Caravan To Xanadu

CHAPTER 5

THE CHALLENGE

In a moment I had the slave girl stowed aboard our gondola. She was my property now, by the law of Venice; my power over her was virtually as complete as a farmer over his oxen; the clothes in a box she carried were as much mine as those on her back. But I wanted something more than Venetian law standing behind a parchment given me by an Arab leper to attest my ownership. The fact was, which I was most anxious to conceal both from her and from Mustapha Dey, I could not yet believe in it.

Believing a thing and believing in a thing are two different things. The first could be a mere cold receptivity of mind, while the second was an activating force. It came to me that I would have trouble looking on any human being as my sheer chattel, and there was something about Miranda that defeated the attempt. Although I disliked and in some fashion dreaded the inquiry, I began to seek the reason.

It lay partly in her appearance. She did not have any of the familiar aspects of a slave. The state of slavery is the most abject in all the world—a free beggar’s is kingly in comparison, a chained beast’s is higher, because he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. I was used to seeing it manifested in various forms. New-caught slaves from the outlands were usually wild-eyed and defiant or dazed with shock or in terror dreadful to see. Well-fed, well-clothed house slaves imitated their masters and even outdid them in arrogant manners. Most of the girls on sale for the usual use had the manner of young whores—this well-known fact applied to virgins as young as twelve. Only partly was it by the instruction of the merchants. They had perceived beforehand, during the dressing and grooming period, that they were in deadly competition with one another to attract rich buyers.

Miranda gave none of these signs. There was no strain in her face, and only what seemed an echo of sorrow. She was watching the scenes on the bank, and her passiveness did not suggest inertness so much as poise. Most slave girls smile too brightly, flash their eyes too much. She talked to Mustapha gravely, her face lighting sometimes. Once she laughed gaily at one of his jokes, but she was not trying to make any sort of impression on either of us. I felt that she was fully aware of her beauty—more so than I, perhaps—and that awareness, to the degree of using it in her need, had affected the thing itself—made it more quiet and more telling. Perhaps I could not doubt it any more. It was not an adornment to her. She was composed of it.

All this seemed to amount to one simple thing—she did not perceive herself as a slave.

This fact disturbed me so greatly that the disturbance felt like anger. I could not wait to impress her condition upon her. Until she realized it, I did not think she would be marketable for anything like the sum I needed. Most concubine-seekers did not want grave girls whose lives turned inward; they wanted bright, vivacious girls who strove to please. Her quietude would be mistaken for sulkiness. Only merchants dealing in rarities would bid for her, and at prices low enough to compensate for their risk.

I saw a chance for my first stroke when Mustapha spoke to me in Arabic.

“Marco my son, you may have to hold her some weeks before you can make proper disposition of her,” he said, unable to conceal his anxiety. “Selling her is a dreadful thing to contemplate. At least you must deal only with the most honorable and humanitarian traders.”

“I must sell her within a fortnight,” I answered. “If she tries hard enough, she can please her master and have a good life. She’s intelligent and accomplished and her face could be quite beautiful if she’d brighten it up.”

“Could be? It is! I hold her one of the most beautiful maidens I’ve ever seen.” Mustapha Sheik tugged at his beard. “And what provision can we make for her creature comforts while she’s with us?”

“Why, we don’t need to make any. Simon and his family spoiled her, but the sooner she discovers she’s a slave, the better for her, so she’ll make an effort to please. As for food, she can have our leavings.”

“I wouldn’t hear of it, Marco. Nor do I think it wise to have her share with Hosain and Dasa.” These were Mustapha’s body servants. “No, it would be most unwise. Hosain is young and lusty and like so many Arabs, lacks self-control. She must have a place at our table.”

“Sooner or later she must learn——”

“She’ll drink no bitter cup within my house, if I can spare her! The child has had more than life’s fair share already, and how many more troubles to come? For that little while, her beauty will grace our board. It will be like sunlight through a casement of stained glass in the bleak of winter.”

“If it pleases you,” I answered, impressed by his nobility as much as touched by his childish ardor.

“And what shall we provide her in the way of a couch?” Mustapha asked.

“She can make her bed on the floor of my room. There are plenty of carpets.”

Mustapha Sheik made no immediate reply. I had a hard time remaining silent when I saw the real distress in his face, but my heart had strangely hardened. . . .

