Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett
Marthe laughed, without amusement, deep in her long throat. ‘Mr Blyth put me here. Mr Crawford and I owe each other nothing. My uncle I hate and you I do not know. No one, as far as I see, has endeavoured to engineer my escape.’
‘I think … that was only because they didn’t know you were a prisoner,’ said Philippa. She was rather pale. She said, in a small voice, ‘I would do it for you.’
The colour left Marthe’s face too, in patches; then flooded in, deep rose over her brow and cheeks and slim neck. She stood up. ‘Because I look like my brother?’ she said.
Philippa’s dark brows had met in a straight line; her brown eyes opaque with a new self-control fighting with a faint and horrified understanding. After a while she said simply, ‘No. Because I know what it is to need help.’
For a moment longer Marthe studied her; and Philippa rather bleakly wondered what amused rejoinder, what cutting remark she had called on herself. But Marthe in the end said merely, ‘Then … when I need help, I shall have to call on you, shan’t I?’ in a voice whose coolness and impatience did not ring entirely true. There was a silence, and then Philippa said awkwardly, ‘I didn’t know.… Is Mr Crawford your brother?’
The blue eyes this time were both cool and amused. ‘If he knew, he might prefer you to put it differently,’ said Marthe. ‘I am his bastard sister. We have the same failings. Didn’t you guess?’
The tribunal before which they had all been arraigned was held without delay in the Divan Court the following morning. To Jerott, the former Knight of St John, who knew better perhaps than any of them the exquisite range of Saracen torture, the news was a relief. Lymond, to whom he said as much, did not reply, but Archie was blunt. ‘He won’t have us marked before all the pashas. It’s afterwards, when we’ve been sentenced, that he’ll have a free hand.’
Today, under Archie’s ministrations, Lymond seemed completely himself; and although the marks of his beating were still plain on his face, the fresh robes they were given, according to custom, had covered the rest. Between waking and setting out for the court he had said very little: what was there indeed, thought Jerott, to say? An apology perhaps to Archie, for having trusted where he should never have trusted. But that was hindsight. Who could have suspected Míkál?
As for Jerott himself, he had brought his troubles on his own head. No one had asked him to compel Marthe to come, and no one had asked him to follow her. He waited, chatting with Archie, until they heard the tramp of the Janissaries outside, and Lymond said, ‘Jerott …’ and then stopped, his eyes brilliant; his face very white. He said, ‘Surely they will let me speak to you both, before the end?’
‘What is it?’ said Jerott; and took Lymond’s wrist. ‘There is time. Tell us now.’
‘I can’t,’ said Francis Crawford, an odd note of desperation in his voice. ‘Archie, will this bloody stuff last out the morning, or shall I have to take more in the …?’
Archie’s voice was steady as ever; comfortable as when he held converse with one of his lions. ‘It should last. But you’ve more in your kerchief and in your purse, and I’ve supplies for several days after that.’
It was then that you remembered, thought Jerott Blyth suddenly, that Archie after all was a man in his fifties. And that Lymond was just twenty-six.
Then the door opened and Lymond, the balance back in his voice, said lightly, ‘All right, gentlemen. Havoc and mount!’
Once before, as Ambassador, he had stood before the throne in the Divan Court, and Gabriel in white and gold had greeted him, his officials around him.
Now Gabriel was robed in purple and crimson, his turban girdled with rubies, and a brazier with great silver feet stood on the deep carpet beside him, where the robed figures ranged in their furred winter robes, their turbans and hats, round, conical, oblong, in every colour and shape describing as clearly as badges the ranks in law and security, holy teaching, administration and learning foregathered there. Gabriel sat, and they settled, each on his low stool, the clerks in a corner writing already, paper on knee.
It left Jerott feeling remarkably exposed, standing with Archie beside him near the door, a row of blue-robed Janissaries silent behind them. He wondered how Lymond felt, waiting alone before Gabriel, who, talking to his interpreter, had not even glanced at him. His back told Jerott nothing.
