Pawn in Frankincense

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Thinking wildly, Philippa Somerville stared at him, his face no more than a high-lighting of the dark. She was free. She could go to Zakynthos with Archie. But——

  But if the child was alive, she would have to trace it before anything happened to Gabriel. Or by the terms of the pact, on Gabriel’s death, the child also would die.

  Restlessly, Lymond had moved back to the rail. Her first instinct had been right, Philippa thought. Tired probably beyond sleep, he had no prospect of being alone except here, for the short space during which the master was at supper with the rest. She opened her mouth to talk about Zakynthos, and instead turned on her heel, thumped down several ladders, extracted a powder from Archie and a cup of wine from Onophrion, and proceeded to try to turn Jerott out of his cabin.

  Jerott, three-quarters asleep, stared at Philippa, glanced at the empty bunk bed beside him and said, ‘Well, for God’s sake, that’s his affair. If he wants to come below, I shan’t disturb him; I’ve had enough of him today. Leave him alone.’

  Marthe, who had come to watch, stood amused in the doorway and said, ‘She wants to nurse him. It’s an interesting experiment. But he has lost his temper so often today, perhaps he has no more to lose.’

  His eyes shut, Jerott added his last word. ‘Look, Philippa: don’t. You can’t expect him to behave as he should. You’ll regret it, and so will he, afterwards.’

  At fifteen, Philippa was immune to that kind of adult abjuration. Stalking out of the cabin, potion in one hand and skirts in the other, she climbed all the ladders up to the poop and marched across to her victim.

  He was still there at the rail. She saw the dark sheen of his doublet; and his folded arms, on which his bent head was resting. She said, ‘Mr Crawford?’ stoutly, and this time there was a pause before he lifted his head, turned and saw her.

  He had perhaps been asleep. Certainly, his face was bemused; and at first he didn’t seem quite to recognize her. Then he said, ‘Oh Christ. The bloody wet-nurse again’ and, with a vicious blow of the hand that jarred her arm to the shoulder, jerked the heavy cup from her grasp and sent it flying into the sea.

  ‘They said you’d do that,’ said Philippa.

  He had been going, she thought, to lay hands on her; but at the sound of her voice his arm dropped, and he brushed past instead, without speaking, and left the small deck. She watched him swing along the high gangway going nowhere: to the crowded castle; to the crowded planks at the side, when he suddenly stopped, his hand on the mainmast. A second later, his voice rang out; then the comités whistle shrilled, urgently, again and again and again.

  The ship leaped into life. Rattling steps plunged up from the cabins; the master jumped to the tabernacle and somewhere there was the rumble she had come to recognize: the rumble of guns being run out. The ship went suddenly dark, and Archie Abernethy, who had appeared out of nowhere beside her, said, ‘He says you’re to get down and stay down, until you’re teilt to come up.’

  Philippa didn’t stay to be told twice. She ran, and as she ran, passing Jerott kneeling by the gunroom hatch-cover, she looked quickly over her shoulder.

  There, where in the cloud-torn sky the faintest new radiance told of the uprising moon, loomed the dark shape of a ship. A ship painted black. The corsair capital ship Lymond had fooled on the way to Algiers.

  Jerott had had two hours’ sleep when it happened, and he felt like a man half-clubbed to death. He knew, as he effected, at top speed, his share of their practised defence, that if the pirate ship chose to close in, firing, the Dauphiné would sink where she lay. Sails up, oars manned, guns primed and aimed, the corsair had all the searoom and the initiative. She could sink or board as she chose. Jerott wondered, heaving up arquebuses, what Lymond would do to the look-out. But it was hardly the fault of the seaman. Lightless on a black, starless night, the enemy ship might have come nearer yet, unseen but for that late-rising moon.

  Still no guns. They were barely in cannon range. Give us another two minutes, thought Jerott, and we’ll have our firing-power ready, at least. That was the anchor coming up. The oars were dipping, waiting for orders. Pouring like animals over the gangway, the seamen were taking up positions. Jerott, sprinting round checking crutches, glanced up again, measuring the speed of the adversary.

  She hadn’t moved. Standing off, just out of firing-range, she had turned to lie head to wind, and, as he watched, the mainsail slid down. Finding Lymond unexpectedly beside him, Jerott said with disbelief, ‘She hasn’t seen us?’

