Scales of Gold - Dorothy Dunnett [212]
‘No, I didn’t, but you weren’t in his father’s house at the time.’ He turned to see the Koy’s son reach again, viciously, for Zuhra. Her earrings jangled.
Nicholas said, ‘Oh, Christ God, she’ll probably drown.’ Nevertheless, with resignation, he caught the girl by the arm, whirled her close and, running, jumped with her into the pool. On the way down, she hit him three times.
He awoke coughing up water in quite a different place: a pleasant chamber containing cushions and chests, on one of which sat Gelis, still haphazardly laughing while trying to console Zuhra, who stood weeping. She was naked again, and a large, sweet-mannered eunuch was engaged in drying her off. Although dripping wet, Nicholas himself was still fully clothed. He sat, absently choking, and looked about him.
‘The harem,’ Gelis said. ‘The only place we could find to take you. How drunk were you? Are you?’
‘Are,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. It was a new sort of drink. What happened to the Koy’s Umar?’
‘Father came and took him away. Very concerned in case you had come to some harm. We said it was all a complete accident, and Zuhra’s earrings knocked you out as you fell. Why did you fall?’
‘So that someone would bring me into the harem,’ he said. He weighed up the situation, coughing again. ‘I had to speak to Zuhra.’
‘Well, you can speak to her,’ Gelis said. ‘In front of me.’
The eunuch had gone. The girl his friend was going to marry sat enveloped in homely cotton, her earrings discarded, her knotted hair tight as a newly bathed child’s, her swollen eyes fixed on Nicholas. She said, ‘He is mine now. It is not just. You have your woman. Take your woman to Ethiopia.’
Nicholas rose and, slopping across the warm marble, knelt before Zuhra. ‘She doesn’t want to go, Zuhra,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want her. I don’t want anyone except the priest I am going with. I have told Umar this. He has misled you.’
‘You call him a liar?’ she said. Her fists coiled.
‘What are you saying?’ Gelis asked. She was not laughing now. Instead, she sat down beside Zuhra and touched her shoulder while she spoke again to Nicholas. ‘Do I understand that you thought of asking Umar to guide you to Ethiopia?’
Nicholas looked at her, and back to the girl. He said, ‘He offered to do it. Of course, I refused.’
‘He offered!’ said the girl. ‘When he is about to take his first wife?’
‘From courtesy,’ Nicholas said. ‘Zuhra, he is that rare man who counts no cost if he thinks he can help a friend. The offer came from his heart, and took no account of his longing to stay, or his marriage. He will do as much and more for you in your years together. He made the offer, and I refused it. That is all. You need have no fear. He is not going to leave you.’
‘But if you had said yes?’ Zuhra said.
‘Then,’ Nicholas said, ‘I should not be his friend, as I am. Have no fear.’
She looked at him. Her lip trembled. She said, ‘He is a very fine man.’
‘I know that,’ Nicholas said.
‘He has land in a country that has its own salt mines,’ she said.
‘He is a very great man,’ Nicholas said. ‘Zuhra, you must keep your eunuch with you until you are married. The son of the Timbuktu-Koy may be jealous.’
‘That oaf!’ Zuhra said. She rose. The eunuch had returned, a fresh robe over his arm. Her earrings clanked from his finger. She said, ‘I have known that oaf since he had no more manhood to him than the end of my finger. If he does what I do not care for, I strike him. You felt my fist?’
‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was felled by either a spade or a slingshot, the tomb of all bravery. Nevertheless, I don’t intend to complain. I shall merely keep well clear of your Umar. Your fresh gown has arrived. Perhaps I should drip somewhere else?’
‘I know where to take him,’ Gelis said.
It was a small chamber, with several mattresses and no windows. There was no one else in it. Gelis disposed herself calmly on the floor, and Nicholas stood with his back to the door and looked down on her. She said, ‘She hardly hit you at all.’
‘No,’ he said.
‘So all that performance was simply to get rid of the Koy’s son.’
‘And you,’