Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [80]
‘!Jesús!’ said the captain.
Down below, sitting on horseback beside Salablanca before all Ali-Rashid’s camels, Lymond felt Marthe ride up between them. He did not need to turn to know how she looked. Mantled in the satin of her gilt unbound hair, with the wide severe brow, the white skin, the borrowed skirts and the pearls she had, unaccountably, produced, each one as big as a hazelnut, she was a vision to make all the arquebuses droop and the crossbowmen slacken and sweat. ‘Perhaps,’ said Lymond with virulence, ‘the captain might risk his reputation to the extent of admitting the lady, her servant and myself while he sends to inform the Governor that his guests have arrived. You may assure yourself, sir, that the Moor and I carry no weapons. Unless you suppose the lady carries a culverin I cannot conceive what harm we may do you.’
Hopelessly, the captain grasped at a last straw. ‘You say the lady suffers some sickness?’
‘Nothing infectious,’ said Lymond with cold reserve. He still had not glanced towards Marthe. ‘Donna Maria suffers from fits.’
‘!Qué lástima!’ said the captain politely. He found it hard, it was clear, to take his eyes from her. ‘And what form do these take?’
‘Really, I hardly think——’ Lymond began acidly, but the captain interrupted him. ‘Your pardon, sir. But with the safety of my troops to consider …’
‘Really, it will hardly affect your troops,’ said Lymond. ‘The lady unhappily suffers fits of extreme violence, during which she struggles, screams and attempts to throw off all her clothes. Now, will you kindly arrange for us to enter?’
Five minutes later, they were all three inside.
They had twenty minutes, Lymond calculated, before the lieutenant came back from the castle with a troop of fully armed soldiers and the news that the Governor of Mehedia had never heard of the Donna de Mascarenhas but was very much aware there was a French Envoy loose in the land. With Salablanca sitting in the background, he sipped some very sweet Candian wine, along with Marthe, in one of the upper rooms in the guardhouse tower in company with the captain and one of his subordinates: in between making conversation he was calculating, if the truth were known, what kind of head the girl would have for strong liquor. The captain, who was drunk on pure sensation, said, ‘You will forgive me, Señor Maldonado; but had you not told me, I should have taken the lady and yourself for sister and brother.’
‘My father,’ said Marthe, ‘unhappily, was not a fastidious man. I have several of Señor Maldonado’s brothers as well in the household. They also suffer from fits.’
‘Of the same kind?’ said the captain, gazing.
‘Approximately,’ said Marthe coolly. ‘They scream, struggle, and try to throw off all my clothes.’
‘But Donna Maria forgets,’ said Lymond. ‘Poor Horatio, poor Vincenzo, poor Nicolò, poor Giovanni: by persevering in time they all discovered total relief.’ He studied Marthe. ‘You look pale.’
‘Lack of my usual exercise. I shall, I think,’ said Marthe, ‘take the air on the battlements, if the captain will allow me?’
The captain had no objections: there was a guard at the foot of the stairs. He was only regretful, bowing her out, that for the time being he was losing her company. For a moment, standing beside her on the open guardwalk in the soft night, he looked around at the small occasional lights and the dark murmuring trees and said, ‘Shall I come with you?’ But she refused sweetly, smiling, and he let himself in again to the room with Señor Maldonado and the Moor, whose door, with apology, he had locked.
‘Señor, more wine? I am amazed,’ said the captain, ‘that so lovely a lady has not married.’
‘But indeed she has married,’ said Lymond. ‘Five times. And not one husband, poor fellow, survived matrimony by more than a year. She is too good for them. The last one, dying, compared her to a nugget of gold. Do you melt it or do you rub it or do you beat it, said he, it shineth still more orient.’
‘Sayest thou?’ said the captain, glancing towards the half-open door.