  ‘The hell she hasn’t,’ said Lymond shortly; and added, ‘Be quiet!’ as Jerott opened his mouth to say something. In the darkness Jerott could just make out that he had a spyglass trained on the unmoving ship. Still looking through it, he raised his voice. ‘Notre homme!’ and used three well-chosen words when the comite came.

  Silence invested the Dauphiné from tabernacle to prow.

  Jerott looked at the Master over Lymond’s head, and then back to the pirate. Something was happening. Across the water they could hear voices, thin in the calm of the night, and the echo of another, familiar sound, which was just in the process of stopping. Lymond lowered the spyglass and straightened. ‘Well, what’s your theory? They’ve anchored,’ he said.

  ‘It is the same ship that attacked us?’ Jerott got the glass, verified in silence that it was, and added, ‘They’re doing something aft. That’s odd. They’ve got three-quarters of their complement on the tribord rail. Look at the tilt of her. Unless … Christ, is she foundering?’ said Jerott, who still very badly needed his sleep.

  ‘Don’t be a bloody fool,’ said Lymond. ‘She’s launching her caique, the same as we did a few moments ago.’ And, sure enough, a moment later they saw the boat leave the corsair ship’s deck, a long black shuttle sliding down the silver loom of the oars and surging broadside into the moon-dazzled waters in a bouquet of spray. Dark figures swarmed down the galley’s flank as it settled, and the last aboard the caique turned and shouted.

  As the skiff swerved and, in a flashing fishbone of oars, began to drive away from the parent ship, every lamp on the big corsair galley suddenly and miraculously glinted alive. Outlined from poop to rambade, she lay to her anchor at the mouth of the bay, oars shipped, guns silent, crew and officers thronging her rails. And high on the rigging, unrolling in the tremulous wind and burning scarlet and ivory like some heavenly conflagration in the newly lit lamp at the masthead, flew the eight-pointed white cross of Malta, the flag of the Knights of St John.

  No one spoke. Beside him, with sharpened perception, Jerott could feel every nerve in Lymond’s strained senses tightening. Jerott said, ‘It can’t be. Francis: Gabriel would never come to meet you like this.’

  ‘Who, then?’ said Lymond. And immediately, ‘All right. Don’t let’s dwell on it. Master, we want the women embarked in the caique together with the escort and foodstuffs. Then let the canot down on the port side with an armed welcoming-party. Our guests can transfer into that a safe distance away, and leave their weapons behind. I don’t want Greek fire at close range while the capital ship meets one or two friends, and picks us over at leisure.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Jerott. ‘Provided I go in the canot.’

  It was one of the few arguments he won; and not only, Jerott thought, because he, as a former Knight Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem, could best verify the claims of another. Lymond had not been prepared for this. A physical contingency he could easily handle: Jerott thought he had almost welcomed the chance for action just now. But for the other kind of crisis he needed time. He had not yet come to terms with what had happened yesterday. Philippa’s method had not been the right one. But something was becoming necessary, thought Jerott, to mark the end, once and for all, of that interminable day.

  Jerott glanced back, once, at the shadowy spars of the Dauphiné, lying still without lights, and gave all his attention henceforth to the long caique swiftly approaching, fully manned and brilliantly lit, with its scarlet pennant fluttering b
ehind. He could see no weapons, nor did the rowers wear armour. The stern lantern shone on the only passenger; a man of middle height; unarmed and richly cloaked, with a dark, bearded face and a jewelled cap on his black hair.

  Jerott lowered the spyglass. It was not Gabriel. It was a friend, but a dangerous friend. An exiled Florentine from a brilliant household; a soldier; a seaman; a fanatic; the man who had commanded the French Mediterranean fleet until a year ago when he had to fly for his life, so he claimed, from his rivals at court. This was Leone Strozzi, Prior of Capua, on whom the Grand Master had threatened to fire if he came back to Malta, and who had since been roving the seas, every refuge in Christendom denied him; and preying on infidel and Christian alike.

  The boats drew near. Standing up, the exiled Prior in his turn was studying the oncoming canot. The next moment, his voice rang out, in insouciant and horrible English. ‘Meestair Blyte! ‘Ow are you? We give you a fright?’

