For the space of a breath Lymond’s fingers unloosing the buckle stopped in their work; and then went on smoothly and steadily to finish it. He said, ‘The worst of fires may be drowned in the sea.’ His horse was still.
‘But we have no fires here, have we?’ said Gabriel. ‘No sparks? No recrimination? No temper? When I think of the floggings some poor, half-demented fools at St Mary’s used to receive, I feel I must reprove this docility. Your mistress flayed? Your son scarred and degraded? Your person made a laughing-stock over the whole Middle Sea? And platitudes are all you can give me.’
‘They cost me least trouble,’ said Lymond. ‘What words could insult you?’
For a moment the smile lost its perfume. Then Gabriel said, ‘What do you propose then? A bedevilment by needles? What must I do to provoke you? You do not, by the way, use my title. I am not yet degraded by the poor Order, you know. In fact, I may say, you may no more unknight me than I may unlady your mother. Tell me,’ said Gabriel, ‘about the beautiful Marthe?’
‘Who can tell about the beautiful Marthe?’ said Lymond levelly. ‘Since she is not signed in the genitive?’
And Gabriel throwing back his head laughed, and laughing gave a mock groan, and said, smiling, ‘My God: my God: why alone are you not my slave? Why do you not adore me, who care for nothing and are distressed by nothing in this world, except what touches your vanity? You wish to wrest your son from my power.…
Have you even discovered that there is not one child, but two? Do you care which is yours? Does it matter to you if one is taken from me and one is left to suffer and rot?’
His hands still, his work abandoned, Francis Crawford stared at the other in silence. Then: ‘Who is the other child?’ said Lymond at last.
In the growing light, Graham Malett’s glorious face was filled with indulgence and joy; he was in power and at peace, with the world on a string at his girdle. ‘Does it matter?’ he said. ‘Never on this earth will you distinguish them, nor is there any person now living who knows one child from the other. To be sure of finding your boy you must now find and take possession of both; to be sure of nurturing your boy, you must nurture and cherish not one but both. Of the two children you have found—you are right—one is your son. The other,’ said Graham Malett joyously, in his rich singing voice, ’the other is mine and Joleta’s.’
However strong the self-discipline, for every man there is a point beyond which the impulse to kill will not be denied. Gabriel knew Francis Crawford. He attacked, when Gabriel was expecting him to attack, but not quite as he expected it. The freed saddle, pulled from the mare’s back, hurtled through the air and struck Gabriel’s raised sword from his hand as Lymond, light and most punishingly practised, launched himself from his own horse on to Gabriel’s shoulders and bore him, dragging and with a final walloping splash into the dark, running sea. On shore, fire flashed and an arquebus spoke, and then another, but it was too tardy, too far away, and too dangerous, in the indistinguishable dark.
It was deep. He had made sure it was deep, for Turks do not swim; and Moors do not care to risk their lives for a renegade knight. Gabriel could swim. Gabriel had the advantage of weight and height; of friends who would rescue him wounded; of constant, practised training in battle over all these last months which Francis Crawford was aware that he lacked. So the killing had to be done now, in this first moment; as they both fell choking into the waves. There was no time to unsheathe his sword. But Lymond’s right hand, with the long dagger ready, drove with all his force straight at Gabriel’s heart.
It hit not flesh but metal. It slid from some object laid like a carapace over Gabriel’s heart and, dragging bloody across the skin of his chest, lost its force harmlessly in the sea till Lymond pulled his hand back and, flinging himself off, trod water in a sudden deep channel, and then, finding his footing, braced himself against Gabriel’s counter-attack. As it carried him under the water, he knew suddenly what it was he had hit. It was the crucifix; the great silver crucifix of the Knights of St John, which Gabriel wore still, undiscarded in haste, below the folds of his burnous. And through all that followed, Lymond carried the irony of it, wry as aloes, at the back of his mind.
Insensibly, the sky was lightening. To the successful defenders of Zuara left on the shore; to the Turks rounding up captives, to the Moors picking over their booty; to the men appointed with their arrows and arquebuses, straining their eyes over the dark water, the attack was at first merely a dimly lucent explosion of spray, followed by the slow, surging shapes of two horses, half swimming for shore. Then as the sky paled from second to second from indigo to jade it was possible to make out the two heads, darkened with water; and on the beach the Aga Morat suddenly ejaculated, ‘Allah! Allah preserve him!’ while from the sea, Jerott Blyth, having seen the standard on board and the last of the shallops filling, swam towards the fight that he knew he would never reach until it had ended, one way or the other.
