There was no doubt of that captaincy. We were three caravans, traveling together for mutual protection, embracing about a dozen merchants rich enough to ride horses instead of Bactrian camels, but by the end of our first day together, Nicolo had become its acknowledged chief. Nor could I doubt the discernment of his eyes as he gazed upon the darkly glowing face and small, voluptuous form.
He drew up beside the gaffer and swept off his hat.
“I salute your years and honors, and hope that I may serve you and your charge,” he said handsomely in his rich voice. This was duly translated into Persian by our Armenian interpreter.
“May Saint Thomas and Saint Theodore behold your charity to the aged and the weak and bring you benisons from the throne of God!” the old man answered in a firm and somehow thrilling voice.
“I rejoice to find a Christian in this unregenerate wilderness.” Nicolo’s large gray eyes glistened with emotion.
“Verily my granddaughter and I are of the True Faith, although poorly instructed in it. We’re followers of Nestorius like our fathers before us, but I fear we are touched by heresy and tainted with heathenism. Think you the Holy Father would have mercy on us for the sake of our striving?”
“I’ve no doubt of it.” And Nicolo too would forgive the taint, I thought. The heathen customs of some Central Asian folk often prove most convenient to Christian travelers.
There was something strange and no doubt heathenish in the maid’s appearance and manner, but as I rode up with the other merchants to view her at close range, I found that bewitching. Perhaps she was a witch. Her mouth was redder by nature than any I had ever seen, and her oddly set black eyes more bright. They shone out of the dense forest of black lashes. She looked more like a picture of Pharaoh’s daughter that I had seen in Alexandria than anyone I could recall. Her skin was a rich olive and her hair was dense, long and raven-black. She was wide between the temples, as are the Tatars, and perhaps there was a trace of Tatar in her sparkling blood. In spite of our gazing at her, she did not pretend to be shy, looking us over with a like lively interest. Her little unconscious movements appeared so graceful that I thought them lovely.
Above and beyond all this, there was something about her to excite the passions of every man, from youth to dotage, who looked at her. What that something was, all seven wise men of Ancient Greece could not have told.
“May we help you in some way?” Nicolo asked.
“Effendi, we’re in great need of help. Know that my granddaughter, Araxie, has lately lost her husband. Hearing of it, I went from my village in the north to fetch her home. What gold and silver he owned was seized by his mother, and the little I have saved we spent on the road, but Araxie has left one piece of silk of her own needlework. If you will give us a place in your caravan, to ride upon the poorest of your beasts or to walk behind you in the dust until you gain Kerman, we will beg to give you the unworthy gift as a token of gratitude.”
“Why, this is as fine embroidery as I’ve ever seen. It’s fit to cover a pillow to rest a prince’s head. So I take it you fear greatly the two-legged wolves, or you’d not pay such fare.”
“I myself, effendi, have nothing to fear. I have no red money, let alone white or yellow, and I am too old to be worth my ironing as a slave. But when I travel with my grandchild, it’s as though I go heavy with treasure. Forgive me, lord, my boastful words.”
“They were not boastful, father, only a statement of fact I myself invited. Truly you may come with us, and without fee. But the sun is low and we’ll not press on till tomorrow if the sheik will give us shelter behind his wall.”
That worthy stood forth from the small crowd of turbanned onlookers. In the salaaming and other ceremonies going on between him and Nicolo, attention was drawn from the vivid dark face among the bearded ones. As far as I could tell, no eyes but mine were on it. She must have felt them, for her eyes wheeled to meet mine.
A slight lift of my brows asked a question. She raised her chin a little—perhaps it was a half-nod—and her lips curled a little on one side in a witchy smile.
CHAPTER 2
THE ARGHUN WOMAN
As has been said since time out of mind, one lark doesn’t make a summer—and one half-smile is not a pledge of a maiden’s favor. Yet I felt an inkling of happy fortune.
The next good augury came to pass well after the evening meal. A long-winded sheik and other worthy villagers had occupied Nicolo’s time for a good hour; then he retired to the pavilion he shared with Maffeo with every sign of seeking a good night’s sleep. He could be disguising his purpose, but I doubted if he would take the trouble. More likely he was not in the mood for adventure and chose to wait a more favorable time and place.
Throughout the journey I had made a point of greasing our interpreters’ palms. Although they were a lying lot by nature—by pure human nature they could not resist taking advantage of their in-between position and all words passing through their mouths must pay a kind of toll—they were glad to lie in my favor if to their best gain. The Armenian Rusas, whom we had hired at Hormuz, was more my creature than Nicolo’s. I had kept him reasonably honest by what seemed an uncanny penetration of some of his schemes—the simple matter of knowing Arabic—and besides, I paid him well.
“Rusas, has Signor Nicolo made any arrangements for obtaining the maiden’s favor?” I asked when the camp had grown still.
“He bade me carry certain compliments to her. She thanked him kindly in her own name and the name of her husband in Heaven. Perhaps she was only whetting his appetite, but more likely she was a little afraid of one of his years and station, ambassador to the Great Khan.”
“Perhaps her grief is still too great——”
“What could comfort it like a lover’s arms? Of those she’s been bereft for half a year—so her sire confided—and she’s young and beautiful and, I would hazard, fiery. The gelding Patience was a good horse according to the tale, but the great stallion Impetuosity won the race. Although the signor is far from old, he’s no longer a boy, and he wants all things in order, delivered to him at his own convenience, and not to miss a good night’s sleep. And remember, young master—youth calls to youth.”
Pleased with his show of sapience, Rusas took himself off. I lay down around the corner from the flood of moonlight and as still as though sound asleep, but my eyes were as open as an owl’s and soon almost as sharp. A merchant setting down figures in a book closed it and blew out his candle. The last stirrings of the camp died fitfully away. The cameleers lay like casualties of battle, each under his white aba, unmoving as white rocks. Each flock of sheep reclined in its place, its members close to one another in some sort of love that awed my heart tonight, and the huge white oxen dozed on their feet, sometimes lowing softly. A whole great history of man was written here, I thought. I waited and watched for the sight of a beautiful maiden. . . .
After an hour’s vigil I was all but certain that Araxie would not keep rendezvous. I had given her more than enough time, and it stood to reason that she had missed the signal I sent her, or was unable or unwilling to comply. Then I decided to give her another hour. Giving it to her was the right term, but in the way of a compliment or a tribute instead of a gift of value—I did not want it or have any use for it except to sleep through, and that was a dull employment. And while most maidens would come to meet a lover in the first hour, perhaps Araxie would not yield to his longings until the second.
What was sleep to me but a dark bridge between one adventure and another, and what were my dreams but the rippling waters that flowed beneath? The vigil was quiet and lonely and uneventful, but what I heard and saw and smelled was far more sharp than dreams. And this living of that hour instead of merely living through it—making something out of it instead of begrudging it—appeared to please the gods.