“I can see that.”
“You’ve heard me sing and play a lute, but you haven’t seen me dance while others play.”
“You’d dance beautifully, I know.”
“Better yet, I can walk as well and as far as a gypsy woman. Being light of weight in proportion to my strength, I could keep pace with the other marchers in a caravan. No place on a camel need be kept for me except when we must race, thus leaving more room for goods.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Many a merchant likes to take his favorite concubine when he sets forth on a long journey.”
“Master, if you’ll keep me, I’ll take you on a more wonderful journey than to the Court of Kublai Khan.”
“That’s the talk of a liar, a fool, or a witch.”
“I’m no one of the three. If you don’t keep me, you’ll never know what I am. We’ll travel far together. You’ll come to great riches and honors—I swear it by Saint George. In due course we’ll come to the destination you desire. And this first setting forth, now, before darkness falls, will requite you for the gold you’ve lost.”
“You speak too knowingly for an innocent maiden, and you speak too well.”
“I’m pleading for my very soul. My body can live on in the place you plan for me, but I fear my soul will die. As for my speaking out of my heart, remember, I’m not a frivolous Venetian girl, kissed by the sun. I came from a cool, windy island in the North Sea, its beauty all the greater for its half-veiling in mist, and its sons and daughters are of the same stuff as Richard the Lion-Hearted.”
“Still I’ll sell you to the firstcomer for a thousand pieces of gold.”
“The firstcomer might not buy me!”
“I’ll sell you within the fortnight to the Prince of Darkness rather than miss the journey to Cathay. Now dress, covering yourself well, even your slim little arms, so I may not think of them so much as around my neck. And since you’re strong by your own boast, you’ll need no help in moving your bed to the anteroom.”
“So I’m not to sleep in your chamber?”
“I can resist temptation, but why put myself to the trial? There will be trials enough on the caravan road to Cathay.”
4
I shared my supper of cold fish and barley cakes with my new slave. Also she drank a fair half of a flask of good, cheap red Apulia wine; and since wine was a rarity in England all except with the rich and was forbidden in Islam, I expected it to affect her strongly. All it did was paint her cheeks a little, and light her eyes.
“Why should I succumb to Italian wine?” she demanded when I called attention to her fortitude. “I was raised on stout English ale!”
I worked late and slept hard. Morning brought a short, stout, sallow-skinned fellow with jackdaw eyes and a greasy skin whom I took for a ship’s cook until he stated his business. He wished to know whether I meant to keep or to sell a certain property that I had procured yesterday at the house of a rich Jew.
“I mean to sell her. Do you know who might like to buy her?”
“Not I, but my master might, if the price is in reason. He’s had an eye out for her for a good while, as he’d tell you himself. But if you’ll excuse me, young gentleman, are you sure your title’s good? It’s not a common thing for a man of your years to have a slave girl worth five hundred pieces of gold.”
“This girl is worth a thousand. I have a rich father, as you no doubt know, and this is my first venture. Simon ben Reuben will vouch for my title. Who is your master, if you care to tell me? Is it Franco Adriani?”
“How did you guess it?”
“I’ve heard he had a taste for novelty, and he was the first lord I meant to approach.”
Franco Adriani’s name was known wherever beautiful girls were sold into slavery. Born of a rich, ancient, noble house, he had only this one passion and pursuit. The Circassian beauties vied with one another to take his eye. He kept what amounted to a harem, and if no favorite reigned for very long, he was generous with the whole flock, and his castoffs often became the wives of his henchmen.
I need not bring Miranda to his palace for his inspection; he would come here. This was in accord with his practice, to attract as little attention as possible to his purchases. By the same token he avoided lowering either the pride or the price of the many aspirants who failed. When the hour drew near for his arrival, I ordered Miranda to bathe, perfume, and array herself to the best advantage. I was more curt with her than her forlorn look deserved, why I did not know.
Franco’s famed gondola, decorated with silver mermaids sporting in a green sea, stopped at our landing. Our prestige with our neighbors immediately rose. In deep distress, Mustapha retired to his cell and bolted the door. Small, with prematurely gray hair and a fine, high nose, our visitor had many a mark of the patrician, none of the satyr. I had heard demimondaines call him beautiful, and truly they did not miss it far. The molding of his face was delicate, his skin had a girlish freshness, his eyes were unusually large and clear, and only his mouth affected me adversely, being babylike.
First he paid due honor to my name and to this house. He was a great admirer of Nicolo Polo, the great traveler; he was gratified that his native city had become the haven of the famed Arabian scholar, Mustapha Sheik! Now might he have the pleasure of beholding my slave girl, Miranda?
When I rang the bell, the girl entered and stood with lowered head. I could see no rebelliousness in her face, although she appeared pale and her eyes were quiet under the pale-gold arches of her brows.
“Face me, Miranda,” my lord ordered.
Miranda looked him calmly in the eyes.
“An odd type, truly, yet engaging,” he said to me. “Where did she come from?”
“That, your Honor, is a trade secret. Too many like her in the market might mar her uniqueness and hence her value.”
“Then I’ll wager she’s from the north shore of the Aegean Sea. There are a good many pale blondes in ancient Thrace, although redheads are more common, and since she’s not a Christian——” Franco Adriani paused politely.
“So she avers.”
“Then I venture she belonged to the Cult of Dionysus, still obtaining there. Its members have shut themselves off from modern culture and their licentious religion and life have made for a singularly delicate beauty of face and form. I’ve no doubt that Nicolo Polo picked her up for a song on his homeward journey from the Far Levant, and this is your first venture in the trade. Now bid her take off her clothes.”
I did so. She bowed her head as in obedience and started to leave the room, then her eyes met mine in an unmistakable signal to follow her. There was something in her face that frightened me into compliance.
When I had made a lame excuse to the nobleman, I found Miranda standing by the casement, very pale now, her head still high, and tears gleaming between her long flaxen lashes.
“Master, I beg you not to sell me to this lord,” she said in tones of quiet desperation.
I shook my head.
“Give me this one reprieve,” she went on. “I’ll smile on every other buyer who comes here.”
“No other buyer will pay the price I’m asking. I’m almost sure of that. Your delicate beauty wouldn’t appeal to most rich men seeking concubines. He may not want you, but if he does, I refuse your plea.”
“Do you know who owns the lazar house at Chioggia?”
“The City-State of Venice, I suppose. And what has that to do——”
“No, it’s been obtained by patent by a rich kinsman of the Doge, one who buys jewels from Simon ben Reuben. Simon doesn’t know it, but I do—I found it out from his gondolier, who saw me and asked me to run away with him. I wish now that I had. So I tell you this, in sadness, but by Saint Michael and Saint George, it’s true. If you sell me to this nobleman, you’ll not live long to enjoy your thousand pieces of gold.”
“What do you mean to do?”
“I’ll get word to him, unless I die first, that you’re the one who delivered Haran-din. When will you visit the Court of Kublai Khan? Not before you’ve visited the headsman on the Piazzetta.”