“Sit down, Miranda,” I instructed her.
She bowed her head and obeyed. I sat within a few feet of her. Almost at once the gulls began to settle. Their harsh complaints died away, and soft squeakings, as of many knives being whetted, made a continuous murmur all over the island.
“What island did you come from, Miranda?”
“Will you never tell anyone as long as I’m a slave? Otherwise I can’t remember.”
“I swear it by San Marco. I think I know the answer this far. The Isle of Wight.”
“I didn’t tell you, did I? I have such strange dreams——”
“What you said would give a clue to anyone who had studied geography. The people there were Jutes originally, it is warmer than most of England, snow is almost unknown, and birds stay all year. But the strait isn’t very narrow; in fact it’s broad enough for Wight to be a real island instead of part of the mainland cut off by a salt creek. Since you don’t look like a daughter of any Englishman I’ve seen, that helped me guess.”
“It’s the most beautiful island in the world, I truly believe. You should see the sea cliffs and the Four Needles—they are limestone towers—with the gales buffeting them.”
The moon showed me a slight change in her face. I thought that her eyes were glowing and her smile was wistful. Anyway, she was more beautiful than before—but that was always true.
“Why did you leave there, Miranda?”
“It would be very hard to tell you, Marco.”
“I want you to try. The guess I made may not be right.”
“Your other guess was right. Perhaps this one is.”
“I hope it isn’t. I thought that your father—perhaps your step-father or someone not so close to you—had sold you into slavery.”
“Then why should I keep secret my name and abode and all the rest?”
“Because you were ashamed.”
“You guessed wrong, master.”
“Will you tell me the truth of it? The whole truth?”
“I’ll try. No one in Christendom knows it, and until now no Christian has cared. I didn’t tell Simon or Saul because they would have wanted to act on it through the English Jews. They would have used persuasions hard for me to resist. I want to tell you, although it’s harder than you can believe, partly because I shut it away from myself—buried it in a grave. It’s quite true that when I was reminded of it, it seemed to have happened to someone else, not to me. But tonight something more has happened. I don’t fully know what it is—partly it was being in your arms in the boat—and now this, our coming out of the water onto this little island, with no thought of being ashamed. I think that the imitation of love has been drowned in the sea.”
“I think real love has taken its place,” I answered.
“It will die too soon to be real. But for this hour it’s taken us out of the world and somehow away from evil. Yes, I can tell you, and I thank my saints, and forgive me if I cry.”
“Begin at the beginning.”
“My name is Marian Redvers. My father is Sir Hugh Redvers, and his grandfather was the younger son of Richard de Redvers, to whom the first Henry gave the island and great Castlebrook. Isabella de Fortibus, who holds it now, is my cousin and god-mother. But the manor that my father held in fief was not large, and when he bore arms against the King under Simon de Montfort’s banner it was revoked by royal command. Since he was attainted for fighting on after Evesham, the lands were not returned in the Baron’s Peace, and he had only enough gold to clothe his back and obtain for my brother Godfrey an esquireship to the Earl of Devon. So I had no dower, and I loved my father and my brother beyond all counting.”
That was simple enough, I was thinking; there was nothing amazing about it. Not very rich knights were continually losing their all in their liege lords’ quarrels; little maids commonly gave immeasurable love to their fathers and brothers. But my heart raced and I was breathless with suspense.
“My mother’s sister was married to a French merchant of Bayonne,” Miranda went on. “She invited me to come and live with her, promising I would make a good marriage. The ship was attacked by Saracen pirates in the Bay of Biscay, and was rammed and sunk. A few sailors were picked up, but no other passengers. I was saved because I could swim well and had thrown off almost all my clothes. I was taken to Malaga and sold to an Arab who owed money to Haran-din. And if you’re satisfied, we’ll swim back to the boat.”
“Don’t lose heart, Miranda, or faith.”
“You can sell me and forget me more easily——”
“That’s my part. Your part is to speak on.”
“When the pirates brought me aboard their boat, they looked at me and thought I was too skinny to bring very much in the slave market—they themselves liked plump girls. But one of their number believed I was of high birth, so they decided to hold me for ransom.”
She stopped and her throat worked. I saw it in the moonlight.
“Go on, Miranda,” I said.
“You can guess it now.”
“I want you to tell me. I guessed so wrong before.”
“There’s very little more. They asked me my father’s name and abode, and I wouldn’t tell them.”
“Why not?” But I knew too well. I only wanted to hear her way of telling me.
“My father was descended from Richard de Redvers, lord of the Isle of Wight, who had fought bravely for Henry I and won his love and favor. My brother was the last of the true de Redvers blood and should have been lord of Castlebrook and Wight—and he will be someday. And both were worthy of my love. Both would have beggared themselves to save my virginity from the Infidel.”
“Now that’s plain enough,” I said, looking at Miranda while she looked away across the glimmering waters. “But the Saracens wouldn’t take kindly to your closed lips.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“So they tried to open them with iron.”
“Not in my mouth. This iron would have burned it. If they couldn’t get ransom, they must get what they could for me in the slave market. They tried where the burn wouldn’t show when I stood on the block.”
“You were all alone on their ship?”
“The English sailors were in irons below the deck. They kept shouting ‘Saint George! Saint George!’ to encourage me. The whipper couldn’t stop them.”
“None of the sailors knew your name or where you came from?”
“Not one. I was so glad. I think the least of them would have died rather than tell if I’d asked it. The English are hard and cruel but they can hold a course.”
“Why did the Saracens stop?” I knew this, too.
“They believed that they would only disfigure me for nothing.”
“Were they right or wrong?”
“I can’t tell. My prayers were answered and I was spared. It’s been more than a year now. My father and brother have said Mass for my soul and never doubt that I was lost at sea.”
“How do you know?”
“I have dreamed it many a night and it came to me truly just tonight, when I heard the swans flying north. That was what wakened me and brought me to the window. They were going to England.”
Although I had been awake and at the window, I had not heard the swans. Perhaps Miranda had heard their wild, strange singing only in her dreams. That would not impugn its being a sign.
“You didn’t mention your mother.”
“I lost her, as you did yours, when I was little. She’ll weep in Heaven at my becoming a slave, but she’ll know——”
Miranda turned her face from me, but not in time to hide the tears flooding her eyes. As I came to her to kiss them away, she sprang up and ran down to the beach and into the still water. There came back to me her voice, low-pitched, lovely, and strange in the whist of the night.
“Forgive me for crying. This was a bridal night—and it’s over.”
CHAPTER 7
THE PARCHMENT
Soon after sunrise I rose, put on my oldest clothes, and went to a gardener’s market not far from the house of my uncle Zane. It had been Rosa’s custom to visit it twice weekly as long as I could remember, always at the same hour, and I doubted greatly that she would fail the rendezvous today.