Pawn in Frankincense - Dorothy Dunnett [97]
‘The dew?’ said Philippa. ‘In bags or boxes?’
‘In buckets,’ said Sheemy, oblivious. ‘Or nets. Y’see, it’s all changed into these wee creepy worms in hard jeckets.’
‘Oh,’ said Philippa. ‘And then what do they do?’
‘Take their jeckets off,’ explained Sheemy. ‘And there’s the stones in their pooches.’
‘What stones?’
‘They stones. The pearls. These. That’s where they come from.’
‘It is one of Nature’s marvels, isn’t it?’ said Philippa. ‘And now what will you do with them?’
‘Sell them,’ said Sheemy, smiling a fond, triangular smile. ‘There’s a Venetian laddie here that Signor Manoli buys his currants from: ye’ll have seen him, maybe, passing in bills of lading and chatting outside the window. He’s no let in, and I canna pass the stones out, but he’s crazy to have them. Come the end o’ this damned quarantine and I’ll be up to the House o’ the Palm Tree like the wind.’
‘The what?’ said Philippa.
‘The House of the Palm Tree. Where this merchant Donati does business.’
‘Donati,’ repeated Philippa. She didn’t look at Archie. She didn’t, in fact, focus on anybody but bent all her powers of mental digestion on this pair of facts. The House of the Palm Tree, Zakynthos, was where she had been sent by the Dame de Doubtance in Lyons to find the lost child Khaireddin. And Donati, Evangelista Donati, was the name of the Venetian woman whom Sir Graham Malett had chosen to chaperone his sister in Scotland in the last months of her life.
It might have been coincidence, but it was unlikely, thought Philippa shakily. The Donatis were creatures of Gabriel. In the end, blaming Gabriel for the death of his sister, Evangelista had turned against her employer, and after Gabriel’s flight Madame Donati had also left Scotland to return home, one took it, to Venice.
But Evangelista Donati was a woman, and had been attached to the girl. The rest of the family—this merchant Sheemy spoke of (a brother? a cousin?) who exported currants in Zakynthos—might have no cause to quarrel with Gabriel. Philippa knew how strong and how lucrative was the spell Graham Reid Malett could cast. She said, without giving herself time to regret it, ‘Sheemy. I’ve a story to tell you.’
Afterwards, Archie said she was soft in the head, and she knew she had taken a risk. But there was something about Sheemy Wurmit she was ready to trust; and in any case, she was revealing no secrets. She told him about Sir Graham Reid Malett, Knight of Grace of the Order of St John who had returned to Malta after failing in his plans to control Scotland. And she told how he was taking his revenge on the man responsible for that failure by concealing a child; and how, by threatening the child’s life, he was also preserving his own.
Sheemy’s eyes became unglazed. ‘Here, I heard of that!’ he said. ‘The coast’s fairly agog over some Frenchman offering a ransom in gold for a wean. But he’s not a Frenchman?’
‘No,’ said Philippa patiently. ‘His name’s Francis Crawford of Lymond. The family come from Midculter.’
‘Oh, them,’ said the Paisley man slowly. ‘I kent the grandfather, the first o’ the barons. So this is the heir?’
‘No, it’s the third baron’s brother,’ said Philippa, who since her several visits to Scotland had become notably brisk at genealogy. ‘Richard, the present Lord Culter, has a little son of his own who’ll succeed him.’
‘Oh, I mind fine,’ said Sheemy. ‘He married late, did he not? And until he got the boy, this brother Francis you speak of was the heir? And wait you a bitty: wasn’t that younger brother outlawed? Now I see it. A wild one, and out for the title. If I were your baron Richard I’d watch out for my son. Men’ve been known to kill their nephews before now, and put their sons in their shoes. Nae wonder he wants his own laddie found.’
‘I don’t know what you’ve been reading,’ said Philippa. ‘But you’ll never go through life with your head stuffed full of nonsense like that. They may go on like that in Tripoli, but you can take it from me that Mr Crawford would never dream of harming his brother or nephew