  ‘Not as bad, I hope, as the one we gave you, the last time we met,’ said Jerott. ‘Jump in, and I’ll take you to Francis Crawford. Do you know him? We’ve an embassy to the Sublime Porte.’

  The boats met. Without hesitation the Prior stepped from his own into Jerott’s, sat down, and switched, with some slight improvement, to French. ‘I know him: my brother, better,’ he said. ‘A year or two ago, I am told, he devastated the flower of France. A drunken amateur, who makes music and love comme un ange?’

  In spite of himself, Jerott grinned. ‘No: you’ve got the wrong man,’ he said. ‘This is a dedicated Scot with a company of foot and light horse. No drinking, no love and no music. There he is.’

  The ladder was down, and Lymond stood at the top, watching them. From the moment the two boats had met, all the Dauphiné’s lamps had been lit: they showed Lymond’s face quite clearly, as his gaze, faintly derisory, met Jerott’s.

  ‘But that is the one!’ said Leone Strozzi, Prior of Capua, transferring nimbly from skiff up to galley. ‘You hide him from me? It is jealousy, yes? Now I see, my dear Blyte,’ said the Prior ebulliently, ‘why you have abandoned the Order.’ And laughing under his breath, he embraced Lymond on both cheeks, and followed him down below.

  A city, an island, a nation had proved too small to contain Leone Strozzi: in the Master’s cabin on the Dauphiné the walnut panels shivered with his broken Italian-French, his laughter, and the impact of his brutal high spirits.

  He had come, it appeared, to apologize. All the world knew now, of course, that the Dauphiné was carrying the emissary of France, M. Crawford, whom he had had the happiness to meet once before, at Châteaubriant. But of these things he, Leone Strozzi, had been ignorant: he, the friend of God alone, whom the Constable of France had wished to assassinate; whose family the Emperor Charles wished to see humbled to dust; whom the Order in Malta had pusillanimously turned from its doors. Driven, in his exile, to seek a paltry living in these seas, he would still have removed his tongue at the roots rather than interfere with an emissary of His Grace the Most Christian King of France, or a friend—he trusted he might call M. Crawford a friend?—of the family Strozzi.

  ‘I really must see that our flags are better lit,’ said Lymond, smiling. He had not asked either the master or M. Gaultier to be present, and Onophrion had taken it on himself to serve the three men, half filling their glasses with malmsey, to allow for the shallow swing of the boat, and refilling attentively. Jerott, with admiration, watched M. Strozzi drain his second considerable offering before Lymond added, still smiling, ‘But how surprising that, knowing your inestimable value, the Emperor should not have tried to entice you under his banner, despite your past unpleasant estrangements …’

  The dark, round-eyed face, with its sleek beard and its two Cellini gold earrings, shone with innocent joy. ‘But you are perspicacious! The Commander de Martines brought me such an offer: a safe-conduct from the Emperor; permission to land in all Sicilian ports; an income of twelve thousand crowns every year with command of twelve galleys, and the position of Admiral when Andrea Doria shall die.’

  ‘You refused?’ said Lymond.

  ‘Hah!’ The gold earrings swung. ‘This summer, I take prizes of one hundred thousand crowns at sea for myself.’ He paused. ‘In any case, how could I accept? I who had sworn never to attack my beloved France, however she may have treated me; and whose first duty lies with my Order? … I took my Order’s advice. In fact, I presented my Order with a gift, an ornament for the altar of St Mary at Philermo, Mr Blyte. I had it made in Messina, and I could ill afford it.’ (Jerott saw Lymond’s eyebrows lift high and stared solemnly at his wine.) ‘It bore,’ said Leone Strozzi with reverence, ‘the words of St John. You recall? He came unto his own, and his own received him not.’

  ‘Ut ameris Amabilis esto.… And this had an instant effect?’

  ‘The Grand Master refused to see me,’ said Strozzi. ‘At the time. But today—today I have received a message. I have powerful friends on Malta. I am told that if I land without warning none will prevent me, and my friends will see that I have the honour due to me. I shall return in triumph. I shall bring the Order power and riches; I shall restore it to its former position in the sight of men, and I shall so arm its defences that no Turk will dare sail within sight of Gozo or Malta.…’

  ‘Grand Master de Homedes is an old man,’ said Lymond. ‘The Order owes itself a vigorous hand at the helm.’

