caravan made no secret of its progress and was well lit, the walls were immediately manned, and a dozen cannon and twenty crossbows and arquebuses were trained on it from that moment until it finally came to a halt, and three riders rode from its van and stopped just under the gates. At a sign from the captain the watch, not impolitely, called down the information, in Arabic, that the gates were closed until dawn.
There was a pause. The captain, a susceptible bachelor from Valladolid who disliked night duty for a number of reasons, saw that the first of the three riders, a turbaned Moor who was presumably the dragoman, was interpreting to the second, whom he now saw was in European clothes, and well-cut European clothes at that. He caught a glimpse of a chain which he would have priced at three thousand écus in Madrid and something very nice indeed sparkling in the gentleman’s hat. Making a diplomatic guess, the captain cleared his throat, stepped to the ramparts, and repeated the same information, more politely, in Italian.
The fellow in the chain rode forward, looked up, and let off a salvo of acidulated Spanish that all but fried the guard in its armour. The captain quelled his first instinct to recoil, and instead snapped at his lieutenant. ‘You have heard no commands from the Governor to admit special persons tonight?’
The lieutenant hadn’t. Reinforced, the captain turned to the battlements and said as much, in frigid Spanish, to the gentleman below. The gentleman below, in highly idiomatic Spanish, responded by repeating his demands, together with various related promises of an unbenign nature. The jewels in his enseigne were as big as marrowfat peas.
‘¿Cómo?’ said the lieutenant anxiously. ‘He says,’ said the captain, ‘that this is the train of the Donna Maria Mascarenhas, an eminent lady esteemed by the Vatican, on her way to the Holy City on pilgrimage. The Governor of Tunis commends her to the care of the Governor of Mehedia and since she has a falling sickness, which makes her journeys protracted, had sent a messenger to our Governor earlier today requesting the privilege of entry if they arrived after dark. So this fellow says.’
‘Who’s he?’ said the lieutenant, who was a married man. ‘And if there’s a lady, where is she? I see nothing but camels.’
‘He’s steward of her household, he says.…’ The captain could see nothing but camels either, and he knew what camels cost, and was able to calculate, quickly, the amount of baggage they must be carrying. He could distinguish a number of drivers, but no one else of consequence. Then the third rider, for