There was no sign of the children. None either of Philippa and Marthe, or of Onophrion. His gaze wandering round, Jerott caught sight suddenly of Míkál, his long hair freshly combed and a necklace of white salted roses over his purple silk tunic. Instead of bells, his wrists were banded with new bracelets of gold, and he had an anklet of gold on one slender arched foot. Rage flooding his veins, Jerott glared at him, and Míkál, lifting his head, saw him and gave a mischievous smile. Jerott looked away, just as Gabriel turned from the dragoman and said in his mild, golden voice, ‘Lords: I beg your attention …’
The indictment was damning; inexorable. Gabriel himself conducted the case; recalling how the Scottish lord, Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, had used his standing as Ambassador for France to persuade the lord Suleiman Khan to hand over a girl and a child from the Sultan’s harem and, on being refused, had claimed even that the child was a son of His Grace Henry of France.
‘This is untrue,’ said Gabriel sorrowfully. He spoke this time in Turkish, the interpreter at his side, for appearances. He must have known by now, Jerott supposed, that their command of the language was as fluent as his own.
Gabriel was continuing. ‘That it is untrue I can prove to you in a matter of days, when a courier will show you that the child this man claimed to be here is in fact safe in France. Therefore he lied to the Sultan, a lie which in his clemency the lord Suleiman overlooked, saying merely that he would hand over neither the girl nor the child without further proof from the Ambassador that the child was in fact the son of King Henry … Crawford Efendi could not prove such a thing. He therefore abducted the girl and the child. He further abducted a second child, the adopted son of Názik the nightingale-dealer, having already seduced him; and had caused both children to be taken out of the city, where they were discovered and stopped.’
Gabriel paused, his voice dropping. ‘Why should he do such a thing? Because, lords, this dog of a Christian has fought for St John; held Tripoli against Sinan Pasha; did all in his power to prevent my leaving that vipers’ nest of unbelievers in Malta, even to attempting my life in Zuara. His thoughts towards me are evil.… Learning then that I had a dear son, reared in the home of Dragut Rais in Djerba and Algiers, he took steps to capture the child, and because, moving from country to country in vain hope of eluding him, the boy’s identity became confused with another, he took it upon himself to seize both children, and degrade them, and take them back to the West, where their souls would be wrenched like roses from Paradise and cast into the hell of the heretic.…’
Christ, thought Jerott. Míkál was admiring his finger-nails. No one interrupted, or asked any questions. He supposed the evidence would come along later: Názik and other bribed witnesses. The royal-bastard story had clearly been fatal. But it might have worked; and he supposed it had had to be tried. Now the mellow voice was going on about a theft from his house, which Jerott found outside belief, and a list of witnesses which was equally unlikely.… Assuming the accusation was false, why had it been made? Perhaps because, thought Jerott, as that old satyr Gilles had once said, Turcae non minus sunt insani quam nos circa aurifabrorum opera. Turks were mad about gold. The theft of gold would strike home where a lot of abstract discussion about children would mean nothing at all.… And here was the third count.
The stirring up of sedition. Gabriel’s voice, tinged with pain, was rolling over the phrases. How gross the guest, the diplomatic guest under their roof, who made profit from the canker within the host’s flesh. All knew of the melancholy fate of the Prince Mustafa, his head turned with pride and ambition, who had thought to win the love of the army and ultimately the throne of the Shadow of God. Rustem P
So, with sorrow, the father had had to remove the undutiful son, and the Prince Mustafa had been killed. So, he had just heard, the Prince Mustafa’s son of four years had been swiftly and mercifully put to his rest in the city of Bursa.… But far from accepting these things as the will of Allah and allowing the bereaved and betrayed to be silent, mourning their dead, men had lent their ears to a vicious new rumour. A rumour that Mustafa Pasha had been innocent of plot against his royal father. A rumour that Rustem Pasha the Vizier, in guilty concert with the Sultan’s wife Roxelana, had fabricated a plot against the Prince Mustafa, in order to place Roxelana’s own son on the throne.
