Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [85]
Red in the face, the Governor was staring at Jerott, and although he ignored the Syrian totally, Jerott knew that in a moment something or someone would require to pay the price for that affront to his dignity. ‘You say that you are a Knight of St John and not the Comte de Sevigny, the Special Envoy of France. It is simple. Prove it,’ said the Governor.
‘Of course. If you insist,’ Jerott said. ‘It might have been better, you understand, if you had insisted before casting me into prison.…’
It was not hard. The vows, in Latin and Spanish, of the Knights Hospitallers came even now pat to his tongue. I vow to God, to St Mary, ever a virgin, Mother of God, to St John the Baptist to render henceforth and for ever, by the grace of God …
They came pat, the vows he had rejected. They came pat, too, the names of his colleagues, the account he could make of every house and Langue of Birgu, the history he could tell of the battle three years before by which the Knights with their friends had taken Mehedia for Charles. Sly as the recidivist; false as the renegade at the stake, he had invoked the Order he had forsaken, to save his own skin.…
Blocking all such thoughts from the mind, he ended. ‘My name is Jerott Blyth. Check any scroll and you will find it. And be sure, when I am landed on Malta, I shall report all that has happened, omitting nothing.’
He had the Governor’s attention now. The Governor, a little pale under the fashionable cap and the brushed beard, was saying, ‘This sounds … It is true, what you say cannot be fabricated.… But I still cannot understand … Is there,’ said the Governor, reaching a final, awful decision, ‘any soul in this city whom we might call before us to identify you?’
It was the one question Jerott had feared. There was, he was tolerably sure, more than one soul in this city who would recognize him all right—as a former Knight of St John who had obtained release from his vows. There remained only, he realized, the alternative that Lymond in his damnable efficiency had already suggested. Jerott said, ‘I imagine the city is fairly full of friends or acquaintances. The only one I can mention for certain—and I trust you will not dream of disturbing her—is the Lady Maria Mascarenhas, whom I was in hopes of encountering as she passed through. Her parents are old friends of my family’s. But of course——’
‘Señor Blyth,’ said the Governor. ‘La señora is here. If you will give yourself the trouble of sitting, I shall call her. Señor, I begin to see … I begin to fear … You will take a little wine?’
‘It might help the situation,’ said Jerott. ‘A trifle.’
It was perhaps a mistake, for when the door opened on Marthe, he somehow expected the Marthe of the caravan, in boy’s tunic and breeches, with her hair pushed out of sight in her cap. So stupidly, through the haze of weakness and wine, he did not at first recognize the tall girl whose glittering hair was banded with pearls, and whose borrowed bodice and farthingale in tight-sleeved black velvet and gauzes of white silk and spangles recalled the few untroubled days of his life when, neither praying nor fighting, he had feasted and danced slow dances at court, and had met and vowed to spend his life with Elizabeth. ‘Signor Blyth!’ said Marthe; and, drifting smiling towards him, gave him her hand and a lift of her fair brows that was the very echo of someone else. ‘Caro mio, but how you smell! Where are your chains? I was told you had been deservedly imprisoned … tantum religio potuit suadere malorum, my dear. I always distrusted so much religion.’ And reaching up, the deep blue eyes sparkling, she kissed him, English fashion, on the cheek.
Through the hammer-strokes of his heart, which appeared to him to be visible, Jerott said calmly, ‘Maria, I require your testimony, so don’t, I pray you, consider my faith as a handicap. Merely confirm to His Excellency that in fact it exists. He doubts my identity.’
She made a face, floating deliciously into a chair. ‘I doubt it too, when you smell in this fashion. What do you wish me to say?’
‘The truth,’ said