Gabriel, of the magnificent shoulders and the thick, corded arms, was content merely to find his grip, and to hold his man down. Slender, twisting, Lymond eluded him … not always, but so far for long enough to rise retching to the surface for a starving portion of air before he could coil down, knife in hand, and avoid the drowning weight on his hips and his shoulders, the strangling arm under his chin, the knife Gabriel held prepared in his bear hug, to slit into belly or chest. I am going to hurt you, but I am not going to kill you just yet. So Gabriel had said, when his own life was not yet in question. It did not apply now; not any longer, since he discovered, as he would not admit he had discovered, how close a match he had found in one other man.
In his anger, his physical power seemed to increase. Once, knife in teeth, he caught Lymond on an upsurge and, gripping his body, flung him as a cormorant disgorges a fish, helter-skelter, crashing into the water, exposed to the lunge Gabriel then made, knife in hand. The blade scored the length of Lymond’s body as he rolled, choking, to avoid it; but the plates of the brigantine saved him and he dived, dragging down Gabriel in his turn; refusing to be kicked off; holding until his lungs as well as Gabriel’s were bursting and then rising with a backward kick between the other man’s legs and behind him, ready to swallow his air, and seize the leonine head as it rose, and plunge it down, drowning again, the knife in his hand edging his throat.
That time, Gabriel let his knife drop. As it swayed glinting down into the depths he instead put up his hands and, seizing Lymond’s two wrists held the knife from his throat and in a wrestler’s grip, increasing the pressure, began to force the other man, in a kind of iron slow motion, over his head, turning Lymond’s wrist as he did so that he must drop the knife, or allow it to break. And that time, they did not surface.
To Jerott, striking out blind to everything else, it seemed impossible, as from moment to moment the water swirled without breaking, that either man could stay below and alive for so long. To the horsemen gathered on the beach and wading reluctantly into the water, it seemed that both men were lost and it was consequently safe to venture outwards and plunder the bodies. It was to the credit of Jerott’s heart, if not of his good sense, that in spite of the oncoming horsemen he swam on, doggedly, through the opaline sea until, with the outer thread of the whirlpool of movement touching his fingers, he saw something rise in the centre, and lie in its ringed silver chalice, passive as seaweed, with the dark blood swaying like fronds at its sides. It was Gabriel: his eyes closed, his face suffused, with the arteries of both wrists deeply and raggedly slit, and his life’s blood pouring out. Of Lymond, there was no sign at all.
Jerott took a deep breath; and dived.
Francis Crawford was there, not far below, his eyes closed; his hair moving pale in the water. Perhaps he had been trying to surface: perhaps, holding the bleeding man down, minute after minute, he had left it too late. He made no resistance as Jerott gripped him and pulled him above, nor was there any time for elaborate revivication with the Aga Morat’s horsemen trampling the waters. Jerott thu
mped him once on the back; saw, grimly, no change on the closed and motionless face and, consigning the outcome to fortune, seized Lymond in a less than classic one-handed grasp and kicked out with him backwards, away from the mêlée, to where he knew the last skiff was waiting.
It was a forlorn hope, exposed as they were. Taking his heaving breaths, he saw, indeed, the muskets lift and the arrows aiming, and braced himself somehow to turn over and dive. Then the Aga Morat’s voice, just out of hearing, snapped an order, and repeated it peevishly; and reluctantly, the weapons dropped and the riders, Gabriel’s body supported among them, turned splashing away.
The wages of sin. The wages of sin, thought Jerott, is life. An irony. In his grasp Lymond stirred, and choked, and Jerott, changing his grip, trod water and supported him until, suffocatingly, his lungs were empty of water and his eyes opened after the pain of the first rasping breaths. Empty of thought, the blue eyes for an interval looked into his; and then Jerott saw them change. Jerott said, ‘He is dead.’