  He spoke calmly, as always, and Leone Strozzi’s darkly animated face showed no dramatic change of expression. But Jerott Blyth, listening, suddenly caught the drift of this conversation and, after staring blankly for a moment at Lymond, abruptly drank off all his wine.

  Soft-footed, Onophrion refilled his glass and the Prior’s, and paused beside Lymond. Francis Crawford put the flat of his hand over his untouched glass and added, ‘There cannot be a great deal of competition?’

  The Prior put both his strong, short-fingered hands round his goblet and said, ‘Jean de la Valette. Romegas perhaps. De la Sengle; but he is abroad. No. These are gallant Knights all, but the Grand Mastership does not mean a great deal to them. To be head of the Order is a terrible and a lonely position to which not many aspire. It troubles me that sometimes a man may aspire, and prevail, for unworthy reasons.’

  ‘Surely not,’ said Jerott, and took a long drink.

  There was a little silence. ‘I hear,’ said Leone Strozzi, Prior of Capua, at length, ‘that you have certain papers …’

  Lymond’s blue gaze did not leave him. ‘I carry some papers concerning the Order, that is true. I am unhappily discredited myself on Malta at present, and have no means of delivering them to the right quarter.’

  ‘Let us be plain,’ said Leone Strozzi. ‘These papers concern Graham Reid Malett?’

  ‘By all means, let us be plain,’ said Lymond. ‘They contain a fully attested indictment against Graham Reid Malett’s conduct in Malta and Scotland, supported by M. de Villegagnon and the French Ambassador to the Queen’s Grace in Scotland, among others. Under the present régime in the Order, as you know, any accusation against Gabriel is quite useless.’

  ‘But if the present régime were to end? M. Crawford, would you entrust me with these papers?’ said Leone Strozzi.

  Palpably, the crux of this whole encounter had been reached. Lymond’s fingers, which had been caressing his glass, became still, and Jerott, watching the swirling wine, under his breath said, ‘Drink it, Francis!’ with muted exasperation. Lymond said, ‘I don’t entirely see what purpose it would serve. The present Grand Master would ignore or destroy them and your own life would be at considerable risk, I imagine, from Sir Graham.’

  The laughing black eyes were cold. Strozzi shrugged. ‘The old man is dying. Until he goes, who is to know I have these papers? Then, when the new Grand Master is to be chosen …’

  ‘Don’t deceive yourself.’ With slow deliberation, Lymond pushed his heavy glass away with one finger, and looked up. ‘Graham Malett will know in a very short time indeed that this meeting has
taken place, and that you are in possession of facts which could harm him. He didn’t waste the years he spent on Malta; nor has he wasted his time since he came back this year. There are disciples or paid agents of Graham Malett in a surprising number of places—even aboard my ship, or yours, I expect. I take it that he is a serious contender for the Grand Mastership?’

  His lips pursed, Leone Strozzi held out his glass to be refilled, groaned, and said, ‘On that island, he is God. They tell me that he spares himself nothing: he works like a madman; he scourges himself with vigils and fastings. Is it right that this hypocrite, this self-seeking tyrant, should so gull a Christian people unopposed?’

  ‘Whom would you put in his place?’ said Lymond. In spite of himself, Jerott glanced at him.

  Leone Strozzi gave another, extravagant shrug. ‘I care not,’ he said. ‘Any believing man of good faith, however humble, could not but honour Juan de Homedes’s shoes. With the help of God I shall expose Graham Malett for what he is. The rest my brother Knights must decide.’

  He stopped speaking, and Lymond, studying his hands on the table, did not immediately reply. Jerott, weary and supperless and a little light-headed with wine, wondered if the two long days and nights without sleep had confused Lymond’s intelligence. Jerott said, ‘Give him the papers. The Order can’t harm the Prior of Capua, Francis. And if he does nothing with them until the Grand Master is dead, it gives you time to do all you have to do … elsewhere.’ Time to find the child, alive or dead, he meant to convey.

  But Lymond, ignoring him, spoke to Strozzi. ‘In your modesty, sir, you refrain from mentioning your own very strong candidature. As a rival for the Grand Mastership, might not your own interest offset the weight which people might attach to any papers purporting to discredit Gabriel?’