The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [324]
There was a soft hiss, lost suddenly in the greater noise of deep water pouring; and above, a glare in the mist of his sight as a sail broke out, and lifted the ship suddenly into surging motion. The pinnace, made fast from above, continued to ride jarring against her straw fenders and Lymond, moving slowly, ranged her starboard side with one hand outstretched until he found what he wanted: a rope ladder hanging waiting, down the Primrose’s tall sides.
A gun sounded again, but half-heartedly. The noise of men’s voices from below and behind started to dwindle. Philippa had said nothing more or even, that he had heard, wished him God speed. Lymond paused, with one hand gripping the damp, knotted beard of the rope and choosing vaguely the direction in which he supposed her boat to be resting, smiled and lifted one hand.
He hoped, putting a certain insouciance into it, that she would be reassured that his sight had returned and wished, with some grimness, that he did not have to do what he was about to do entirely by sense of touch. But since there was no alternative, he grasped the rope firmly with one hand and then with two, and confided his blind weight to the crumpled, swaying, interminable ladder.
His sight cleared as he reached the top, in the way it did, suddenly, and he grasped the stanchions and managed without trouble the manoeuvre from ladder to deck, with many hands helping until he stood presently safe at the top, seeing dry and clean and swelling above him the wings of the new sails, pink with the high spreading radiance of sunrise.
On either side the smooth river, filled with the dawn, and rushing against the green English banks, with the scent of hawthorn reaching out over the water as the scent of the little cinnamon rose reached out over the waters in Muscovy, when one dropped anchor after the days of strain and hunger and deprivation; of fogs and white, sheathing ice and the growl of the whirlpool which, sometimes, one fed with oatmeal and butter. After the days of testing and trial and companionship, with Jenkinson, whom he might dislike or whom he might find tolerable; and Best, who was a good, harmless fellow; and Buckland, who knew his job and would be content, now and always, to tread the new road another had mapped for him.
He would have to soothe Nepeja’s mistrust and regain the confidence of the Russians serving him. He would have to be careful not to offend the new pilot of the fleet with remembered advice, or warnings from other times: for Jenkinson, this voyage was one of discovery, and he had others and more strange to make. And then at night, with borrowed paper and pen, he must try to recover, as clearly and meticulously as he might, all that he had learned of value to Muscovy: all that he had been shown; all that he had read; all he had been told. The contents, however meagre, of the books he had not been permitted to bring. The advice, however ill-understood, of all the men of skill he had consulted. And then, back in Moscow, for this lonely and passionate man, he would construct a nation.
Francis Crawford looked up at the sails, his face quiet, his eyes clear and bright, and saw for the first time, flying free from the masthead, the long, silken banner bearing the lilies of France.
*
She wept slowly for the deception, as the pursuing boats closed in behind her, and the men called, who were not the minions of the French Ambassador or of Madam Elizabeth, but the officers of King Philip, who had sought Francis Crawford in vain through all the dark streets of London, to bring him succour and help him to the wish of his heart: the hard journey across time and history