The sky was damask and rose: every nuance of rose from pale madder to the raw golden vermilion of the rising sun’s edge. Around them the sea swayed and lapped them like a rose-tinted counterpane. Against the light, the town, sullenly smoking, raised smudged fingers of ruin and protest. By contrast, the horsemen could hardly be seen in the black shade of the walls except as a thin flash of steel, and as the source of a distant faint calling. The voice of a muezzin, faithful, undaunted, rolled across the roseate water.
O God, Most High. I attest that there is no other God but God. I declare that Mohammed is the Prophet of God. Come to prayer; come to the temple of salvation. God is great; and there is no other.’
‘The children,’ said Francis Crawford. O mill … what hast thou ground?’
15
Zakynthos and Aleppo
‘Consider their wines. Their wines, mademoiselle, are exquisite.’ The voice of Onophrion Zitwitz, singing his favourite litany, hung in the sultry air under the Dauphiné’s poop awning. ‘The lagrime de Christo, now: so beautiful that a Dutchman, they say, tasting it, lamented that Christ had not wept in his country.’
‘It’s a spirit,’ said Marthe, without charity. ‘Almighty God: what are the fools doing?’
‘Fighting a battle,’ said Georges Gaultier mildly. ‘It takes time. The Knights sailed for Zuara only ten days ago, and the wind was against them.’
Marthe turned with angry impatience from the poop rail. ‘They may be dead,’ she said. ‘How long will you wait before we sail to Aleppo?’
Turning his head, her self-styled uncle glanced at where Salablanca sat, silent and unregarded in a corner. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘That is, once our good patron arrives back on board. Or we have news of his death.’
Freed from Djerba on Güzel’s instructions after the escape of Jerott and Lymond, the Dauphiné with her crew and all her remaining passengers had sailed, as directed by Lymond through Salablanca, straight for the island of Malta. There they now lay, in the great harbour under the guns of Fort St Angelo on one side and Leone Strozzi’s fine new fortifications on the other. The creek leading to Birgu, the Knights’ city, was barred to them, and they had made no effort to enter; but had dipped their flag in salute to the white cross flying from every battlement, and had satisfied the skiff which put off to ask them their business.
They had no business, they said, other than to await the return of the Knights of St John from their attack on Zuara, and to take on board their patron and two others whom they had reason to believe might be with them. His patron, M. Zitwitz had said, entrusted with this reception, was a dear friend of the Chevalier Leone Strozzi, who would respond favourably, he was sure, to any kindness shown the Dauphiné during her enforced stay.
That the kindnesses, materializing, should take edible form was not therefore altogether surprising, though Marthe, in her impatience, could be heard to say that she wished Fate would take M. Onophrion and hang him to cool in a brook, like a jar of his own preserved Leipzig cherries.
The fleet came back from Zuara next morning; and watching them come, sails full and banners streaming in a following wind, those on the ramparts of Mount Scibberas and St Angelo, no less than on the decks of the Dauphiné, soon realized that something was wrong. The galleys were intact. No staved wood or torn sail spoke of disaster: only a silence which lay on the water like the white haze of humidity which made the sweat check and run like a thief over spine, loins and ribs.
Men could be seen: pale punctuation of flesh among the timber and metal and cloth. But no trumpets blew, carrying far over the water; no voices cheered; no hackbuts sparked off with joy. Instead, as the galleys came nearer and nearer, all those watching saw that the ships themselves were half empty: that the walks and platforms which had left crowded with soldiers and knights showed shining wood to the sky except where, under an awning, a few lay recumbent. The only sound in Leone Strozzi’s fleet came from the open hatches, and it was the sound of his wounded. The chain was raised, and the leaderless fleet passed in to its anchorage, and its dead to their tombs.
Salablanca alone was still on deck when at dusk a boat put off from Birgu and brought the French Special Envoy and his escort at last back to his ship. Jerott, climbing aboard one-handed after Francis Crawford, saw Salablanca smile and say, ‘Allah is beneficent,’ but did not hear what Lymond answered, if anything. By the time he in turn landed on deck Lymond had already made his way aft, where the voices of Marthe and Gaultier could be heard.