A cruel and malignant rumour, of which the man standing before them was author.
A rustle; a shifting of colour ran through the whole room. Lymond said clearly, in Turkish, ‘That is not so.’
Gabriel turned on him. ‘Is it not? Do you deny that since the death of Mustafa you have adopted the guise of a Meddáh and roaming the city have incited people to rebellion, talking to them of the innocence of Mustafa and the guilt of Roxelana, the Sultan’s own gracious wife? Have you not entered and searched my home for papers the Sultana might have written proving her guilt? Have you not placed in the Sultana’s apartments even a girl, an English girl who under the guise of knowing no Turkish could find and read the Sultana’s own private correspondence, and could listen unseen to her talk? And when the Jewess who smuggled you out such information as you discovered was killed, did you not instal yet another, a Frenchwoman, under the colour of mending the French King’s clock-spinet?’
He paused, making a little space, and so the Grand Mufti, turning his white beard and great bushel-green turban, was able to ask his quiet question. ‘Might it be known what information, if any, they discovered?’
What the Sheikh-ul-Islâm, the Ancient of Islam, inquired must surely be answered. Gabriel hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, with respect, he replied. ‘Until Rustem Pasha is here, Hâkim, to answer for himself, it is not my place to divulge it.’
The white beard considered that. Then, gentle-voiced, the Grand Mufti supplemented his question. ‘And the matter as it affects Roxelana Sultán. Were any new facts revealed about that?’
On his throne, Gabriel’s fair face was lined. He moved a little, twisting his rings, his eyes on his fingers. Then looking up: ‘I cannot answer that,’ he replied.
‘Then I can.’ Lymond’s voice cut through the whispering rustle. ‘No papers have been found, in Stamboul or elsewhere, which support to the slightest degree the rumour you speak of, that Rustem Pasha and Roxelana Sultán together plotted to have Mustafa and his child killed.’
The green turban of the Mufti turned towards him, and the old voice was dry. ‘Should thy tongue be so forthright? Had this been true, instead of the ganching spike, honour might have been thine as one who performs a great service.’
‘With deference, Hâkim,’ said Lymond, his voice equally dry. ‘Had it been true I should be equally dead. Until it has set its own affairs to order, no nation can afford to have rumours such as these bandied abroad. I have nothing to gain either way, so I choose to tell you the truth. These stories are quite unfounded.’
‘I think,’ said Gabriel’s rich voice softly, ‘that we have perhaps slipped away from the point. The accusation is that Mr Crawford has spread certain rumours. That he has lent colour to them by certain actions. That he has incited the citizens, and not only the citizens but the Janissaries, the cream of our troops, to a point where very soon there will be an open demand for an inquiry. I ask him: does he deny it?’
Lymond glanced round the assembly. He looked, Jerott thought, undisturbed and quite self-sufficient, with no hint of the horror which had washed over him, briefly, before he came out. He said again, in that lucid, carrying voice, ‘Do you know, I wonder, with your Western upbringing, the tale of the History of the Forty Viziers?’
Someone laughed. There was a rustle and Gabriel said smoothly, ‘Of course.’
‘You will remember, perhaps, its subject,’ Lymond said. ‘A king orders the execution of his innocent son, urged to it by the false accusations of his unhappy and desperate wife. Each morning the king is restrained from killing his son by fresh advice, framed in a tale by one of his forty wise councillors. And each evening he is urged to it again by a tale from the queen. The stories are older than time, and told in many tongues: those I tell I had once in Persian. No, I don’t deny earning my bread as a Meddáh. Attacks on the Embassy directed not at me but at my unfortunate household forced me to relinquish my post. As Jubrael Pasha has so eloquently told you, I had little money. I stayed in hopes of seeing righted an injustice concerning the children, and to stay I needed shelter and food. This I paid for with stories. And the stories, as I have told you, concerned a king far older than the present great Sultan Suleiman, and a queen long dead and far less beautiful than his wife. If men discuss these in modern terms, it is no fault of mine.…’ He paused, and then added, a hint of laughter in the clear voice, ‘Also, men were generous. I am not now short of money, Jubrael Pasha. The Forty Viziers in their day paid almost as much as your treasure-chests.’
