Pawn in Frankincense

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Míkál’s voice was gentle. ‘You will use the name of France to redeem your son and the maiden?’

  ‘To redeem these two children,’ said Lymond concisely, ‘I would use the names of Prester John and Antiochus Tibertus and even that of Güzel Kiaya Khátún.’

  ‘Who is she?’ said Míkál.

  ‘You must ask her, next time you meet her,’ said Lymond, and lifted his eyebrows as Míkál got to his feet. The candles flared. For a moment, both men facing each other were illuminated in brilliant light: Gaultier could see the flat, fluted back of Lymond’s fine doublet, and Míkál, his hair a soft nimbus about the high cheekbones, the long limbs brown and bare as a girl’s. Then, with the burst of light, came one small, tell-tale sound.

  A second before Míkál, Lymond looked up. Gaultier heard him shout, and saw him in the same moment thrust the young geomaler spinning and, flinging himself back on the rebound, cannon into and drive back with his shoulder the seaman lingering nearest him. As he did so, the yardarm of the mainmast, thirty-three solid metres of smouldering wood, crashed where he had been, followed by flakes of still-flaring hemp from the burning sheets which had severed it.

  Someone screamed. Then Lymond, Míkál and the splintered mess where the yardarms had fallen were all hidden by the rush of seamen and officers to the wreckage, followed by swift deployments to put out the fires flying like pennants from the standing rigging and braces and now endangering the masts. Someone, groaning, was carried past Gaultier and taken below—an oarsman, he thought. No one else appeared to be hurt.

  On any ship but Lymond’s, Gaultier thought, a thousand metres of sailcanvas would have fallen, burning, with that yardarm. But the Dauphiné was not permitted to ride at anchor with her mainsail still bent. The circumstance that, on a windless night, the candles of such a ship should become so oddly disarrayed was not, as he said later to Onophrion, a matter on which he had any views.

  Master Zitwitz, instead of being flattered by this ironical offering, had been insufferable. ‘Your pardon, M. Gaultier,’ he had said, his round eyes severe in his round, boneless face. ‘But only Mr Crawford’s presence of mind averted what might have been a very great tragedy. I do not regard it as a matter of levity.’

  On the subsequent voyage, which was quite as unpleasant as he expected, Maître Gaultier did not mention Onophrion’s insolence, although he took occasion to complain on the two instances, in a temperature near the nineties, when the meat was not perfectly fresh. Whose carelessness was responsible for the fire, it seemed, was never discovered, although Lymond’s inquiry was of the kind which turned the ship silent with its repercussions for twenty-four hours. Then they were in Thessalonika, and one of the ship’s trumpeters with two soldiers and Míkál as guide had gone ashore to hire horses and ask the Beglierbey of Greece on Mr Crawford’s behalf for the honour of an audience.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Georges Gaultier to Lymond as they sat at dinner that noon, ‘whether that delicious impromptu party on deck outside Volos was as innocent as it seemed. Could, for example, someone have been jealous of Míkál?’

  ‘No doubt the world is full of individuals of either sex jealous of Míkál,’ Lymond answered. Sitting there in the sunlight, in one of Onophrion’s exquisite doublets, peeling one of Onophrion’s peaches, he looked like any rich man at leisure; who would cultivate his sensibilities like a man with a garden of coffee trees. ‘But if you are referring to the descent of the yardarm, I doubt if Míkál was intended to suffer. There had already been two similar and ineffective accidents before Míkál set foot on the galley.’

  Gaultier sat up. ‘Have there? When?’

  ‘On the way to Zakynthos. A barrel of pitch, left on the gangway which rolled … where it might have caused considerable harm. And four days after that, when landing Salablanca, the caique nearly sank.’

  ‘You were in it?’

  ‘I was in it,’ agreed Lymond. ‘But you were not.’ For a little they stared at one another. Then Gaultier said, ‘Are you making an accusation?’

  ‘No,’ said Lymond. ‘Only an inquiry.’

  For a long moment, Georges Gaultier gazed at the other man; then he grinned. ‘I would draw your attention to two facts,’ he said. ‘Apart from myself, a remarkable number of other people, Mr Crawford, were not on that caique. And ask yourself: if I wished you harm, why should I have taken such pains to preserve you, as I did, when you were injured at Blois?’

