The Ringed Castle Read Free Page A

silence. ‘What?’ said Richard.
    ‘I did marry. On paper. To give me some standing at first, especially because of Kuzúm. Of course, it will all be annulled in a moment. It was,’ said Philippa again, austerely emphatic,
‘strictly
on paper.’
    It was Sybilla who walked slowly forward and, taking the girl’s manicured hands, held them both, firmly and coolly in her own. ‘Philippa. You are not to worry. We are all here and ready to help you. But tell us first, whom did you marry?’
    ‘Mr Crawford,’ said Philippa bleakly.
    Kate said
‘Philippa!’
and it fell on the air like explosive.
    But Lymond’s mother, still holding Philippa’s hands in her own, carried them after a second to her cheeks, where the colour had come flooding back, and said, ‘Of course he would do that.
Strictly
on paper?’
    ‘Well, my goodness——’ Philippa said. She was trembling.
    ‘He could be your uncle. I know. And there was no one else handy.’ She turned, her blue eyes alight, to Kate Somerville. ‘Kate, you seem to be Francis’s mother-in-law.’
    Philippa’s mother was not smiling. She said, ‘There was no need for that. How could there be? Philippa is a child.’
    ‘I don’t want anything,’ Philippa said. ‘I have my own money. I don’t want any formal recognition. I may be divorced already for all that I know. He said I must do it and you know what he’s like. You
do
know what he’s like.’
    Richard Crawford had begun, slowly also, to laugh. ‘Francis! My God, the complications,’ he said. And then seeing Kate’s face, ‘Butit’s all right,’ said Sybilla’s reliable son, and, putting his arm round her rigid shoulders, smiled at Philippa’s sensible mother. ‘Welcome to the clan. Philippa will stay with us for a bit, and we shall look after the legal side. The annulment will be no trouble at all.’
    Philippa went to her mother. ‘It
is
all right. I promise you.’
    Kate Somerville looked up.
    Concern surrounded her. Above her, the pleasant, middle-aged person of Richard. Below, peering at her, Philippa’s overcast and luminous face. To herself,
I am a widow
, said Kate Somerville grimly.
A widow with one married daughter
. And to Philippa, ‘I’m sure it’s all right. At least it’s a novelty,’ her mother said flatly. ‘You’ll be the only divorced child-bride in Hexham.’
    They began, at last, to walk up the steps. ‘All the same,’ Richard said. ‘I should like to know where Francis is.’
    No one answered him.
    ‘Or even who he’s with,’ pursued Lord Culter reflectively.
    Archie Abernethy looked across Kuzúm’s head at Philippa, and Philippa said prosaically, ‘We know who he’s with. He’s with Kiaya Khátún.’
    ‘Kiaya Khátún?’ said Sybilla blankly.
    ‘Kiaya Khátún,’ said Philippa patiently. ‘Head of the harem, and until recently Dragut Rais’s mistress. The Diane de Poitiers, as you might say, of the East.’
    At which, despite herself, her mother began, rather helplessly, to give way to laughter.
    *
    There were no children with Kiaya Khátún, on the other voyage from Volos, whose character was infinitely more worldly and which partook more of the nature of an exodus.
    In the heart of the mule-train travelled the four mummy cases painted with lotus flowers and the names of pantheistic God-triads: Ptah, Sekhet and Imhotep; Osiris, Isis and Horus; Magna, Horus and Harpoctates, and beside them the crates of innocent merchandise: the poor silk, the dried fruit, the sacks of sponges and screws of spoiled amber, turgid as egg in blown glass.
    Among the muscatel raisins heady with syrups were the Mistress’s rubies. Behind the wagons, suitably altered, rode Kiaya Khátún’s private household: her cooks, her physician, her chamberlain, her maids, her secretary and those men at arms who were not already discreetly bestowed at the caravan head.
    There the Mistress also rode, in a felt cloak and two fustian over-gowns covering a shift which had taken twelve