“Marco my son, I consider that most unwise. If you are going to sell this maiden, not keep her for your own, you must protect her against yourself as well as from others. Thereby she will bring a far better price and be in higher repute with her purchaser.”

“She’ll take no harm from me. I’ll warrant that.”

“An angel incarnate couldn’t warrant it. For a young, lusty man to sleep in the same room with a pretty unkindred maiden is to challenge Kismet. If she is already in his temporal power, as in this case, Kismet would decline the challenge as unworthy of his steel.”

I had never known Mustapha to employ in a light way the name of Allah or of Mohammed. Usually he spoke of Kismet no more solemnly than most Christians speak of Fate. However, there was an earnestness in his eyes at odds with his humor.

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.

My temples throbbed and the scales fell from my eyes. No longer could I perceive Miranda as a chattel to sell and forget. She was a lovely maiden of great grace and quiet beauty, beauty that pertained to both mind and body, beauty that could touch the heart even as it enflamed the passions.

No more could I count these days with her as a pleasant wayside adventure as I made for my main goal. Unless I was as steadfast in my course as the eastern stars to guide me, I might never set sail.

3

On the opposite shoulder from the one hidden in flaxen hair there was a lovely highlight. Its delicate molding was thus revealed, and traced in shadow was the collarbone, such a beautiful feature in young girls, leading to the unprotected hollow of her throat. The profile of her head and body on the exposed side was sharp against the scarlet tapestry behind it, and the long line, sweeping inward at the waist, out and down the long, slender thigh, and curving over the knee to the tapered ankle, might recall the first beauty that Adam ever dreamed when he wakened from his slumbers on the sixth-day afternoon, and Eve sat waiting for him, her whiteness so empassioning and so perishable against the riotous flowers. Until then he had been a clod.

Her eyes widened a little as I rose and slowly came toward her.

“You can see me better at a distance, master,” she told me.

“That’s for me to judge.”

“If you’re satisfied, I’ll dress.”

“I’m not nearly satisfied. Now you may stand, Miranda of England.”

I said this last, it seemed, because of her whiteness, always associated in the Latin mind with the Angles and the Saxons. Its effect on her was as though I had touched her with a whip. She rose instantly, faced me squarely, and dropped her arms to her side.

“Come forward a little,” I ordered.

“I beg you to remember——”

“I want you to stand in better light.”

Now she stood in the full flood, yet she was not as exposed as a moment before, because the expression on her face served as a veil. Rather it was an absence of expression, a complete stillness, as though she were no longer a person, only a carnal form. It seemed as though she had drawn miles away.

I could not accept the defeat and came close to her. I touched her chin and drew my hand down the side of her throat and along her shoulder.

“It seems smooth enough to satisfy most buyers,” I said.

“You’re taking advantage of me, master,” she said, her low voice lending great dignity to the words. “It’s unknightly.”

“I’m not a knight. I’m a merchant. I hope to be a great traveler.” But saying this last weakened me for holding to my rights. It was as though I had spoken to an equal, not my slave, and it became harder to treat her as a slave. Perhaps I had invoked the best side of me.

“I too would like to be a great traveler,” she said quietly.

“Some of the merchants take their concubines with them on their long journeys. I hope such a one will buy you.”

“Hear me, my lord. I make you three prayers, and if one of them is answered I’ll bless you by Saint George, no small prince in Heaven. One of them is to keep me for your own. If that’s your wish, I stand here waiting your pleasure. One is to sell me to a buyer who’ll prize my virginity and let me aspire to such honor and happiness as a concubine may win. The last is to do with me as you will, then sell me not for a concubine, but for a dairymaid, as you yourself said, or a vineyard or field worker. Some honest farmer may buy me and I may live in the sun.”

“That last is fool’s talk. What would you be worth on a farm? You would break like glass——”

“In that you’re wrong. I am of slight build but I am not a weakling. There was no maiden in—no matter where—who could ride as long and as well. In one month I could earn my bread and in three I would match my day’s work against any wench of the homestead.”

The eagerness of her voice and face told me that she spoke truth—she would choose the rough, active life, in which slaves were the most free, over the bird-cage luxuries of concubinage in some Christian palace or Infidel harem. Before that, and for as long as I desired, I could have her for my own. As I stood in reverie, the warm glowings throughout my body leaped to flame. The sight of her grave, full lips caused mine to draw with an almost painful rigor; there was dull pain across my brows; my hands tingled and throbbed.

