2
Hosain, Mustapha’s servant, carried Miranda’s box to a dressing room adjoining mine. A freeman, he could be expected to resent waiting on a slave, but he added to the cheerful service an eloquent salaam. Possibly he mistook her for tonight’s concubine of his master’s ward; in any case, this was not the way to put her in her place. I decided to start her schooling as we were waiting for dinner to be served. I was determined not to be moved by her wistful smile and childish grace.
“The venerable Arab, my host, Mustapha Sheik, is so lost in his studies of the stars that he grows careless of the proprieties of this world,” I began.
The statement was far from true. Mustapha grew careless of the conventions, but he was a strict observer of what he believed were the real proprieties.
The girl gave lively attention to my words but showed no flattering interest in me.
“Oh, I think he’s a wonderful old man!” she cried.
“He asked me to give you leave to eat at his table for the short time you’re here. Of course I offered no objection.”
“He’s very kind.”
“It’s strange that you could take to any Arab when you’ve been owned by Arabs.”
“They’re a different class entirely. Do you suppose he’ll talk to me about the stars?”
“I’ve known him to talk with slaves as cordially as with great folk.”
“There was a great scholar in my own country who did the same.” Her eyes softened from the memory. Then, returning to the here and now: “Try to get him to, will you, master? I’ll eat only half as much, if that will be a saving to you.”
“I bid you eat your fill. You’re already too thin to bring a top price in the market.”
If Mustapha had heard me, he would have rebuked me for what he would consider harshness to a helpless child. She struck me as being far less childish and better able to help herself than she appeared. Still, I did not quite penetrate my own motives. Perhaps I wanted to outdo her idea of me as a crass young merchant.
Our ivory and rosewood table, about a foot high, was the finest piece of furniture the house boasted. Miranda regarded it with delighted surprise and took childish pleasure in sitting on a floor cushion, persuading me that she had seen nothing of Saracen life but ships’ holds and slave pens. I half expected Mustapha to be lost in thought and forget her existence. Instead he was inspired to a brilliant, thrilling discourse. I wanted to observe her table manners, but she had none. Her food got to her mouth so neatly and deftly that I was startled when her plate was empty. She caught my eye, rubbed her stomach, and gave me a triumphant smile.
The excitement of her coming soon put Mustapha to bed with one of his brow-splitting headaches. His servants fixed bhang for him—all they could do—and went out. When she and I were left alone, she was not a whit abashed. After walking about to inspect the various objects in the room—considered bad manners among Venetian great folk—she took a seat near the window where she could watch the boats and the sea birds on the bay.
Meanwhile I was pondering how she had become a slave in the first place. Her appearance and ways denied that she was born one. Since she was neither stately nor haughty, yet well mannered, I took it that she might be the daughter of a franklin, a bailiff, a clerk, or even a poor knight. It was barely possible that she was the daughter of a shipmaster and had been captured by Saracens while accompanying him on a journey.
“Is the country you came from—Albion, you call it—a desert country?” I asked.
“It’s the most wonderful green land on earth!” she burst out.
“Is it a long way from here?”
Her eyes changed expression. “Halfway across the world.”
Then, out of a clear sky, I asked, “Is Henry a good king?”
The bolt struck true. She could not hide her consternation. “I never mentioned our king’s name.”
“Surely you’re not too ignorant to know it. Have you ever seen the beautiful Eleanor of Castile, his son Edward’s wife?”
“Then the old man told you, in spite of his promise!”
“To put an end to a game not worth playing, you told me yourself. Very soon after you mentioned Albion, I remembered it was a Greek name for Britain. The song you sang was patently English. It even mentioned Devon, the province where we buy most of our tin.”
“I forgot you were a merchant.”
“Why do you try to hide it, Miranda? Were you trying to flee England when you were captured, and are afraid you’ll be brought back?”
Of course I knew that this was not the explanation and it was hardly out of my mouth when I conceived a far more likely one. It was that her father had sold her into slavery, a common event throughout Europe. If she had loved him greatly, she might go to these lengths to conceal the fact. Her sense of measureless disgrace could easily make her wish to forget her past life.
I decided not to taunt her with the fact. I, too, had been strangely dealt with by my father. However, the fellow feeling made me all the more resolved to bring her to heel.
“I don’t remember,” she answered sullenly.
“Your future master won’t care where you’ve come from if you can make his days happy and his nights blissful. Have you any accomplishments other than music?”
“I can weave well, and sew a fine seam.”
“Do you know how to dress your hair other than as ropes, redden your lips, and whiten your skin?”
“The first two I can do, but no one can whiten snow.”
“Let me see this snow. All of it. If it’s lustrous, I’ll ask more for you and presumably you’ll have a richer master. If it’s scrofulous, I’ll be lucky to sell you for a dairymaid.”
“I’d rather you’d sell me for a dairymaid than any other office. I can milk well and kine like me and stand for me.”
“I wish to survey your form, so I may have a better notion of your value. Remove your garments straightway, and let your hair flow free.”
“Lord, speak truly to your slave! Is your purpose to sell me, or to keep me for your own pleasure?”
“I told you my purpose.”
“Do you swear to it by your saints?”
“By my very namesake, San Marco!”
“Then I entreat you to reconsider your command.”
“Why should I?”
“It isn’t well for your purpose and profit.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Besides, every possible buyer will demand the same survey while I stand by. Would he buy a pig in a poke?”
“When a buyer surveys me, your mind will be on gold, and each will be seeking the advantage of the other. Now the day dies and you and I are alone except for a sleeper in another room, and the light through the casement makes for lechery——”
“What do you know of lechery, unless Saul taught you?”
“I know nothing, but my woman’s instinct warns me.”
“Your woman’s instinct is a small thing compared with a thousand pieces of gold. Obey my order swiftly, and when you’re ready for my inspection, say so.”
I opened a scroll and looked at the illumined script. It was a piece of histrionics, but I needed every diversion I could find. Not once did I glance sideways at a growing whiteness, blurred now and then with pale gold. The minutes crept away. A repeated pale gleaming was Miranda’s arm as she combed her hair. This went on a long time, then a white-and-gold shape moved about at the edge of my vision.
At last came a clear, low voice.
“I’m ready, master, for your inspection.”
My first thought was that Miranda had spared no pains in setting herself off. This was before my eyes cleared to behold her. For her seat she had chosen a massively carved chest of ebony that happened to stand in front of a blood-red tapestry. . . . Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but this proved the minx she was. . . . But the thought ran out and I began to behold some sort of valor, even of nobility, in the act.
Her beauty was not breath-taking so much as touching. She sat with one knee raised a little and turned away from me, her hands in her lap, her pale tresses flowing over one white shoulder and screening a white breast that I deduced was round, young, nymph-like, and tipped with rose. Her eyes, golden-brown in this light, neither sought nor avoided mine—it was as though she were alone, lost in girlish thoughts. Her face, unique in subtle ways among all I had ever seen, was in repose, her smile was childlike and pensive. The evening light from a casement at one side ignited a still, steady, unflickering, cool flame in the deep spate of pale-gold hair, and that was only one of its gracings.