Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [9]
‘You disappoint us,’ said Lymond. ‘But we shall look forward with pleasure to dissecting the meal.… Until later then, Master Zitwitz.’ The controller smiled, favoured them with a correct bow, and withdrew. The door closed.
As if released by a string, Jerott, his shoulders trembling with laughter, dropped among the pasties and started to splutter. Lymond’s seraphic expression, surveying the feast, did not alter. Philippa, her hands screwed into her skirt, said, ‘Why did you laugh?’
‘I didn’t laugh,’ said Lymond. ‘It’s Jerott’s childish sense of humour assaulting the eardrums. For God’s sake let’s sit down and eat: he’s inhaled the cherry sauce three times already.’
‘Why did you laugh when you knew why I meant to come with you?’ said Philippa, and Jerott put his hand on her arm.
To look after the baby, she had said. A subject none of them mentioned: an affair so private and painful that you pretended it didn’t exist. Unless you were Philippa Somerville.
Last year an Irish mistress of Francis Crawford’s had been captured by Dragut Rais, the Turkish corsair. Lymond had been told that she had died. Only when his adversary Gabriel was defeated and begging for his life did Lymond learn that the woman Oonagh O’Dwyer was alive, and had given birth to his son.
Gabriel had escaped, taking with him the secret of the whereabouts of mother and child. He had done more. He had made it clear that their safety depended on him. And that any attempt to interfere with his life or his liberty would result in the death, wherever he was, of the child, Lymond’s son.
So Graham Malett had vanished, and shortly after that Lymond himself had disappeared, to be run down in this costly Swiss hostelry, taking the waters in his own inimitable fashion and in no mood, it was clear, for unwanted company.
So: ‘Why did you laugh?’ demanded Philippa, and shook Jerott’s hand off her arm.
‘Oh, that?’ said Lymond. ‘But, my dear child, the picture was irresistible. Daddy, afflicted but purposeful, ransacking the souks of the Levant for one of his bastards, with an unchaperoned North Country schoolgirl aged—what? twelve? thirteen?—to help change its napkins when the happy meeting takes place.… A gallant thought, Philippa,’ said Lymond kindly, sitting down at the table. ‘And a touching faith in mankind. But truly, all the grown-up ladies and gentlemen would laugh themselves into bloody fluxes over the spectacle. Have some whatever-it-is.’
Philippa’s eyes, stiff, brown and unyielding, stared unwinkingly at his face. ‘Then where are you going?’
‘I wondered when someone was going to ask that,’ said Lymond; and Jerott, pressing Philippa into a seat, sat down quietly himself, his appetite gone. ‘Tell us,’ Jerott said. ‘Bearing in mind, if you can, what Philippa has done for you.’
Lymond laid down his knife. ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘of going to Brazil. An expedition under de Villegagnon is leaving fairly soon. It might be less tedious than some. I had a long talk with de Villegagnon, by the way. He has given me a little more written proof of Sir Graham Malett’s defection. Added to what I have already, it makes certain at least that Gabriel can never set foot again either in France or in Scotland.’
‘And that is enough for you?’ said Jerott. ‘He may gather men, money and power and range himself where he pleases: with the Emperor, with the Sultan, with the enemies of Scotland and the Faith, and you mean to do nothing? He can pay an employee to trap and chastise you, and you talk of clearing off to Brazil?’
‘I said I thought of it,’ said Lymond. ‘For God’s sake, eat the custards at least. We’ll have Gargantua back in a moment expecting a consumers’ opinion.… Then I called on Henri II of France, His Sacred Majesty, the abstract and quintessence of all honour and virtue, to hire him my small but excellent army. He also—seid fröhlich, trinkt aus—hired me.’
‘Oh, Christ, what as?’ said Jerott.
‘As a lackey, my lords,’ said Lymond. In his voice, light and absent,