  It was an incident long past: an incident which would remind the Special Envoy of the royal galley Dauphiné that he had not always been a Special Envoy, or the favoured of France. Lymond said, gently, ‘Because you were under orders. I merely ask myself under whose orders you may be functioning now.’

  Then Georges Gaultier stood up, the blood mantling the mottled skin, and said, ‘I obey no one’s orders. I please no one, Mr Crawford, but myself. I had no hand in any of these so-called accidents. But were another to happen tomorrow I, dear sir, would do nothing to stop it.’

  Very soon after that, the trumpeter and his party returned to the ship from the Beglierbey’s house, bearing apology and invitation at once. His Excellency the Viceroy was at present travelling to Constantinople to accompany the Grand Seigneur on his forthcoming journey. But in his absence, the Controller of his household begged Monseigneur the Ambassador of France to take supper that evening in the Viceregal house, and to repose himself that night in one of the Viceregal beds.

  Lymond read it through in silence, and then said to the trumpeter, ‘Who gave you this?’

  The trumpeter was afraid of Lymond. He flushed and said, ‘An Imam, M. le Comte. One of their holy men with the big turbans. Or a Bektashi, it might have been.’

  Lymond said, ‘This is addressed to His Most Christian Majesty’s Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, which I am not. It also mentions a journey on which the Beglierbey is accompanying the Sultan. Did you gather what this journey was?’

  The trumpeter shook his head. ‘Only that the Sultan was about to leave Constantinople, and the Beglierbey and his army were joining him.

  ‘And his army?’ said Lymond. ‘Míkál, have you heard anything of this? No? Onophrion, you will make inquiries, if you please, when you do your marketing. Then it behoves us to depart in style for supper at the Beglierbey’s residence. Whether we stay the night is another matter.’

  ‘Forgive me.’ It was Onophrion. ‘But M. Viénot tells me that unless M. le Comte permits him to remain here overnight, it will be difficult to continue to sail with such speed. There are some repairs which he has been deferring since Zakynthos. And the chiourme are …’

  ‘The chiourme are men, not a paddling of ducks, who had an excellent rest outside Volos,’ said Lymond. ‘I shall see the Master about the other matter. In the meantime, I advise you to get your water and stores on board as quickly as possible, then be ready to come with me to the Beglierbey’s. Salablanca has a list of whom else I require.… Míkál, will you be kind enough to guide us once more?’

  The Pilgrim of Love smiled; his slow Tartar, mischievous smile. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Áshiq Pasha … you are hard on your children. The Qur’ân says, “Nay, obey him not, but adore and draw nigh”.’

  ‘Fortunately, perhaps, the Qur’ân is not the ultimate authority on board the Dauphiné? said Lymond. ‘Does that disturb you, Míkál? How do you reconcile your present service and your religious scruples, or don’t you have any? Est-il permis à un musulman de favoriser les Francs? Est-il licite, en outre, qu’ils fassent entendre en ce lieu leurs chants impies, et que le son de la cloche couvre la voix des musulmans?’

  Míkál was smiling still. ‘It is an old quotation,’ he said. ‘When I hear thy voice raised among the impious chants and the heretic call of the bell, I shall tell thee my answer.’

  Thoughtfully, Lymond studied the smiling face, and in his own face was a trace of answering amusement. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that some time I must introduce you to a gentleman called Jerott Blyth.’

  This
time no one had been hunting in the Beglierbey of Greece’s Thessaly lodge. Instead, a guard of honour in scarlet and gold filled the courtyard, through which Lymond and his followers rode between the file of their escorting Janissaries. A black eunuch, in emeralds and silk, welcomed them on the threshold, bowing and smiling, and led Lymond to the selamlik, while Salablanca and Onophrion followed to stand discreetly just inside the door. Characteristically, Míkál had vanished.

  Within the selamlik, on the low, cushion-filled dais which occupied the window half of the room, a grey-bearded Bektashi Baba rose and came forward smiling, the prayer-beads brushing his long calico robes, and said, ‘Your Excellency. I am honoured. There is a saying, Whoso is absent suffereth loss. My Lord Viceroy assuredly endureth loss this night.’

