Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [89]
‘If he is wise,’ said Marthe smoothly, with the uncanny aptness which he found so disconcerting, ‘our friend will represent himself and us to be prisoners and the Spaniards our captors. The Spanish are killed; we are free, and the Aga Morat escorts us to Djerba. How Mr Crawford will take pleasure in moving his pieces. Meredoch, son of Hea, with his holy hands severs the knots.’
‘That’s … less than generous,’ said Jerott. ‘I should trust him to try to save the Spaniards’ lives as much as our own.’
‘Would you?’ said Marthe. ‘Then, Mr Blyth, sit up and look.’
There was no sign, this time, of the white flag. If Lymond was there, he was unseen, among the rearguard of the Arabs. But the Aga Morat’s standard was moving. Slowly taking the forefront, it was moving inwards, towards the small band of Spaniards, and at the same time, all the horsemen in that wide circle put their mounts to the trot. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, with the grey dust rising high above their white turbaned heads and obscuring the the deep blue of the sky, the Aga Morat’s trained army, swords flashing, arrows flying, galloped in towards that tight knot of soldiers and, arriving with a crash and a shout that shook the choked air, they raised their blades and started to kill.
True to their training, the Spaniards held together. Back to back, with sword and dagger and the hooves of their horses as weapons, they fought and killed in their turn, were wounded, and died. Without looking round, Jerott knew that as the sound lessened, as the blinding fragments of armour showed less and less among the twisting robes of the horsemen, the line of men at his back had drawn nearer; had encircled the small grove in which he and Marthe sat their horses, and that at a sign from the standard their fate, also, would be decided.
Beside him, Marthe, perfectly white, had not moved. Jerott said, ‘You saved my life at Mehedia. There has been no time to thank you.’
She did not look at him. ‘I enjoy acting,’ said Marthe in her clear, intolerant voice. ‘As … he does. The human scene is well rid of us both.’
Very soon after that, the carnage was complete, and the signal they expected came clearly from the blotched and littered sand of the battlefield, where the Arab horsemen, little reduced, had already dismounted to pillage the dead. There were no Spaniards living. Some, their horses cut down beneath them, had attempted in the end, blindly, to run, and had been hewn down, delicately limb by limb and feature by feature, while begging for death. Two, released from their armour, had had the flesh of their backs slit for spreadeagling.
Jerott saw the signal pass, and the Arabs waiting outside the palm trees begin to filter towards Marthe and himself. His head swimming, he none the less pulled himself straight in the saddle and began, slowly, to pull out his sword. In Marthe’s hands a little dagger winked in the sun. Jerott said, ‘Though I can’t help you, I shall still pray for you. Who are you, Marthe?’
She had moved to face their assailants, but at the question she turned, and he winced at the irony in the brilliant blue gaze. ‘Qui nescit orare, discat navigare.… Why ask now? Do you expect to live to gratify Mr Crawford’s curiosity?’ said Marthe.
‘… No. You said,’ continued Jerott, weakly dogged, ‘that the world was well rid of you both. I cannot believe it.’ The Arabs were very close now: he could see the high saddles and the tasselied housings on each little horse.
‘Oonagh O’Dwyer would believe it,’ said Marthe. ‘And the branded baby at Bône. And the woman Kedi and these twenty soldiers, and the infant catamite, wherever he may be going. Don’t you think they would all have been happier if Francis Crawford had never existed?’
‘It’s easy to blame. What can you know of him?’ Jerott said.
‘All I know of myself. Too much. And nothing,’ said Marthe.
She cut a man to the bone before she was overpowered,