“Vengeance is a great sin, especially when it’s in the marrow of one’s bones, but when her bones are dry, it will trouble her soul no more.”
“In order that the son of the one she loved might find his lost heritage, she sent him to the Witch of Endor.”
“Have naught to do with witches. But the sin will be on the son’s soul, not on hers. Did she keep faith with those who loved her?”
“Yes.”
“And with those she loved?”
“Do you mean she wouldn’t sell them into slavery?”
“That would be a sin far beyond her reach. I meant would she speak harshly to them without need, or deprive them of their due for her own pleasure, and suchlike great sins that poor folk may commit?”
“She’s guilty of none of those things.”
“Then the money that you would spend for the saying of prayers for the peace of her soul, give to the poor for the peace of your own soul.”
“I’ll do so, holy Father, but my soul will find no peace.”
3
All the rest of the day I roamed about the city as though I were looking for something I had lost. I visited the scenes I had most loved, or admired, or marveled over in my childhood, and looked upon those wondrous things that were the sea’s gifts to his bride. It did not seem possible that these things were wrought by human hands—the countless marble sculptures that awe the heart, the acres of mosaic pictures that exalt the spirit, and the lavish works in gold, jewels, enamel, alabaster, glass, and multicolored stones that dazzle the eyes. Atop of one of the giant pillars crowning the Piazzetta stands a bronze lion to keep watch and guard over the queen of cities.
But the noblest token of all of her temporal power and glory was the four gigantic horses on the frontal gallery of San Marco’s Church, tossing their manes and tails. They had been brought to Venice in my grandsire’s time. But no one knew what dreamer had conceived them centuries before, or what master builders had cast them in indestructible bronze, or for what great pagan triumph they had been raised. Yet by means of a plasterer’s ladder left on the narthex, a boy of twelve, alone and in the dead of night, had mounted every one. Only God knew to what unearthly realms his soul had ridden.
Roaming from bridge to bridge, I stayed too long. The sun would set, closing the business day, before I could reach home. If by then Paulos Angelos had come and gone with the purchase money, he might repent his bargain and sacrifice the earnest. Thirty pieces of gold would make a beggar rich, but its loss or gain would be small figs to a merchant of his ilk. He was not one to throw good money after bad. His common sense had objected to the price, and only the strange words of the slave herself, floating on empty air, had caused him to disobey his better judgment. . . .
This was my train of thought as I started home, and my mind kept on it, in tireless repetition, until I saw the afterglow on our casement glass. Dasa, Mustapha’s servant, opened the door to me. I spoke to him in Arabic.
“Did Angelos Effendi come today?”
“No, young master.”
Then he would not come until tomorrow. Perhaps he would never come.
I went through the curtained arch of our durbar to find Miranda and Mustapha playing an Arabic game known originally as shatranj, but which we called shah mat, meaning “The king is dead,” and which the English called chess.[10] Mustapha could beat me in a few minutes all around the board, boresome to both of us, but by his bating her several manikins, he and Miranda had close and pleasant contests. As I drew the curtain I heard them laughing in merry concert. Mirth was still on their faces as I entered. I feared that black jealousy was on mine.
None of us had spoken a word when Dasa followed me into the room.
“He comes now, effendi.”
“Who?” But I knew too well.
“The slave trader who bought the lilla keiberra.” The latter meant “great lady.” Trust the eyes of a trained servant not to be deceived!
“Admit him to my gulphor.” Then to the others, “Paulos Angelos is arriving. Miranda, I assume he’s come for you.”
I put a mask on my face as I spoke. I could read nothing in hers as she replied:
“I assume it also.”
But Mustapha’s face became as pale, the skin as tightly drawn over its bones, as in an attack of his sickness.
“Have him admitted here, Marco my son, if you will,” Mustapha said.
Presently Angelos was present in the room, a small man, not as tall as Miranda, yet its dominant figure. His eyes were brighter than their wont, I thought; his manner, although punctilious, did not quite conceal a nervous eagerness. With hardly a word he handed me a certificate of deposit made out in my name by the moneylender Phineas of San Martino, for nine hundred and seventy pieces of gold. In return I gave him a letter of title to “the Infidel slave girl known as Miranda.” I had written it ahead of time, away from his and Miranda’s eyes, so if my hand shook I could still it without shame.
“Now I entreat a favor,” said Paulos Angelos, when he had pocketed the document.
I could hardly keep from giving way to some fairy-tale hope. . . .
“Signor?”
“I can’t sail for Constantinople short of a month. Meanwhile, I have no suitable quarters for Miranda in either my home or my pens. Will you ask Mustapha Sheik if he’ll keep her here, under his protection, until I can claim her? I’ll gladly pay a lira a day for her keep.”
When I looked at Mustapha, he spoke.
“I will gladly assume the charge, Signor Angelos, and the pleasure of her company will more than compensate me for her provision.”
I could not bear to look at his face, it was so childishly bright. Tears stood in Miranda’s eyes and those eyes avoided mine. At my request, Angelos agreed to keep the transaction secret until I had made certain arrangements; then, with impeccable manners, he took his departure.
Three days passed without tangible event. My fate seemed as quiescent as a sleeping dog; I dreaded waking it by any move of mine. Most of the daylight hours I spent ordering stores and equipment for a trading journey eastward of Acre. Since the dealers were accustomed to merchants’ stealing marches upon one another, they too promised secrecy in these matters until time for me to set forth. At dinner with Miranda and my aged mentor, we seemed to make as merry as before. As though by some strange kind of flight out of myself, at night I slept as though I had been drugged.
In the early afternoon of Leo’s birthday, I dressed in my best to appear at the feast. There would be no cup of wine for me to quaff, but my uncle would not refuse me a glass of rainwater from his reservoir, to judge by the lowering clouds; and I would be lucky not to be drenched aforetime. The shower held off while I made to a wine booth within arrow cast of his house in San Felice.
A fine gondola that Nicolo had bought or leased had not yet docked there. I was a little uneasy lest the threat of rain had kept at home the travelers to China, which perversity in human kind would make a donkey laugh. As usual, I misjudged the signor and his walking shadow. Well before I had finished a goblet of good red wine of Provence, let alone before my old friend the tapster had completed his first long-winded tale, the golden dragon painted on the hull’s burnished black came swimming down the canal. A servant disembarked first, to lend his master a hand, then Nicolo, then Maffeo, then Nicolo’s two sons, then two footmen bearing gifts. Nicolo wore a suit of dark-red velvet and a silver cloak; the others’ regalia did not take the eye. Uncle Zane came to the quay to greet them.
Without haste I finished my wine. The tapster wound up his tale, which was merry enough. A moment later my uncle’s porter, my oldest friend in the house now that Rosa had gone, had me by the hand.
“I’d not like to blow my horn for you, as though you were a stranger,” he told me, after we had talked a moment of old times.
“You’d better, for your skin’s sake, but it’s not your fault if I dash in without waiting to be ushered.”