Salablanca was looking at him. Jerott said, ‘Gabriel is dead. He betrayed the Knights into the Aga Morat’s hands, and the cream of the Order has gone.… Strozzi’s badly hurt, but he’ll live. They kept us, to answer for what had happened … but it is clear beyond question now, to them all, that Gabriel was and had been a traitor.’
Salablanca spoke softly. ‘Mr Crawford himself killed him?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerott.
‘I am glad,’ said Salablanca. ‘But the child …?’
O mill, what hast thou ground? Lymond had said. And since then, had hardly spoken at all.
‘There are two children,’ said Jerott. ‘I don’t know what is to be done. But you’d better come with me so that we can both receive our orders.’
By then, Lymond was already standing with his back to the carved rail of the poop, the blue awning dyeing his lightly tanned skin and borrowed clothes, addressing Gaultier, reclining watchfully in the captain’s great chair, and Marthe, sitting perched on the table with her hair tied to fall down her back; and Onophrion, standing varnished with sweat in his stiff clothes, deferentially listening.
‘I regret,’ Lymond was saying pleasantly, ‘that Sir Graham’s death brings with it certain complications. Unless I forestall the news, the lives of two children become forfeit. We have also the safety of Miss Somerville to consider. I propose therefore that we split forces. The only information we have about the ship which took the first child from Mehedia is that it calls at Aleppo. On my instructions, Salablanca has found and chartered here in Malta a vessel which is willing to take two of you to Aleppo. Jerott and Marthe will sail on her. M. Gaultier, M. Zitwitz and Salablanca will come with me to Zakynthos on the Dauphiné, and thence follow the Children of Devshirmé to Constantinople.’
‘Unchaperoned?’ said M. Gaultier. He had sat up. ‘Marthe, travelling alone with Mr Blyth? I am afraid, Mr Crawford, that as an uncle——’
‘As an uncle, you permitted her to go ashore by herself at Bône dressed in boy’s clothing without an avuncular qualm,’ Lymond said. ‘I have nothing against her being attired in boy’s clothing in perpetuity if you feel it will protect her from an unsanctified bed.’
Jerott said, his face flushed, ‘In any case, I’m afraid I don’t care, Francis, to take the responsibility——’
‘L’amor’ è cieco y rede niente,’ said Marthe. ‘Ma non son’ cieche Valtre gente. He wants to stay with Mr Crawford.’
Jerott’s voice was stony. ‘I am prepared to
go wherever I can be of most help. I meant only that I expect to be too occupied to give the attention I ought to Mile Marthe’s safety. I think M. Gaultier should come with us.’
‘Then who,’ said Lymond agreeably, ‘do you suggest looks after the spinet?’
‘Onophrion?’
‘Jerott,’ said Lymond, with the thinnest edge beginning to show in his voice. ‘I am taking the Dauphiné and all the appurtenances of a royal bloody envoy because I am proposing if need be to mortgage the King of France down to the last bow on his mistress’s nightcap in order to get the Somerville child out of this safely, with the baby if possible. For that I need Onophrion. No one in the presence of Onophrion could take this embassy lightly. We shall proceed in state, carrying our riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and our treasures upon the bunches of camels. I require you, if you mean what you say about helping, to be a young ass in Aleppo, not Zakynthos.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Onophrion Zitwitz respectfully, and they all turned. ‘But there is always Mr Abernethy, I believe.’
‘Not this time,’ said Lymond shortly. ‘He left for Aleppo even before Gabriel died. Philippa knows the danger and may be able to protect the Zakynthos child, if she has found him when the news of Gabriel’s death reaches those parts. The other child, if possible, will have to be found before the news reaches his keepers.’
‘This child … the other child … do we understand,’ said Marthe, untying the ribbon in her bundled fair hair and letting it fall, smooth and swaying, over the thin, severely laced stuff of her dress, ‘that your late unhappy mistress had twins?’
Malevolent, Jerott opened his mouth; but Lymond was quicker. ‘You are not asked,’ he said briefly, ‘to understand either me or my late mistress. You are requested only to go to Aleppo. Do you wish to, or not?’
‘Are our wishes being consulted?’ said Marthe. ‘Yes, I shall take your disciple Jerott, manco passioni humane, and he shall be returned to you weaned. Shall I go in disguise? A wild beast’s skin on my horse’s buttocks, and a hammer at my girth like a Pole?’