Gabriel’s face did not relax. ‘You deny it now, but I have witnesses who can say that the History of the Forty Viziers was not all that fell from your lips in your innocent walks in the city. If you had no share in the rumours, why plant your spies? Why smear your suspicions in our very bedchambers, unless you wished it to appear that you were looking for evidence?’
‘But I was!’ said Lymond mildly. ‘I was looking for evidence against you.’
In the Seraglio, all sounds were muted. The buzzing which ran round the chamber was no more than might have come from a nest-ful of wasps; but there was no doubt of the interest he had stirred. Gabriel rose to his feet. ‘Dog and progeny of dogs! Is this proper language to me? … Take him away.’
Lymond did not move. ‘And I found it,’ he said. ‘Is that why you wish to remove me? But how can you judge me when as yet you have produced no proof and no witnesses?’
‘Witnesses?’ said Gabriel. He sat down, smoothing his gown. He is not often crossed these days, thought Jerott. ‘Since you ask, I will give you witnesses,’ said Graham Malett, his rounded voice grim. ‘I call him named Míkál.’
Amiable as a girl: lively as a fawn. Where had he read that? thought Jerott, watching the lithe figure unfold itself and walk slowly, with grace, to the brazier.
Lymond did not look at Míkál. Jerott, glancing from the Geomaler to the man he had betrayed, saw that Lymond’s hands were folded loosely before him; his brows raised a little and his eyes on the carpet; like a man weary of excuses pitching himself to hear yet another. Gabriel said gently, ‘Disguised as a story-teller, Crawford Efendi stayed in Míkál’s house, and Míkál, of whose loyalty there can be no question, on my advice made himself privy to all his plans. Tell, Míkál, how as Meddáh this man was heard to speak to all about him, inflaming them with hatred for Roxelana and Rustem Pasha. Tell how the English girl was installed by guile in Roxelana’s own chambers, and told at all costs to find evidence against her. Tell how he fabricated a tale first of a son of his own and then of a child of King Henry’s in order to wrest from me my only dear son. Tell how, maligning the Sultana, he has brought even the Janissaries to the point of open rebellion.…’
Míkál looked up at the Vizier and over his shoulder at Lymond’s bent head. Then turning politely, he addressed the assembled officials. ‘I would,’ he said charmingly, ‘if I could: but how can I say what is not true?’
Lymond’s head came up at that, his eyes blazing; and Míkál looked into them and laughed, and against Gabriel’s voice, beginning a sudden startled tirade, Míkál added, ‘I regre
Gabriel’s voice was no less threatening for its extreme softness. ‘Whore! What has he paid you to lie? Or did he pay you in something other than gold? He found a cheap coinage, they say, for the Aga Morat in Gabès to prevent him from spreading his favours.… My lords, the boy is corrupt as the man.’
‘Then you had better,’ said the Grand Mufti against the hum of excitement, ‘call another witness who is incorruptible? Or perhaps the prisoner should speak? What of this proof he claims, incredible though it appears, against the Vizier himself?’
‘I would call,’ said Lymond, his eyes on Míkál, ‘… I think I would call … the Agha of Janissaries.’
Then for the second time Gabriel rose to his feet. A big man, splendidly built, he stood in majesty by his throne, the rubies answering with their fire the dull fire of the brazier; his gold-sewn crimson sweeping the floor. He spoke, with all the weary charitableness of which he was capable. ‘Lords: how can I stand, your Vizier, your appointed head of administration and supreme judge, your presiding head of Divan, and while judging find myself under attack? This court is no longer a court but a strutting-place for those who wish to be notorious.… I close the session. The case, if there is still a case, must be reopened and tried elsewhere. The accusations against myself, if anyone entertains such, must be placed in the proper way, in the proper quarter. The prisoners meantime will return to their rooms, the man Míkál with them. Make way.’