  Already, his hand on Salablanca’s shoulder, Lymond had stepped out of his shoes and, cap in hand, was walking up to the dais. From the door Onophrion, approving the hang of the one-shouldered cloak and the line of the dark silken hose, which it met at mid-thigh, saw the dervish’s eyes flutter. To Eastern eyes, used to the modesty of an ankle-length robe, the costume was strange. Then Lymond swung off his cloak at a gesture of the Bektashi Baba’s, and giving it with his cap and gloves to the smiling eunuch behind him, said politely, ‘The honour is mine. I fear however you have been misled. I come merely as a Special Envoy to the great prince Sultan Suleiman. M. de Luetz, Baron d’Aramon, holds with unequalled distinction the post of French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte.’

  ‘Thou wilt be seated? Verily,’ said the Bektashi dervish with placid regret, ‘I am shamed that thou speakest my language when thine should have fled from my tongue, as a garment becomes dissundered and worn out by being long folded. Thou wilt eat? My servants put our poor fare before thee. I bear news then, which I trust will rejoice thee. The Baron d’Aramon, may he be blessed, being faint in his condition of health, is about to leave his office for France, and since winter is nearly upon us, none may now be sent before next spring to succeed him. Therefore, when you reach Stamboul, you will find there letters from France now awaiting you, accrediting you as full Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. My felicitations.’

  ‘Thank you. It is an unsought but magnificent honour,’ said Lymond dryly. They had brought low tables, and a burden of great steaming bowls in copper, silver and bronze: Onophrion, his nose twitching, craned to identify them. His gaze on the bowl; his fingers picking here and there among the heaped rice and meat: ‘Truly, as ducks are drawn by the decoyman into his pipes, the wind bringest thee news,’ Lymond added.

  The Baba smiled. ‘You have heard perhaps of M. Chesnau, who accompanied M. d’Aramon on the Sultan’s Asiatic campaign five years since? He has just passed through here, returning to Stamboul with a secretary of M. d’Aramon’s in order to deputize at the Embassy until you should arrive. From him I have these tidings.’

  ‘Surely then it is a misfortune,’ said Lymond, ‘that I shall not bow before the lion face of the King of Kings, the Sultan Suleiman. I hear he marches.’

  ‘It is true,’ said the Baba. He drew from his sash a piece of ivory silk whose border, six inches wide, was filled with the interlaced titles of Allah, and wiped his grey beard. ‘After next summer, the Grand Sophy will try our patience no longer. The Sultan marches from Stamboul by the end of the autumn to rest in his pavilions at Aleppo until the spring, when like the lion you call him, he will spring on the jackal of Persia and tear out its throat.… It is possible,’ said the Baba blandly, ‘that you might reach Stamboul before the Sultan leaves. Should this felicity be withheld from you, surely Achmet Pasha would welcome the emissary of France as he would greet the august friend of his household, and would listen, assuredly, to any representation he might make.’

  Achmet Pasha. A man of little account. The second Vizier. Onophrion Zitwitz’s eyes fleetingly met Salablanca’s, and then dropped. The Sultan, then, was leaving his capital, and the Grand Vizier Rustem Pasha was also in the field. Lymond did not even raise his head, although his smile deepened. ‘Indeed, I see thou art a man of discretion. There is indeed a matter on which I had hoped to speak to the Beglierbey tonight. Thou knowest perhaps of the Western child born into Dragut Rais’s harem which we are endeavouring to recover, and which was mistakenly included among the Children of Devshirmé? Also of the young English girl who has attached herself to the child in an apparent attempt to protect it?’

  Lymond looked up. His voice was unhurried; his brown face under the sun-bleached neat hair entirely calm. ‘It is a matter of concern to us that both the child and the girl should be returned to France unharmed, and the French King would not be niggardly in his rewards. Does it seem likely to the Baba that before they reach Constantinople, these two might be overtaken and stopped?’

  They are in Stamboul,’ said the Baba. The Smyrna grapes in their celadon platter had been taken away, and he clapped his hands for the ceremonial cups of khusháf and sherbet, while scented water and towels were brought. The older one, Donati Khátún, believed there to be some risk to the boy-child in camp, so the child and the English girl were given places on a ship leaving directly for the Sublime Porte. I trust,’ said the Bektashi Baba mildly, ‘that I speak of the two which are in thy mind also? The elder one, who has since joined the blessed of thy faith, believed the child to be a son of shame, born to one of the Knights Grand Cross of Malta.’

  The rosewater ran from its silver spout over Lymond’s two uplifted hands and drained between the fine fingers. He said, watching his hands being dried, ‘There is some confusion over the child’s birth which is of little importance. The child has French protection.’

  ‘Whatever its birth, I believe it is happy in its heritage,’ said the Bektashi Baba indulgently. ‘The Knights, I hear, have chosen a new Grand Master.’

  Imperceptibly Lymond’s voice sharpened. ‘Juan de Homedes is dead?’

  ‘He is dead, and a French Knight, they say, has been elected.’

  ‘A Frenchman? Or belonging to a French Langue?’

  ‘A Frenchman, I believe,’ said the Baba, ruminating. ‘Claude de la Sengle was the name.’ He paused. ‘Thou knowest this man? He is of little esteem?’

  Relaxed once more on his cushions, Lymond’s voice was no more than thoughtful. ‘He is worthy: he will trouble neither thee nor the Order unduly, which could be said of few others.… It seems then that if I desire to present myself to the Sultan, I should sail to Stamboul with the greatest possible speed?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said the Baba peaceably; and laying down his cap, again clapped his hands. ‘Thy ship sails tomorrow. Tonight there is music and dancing for thy delight. Dismiss thy servants. Rashid will be thy other self.’ And the eunuch, kneeling by Lymond and offering, smiling, a bowl of something which was neither khusháf or sherbet, was the last thing Onophrion and Salablanca saw before they were politely dismissed.

  On the surface, nothing was wrong. On the surface, two clever and subtle intelligences had dealt, fencing, with a number of forbidden subjects and had made themselves, on the whole, remarkably well understood. But Onophrion was uneasy. Fed, though not to his satisfaction, he roamed the kitchens, peering into the ovens and prodding the carcasses. He opened a box of sugar, newly in from Alexandria, and pouring a little into his plump, shining pink palm, tasted it and expressed satisfaction. The ship it had come from was in the berth next to the Dauphiné, and the ship’s clerk, waiting for his bills to be signed, was anxious to keep him in talk.

  By the time he got away the music in the selamlik had stopped, though there was much ringing of small bells and occasional laughter. The senior office-holders of the Begherbey’s government, one would gather, had joined the Ambassador and his mentor in their evening of pleasure. Onophrion found Salablanca sitting alone in silence, as close as he could get to the door of the selamlik, and said, ‘I am unhappy. I have spoken to some who have just brought in some goods from the harbour. There are men lingering outside the garden.’

  Salablanca did not get up, but hi
s black eyes did not move from Onophrion’s face. ‘They wait to rob?’

  ‘Had they been ordinary thieves, they would have stolen the spices. They wait, I believe, to ambush and kill.’

  ‘Then?’ said Salablanca. ‘He sleeps here tonight. They cannot ambush Janissaries in daylight tomorrow.’

  ‘They might break in tonight,’ said Onophrion. ‘Who knows, in this heathen land; they may be in league with the household. In my view, he ought to be guarded. After all, we brought quite a few of our own men with us.’

  ‘Overtly, it cannot be done,’ said Salablanca.

  ‘Discreetly, it can,’ said Onophrion. ‘If one of us remains in his room and can call out at the first sign of trouble.’

  ‘This I shall do,’ said Salablanca softly.

  An expression of lofty distaste crossed M. Zitwitz’s fleshy pink face, and was gone. ‘I’m sure you will. Customs being what they are, I don’t suppose he’ll be expected to warm his own bed either. Mumsconduren, they call these dervishes. Practitioners of incest. A gentleman all the world over is entitled to his amusements, but I consider it puts an unwarranted strain on good manners to press him with these kinds of attentions.’

  Salablanca’s dark face and soft voice both kept their gravity. ‘Do not fear. Monseigneur’s integrity is, I am certain, inviolate.’

  For a moment M. Zitwitz, who never gossiped with his inferiors, looked at him. Then holding his counsel, he turned and plodded away.

  In the event, the sheets were warm when finally Lymond was allowed to retire to his room in the small hours of the morning. He closed the door gently behind him. Then, pulling his way down the jewelled ties of his doublet, he walked lazily up to the bed and stood looking down on the beautiful body which lay there, brown and lithe as a cat.