I had experienced only the sudden lusts of young manhood and their rude satisfyings. They had been like hunger for meat many times magnified. I had never realized the exquisite torment of desire, the word itself meaning an unearthly thing, something visited upon us from a star. I had not known that she was in the world.

She stood waiting, breathing slowly and deeply. Her eyes looked almost black between their long, dense lashes. She was white except for a flush on her cheekbones, and sweat beaded her white brow. Unconsciously her hands had opened, not inviting the clasp of mine, but ready for them, equal to them. There was a half-smile on her lips like some ancient enigma.

“I can’t keep you for my own,” I told her in a tone of voice heard in the market. “I must raise money for a long journey. Neither can I have you for a time and then sell you for what you’ll bring. It wouldn’t be enough for my needs. Instead I must dispose of you at once, before you are damaged, to some rich man who wants you for his concubine, and will pay well. Now you may put on your shift.”

I was watching her closely as she did so, but saw no admission of defeat.

“I’m already damaged, master,” she said quickly.

“I don’t believe you. You swore before your saints that you’re a virgin.”

“What is an oath to a slave?”

“By that test, you’re not a slave?”

“Remember what is written between the columns on the Rialto: Let the trade be fair. Didn’t you demand, in the Jew’s house, that I be free from mark or canker? A pearl without flaw?”

“Yes.”

“What if now you find that’s not true? Will you take me back there and ask for a pearl out of the sea? Or will you keep me for your own, as a lapidary might keep for his own wearing a jewel that he knows is flawed, and yet of great luster?”

“I don’t know until I see the fault.”

She returned to her seat, crossed her legs at the knee, and held up her right foot so that I could see its bottom. Full on the sole there was a dreadful mark. It was in the shape of a crescent, at least two inches in span, blood-red, and deep in the flesh. It had been burned there with a red-hot iron.

“No one will see it,” I said quickly.

“Likely not while I’m being offered for sale, and perhaps not the first time my lord takes me to his couch. But sooner or later, when he plays with me, or wakes me with tickling, won’t he discover the flaw? What bold paramour has not kissed the little feet he loves?”

“He’ll discover it, surely.”

“And see, it’s no common scar, but truly a brand. No Saracen trader would put it on me to mar my value—plainly it marks me as some jealous Saracen’s handmaiden. Won’t the haughty Christian lord who buys me curse you for a swindling knave?”

“What will I care? I’ll be far away.”

“The brand is a terrible one,” she went on after a little thought, “but it doesn’t lame me in the least.”

“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.”

I had no choice but to believe her.

Now the door was closing between her and me. I was going into the presence of the nobleman with no idea what to offer him in the way of apology or excuse. I could think of none he could not see through—and his fury might go to terrifying lengths.

But he did not look up as the door closed, causing my head to cool. It came to me that if this were a weakness on his part—the attempt to hide his anxiety—it called attention to his strength.

Perhaps it was the strength of the Devil in him that made him go to these lengths to satisfy his lusts; perhaps the lusts themselves were in his brain more than in his slight, delicate body; in any case, he was a high nobleman of Venice.

“Your Honor, the slave girl Miranda has entreated me not to sell her to you, and I entreat your pardon for causing you a visit here in vain.”

His only response for some long-drawn seconds was a slight rise of color.

“Is it your intention to keep her for yourself?” he asked presently.

“No, my lord. It is rather that she hopes for a different kind of life than she would have in your Honor’s house.”

“If the question is a proper one, what objection does she find to my ménage?”

“I think she considers it too tame. She is a member of some Germanic tribe and wants an active life.”

“I can’t exactly blame her for that. After all, if female slaves weren’t human beings, I doubt if they would interest me in the ways they do. If there is blame, it seems to me to lie on you. You did, indeed, give me a fool’s errand.”

“Again I crave your pardon. I would have gone ahead with the sale except for her threat to bring about my death. I’ve reasons to believe she would try it, and would probably succeed.”

He stood in thought a few seconds, then smothered what I felt sure was a false yawn.

“I won’t ask you those reasons. I’ll remark that my admiration for the maiden has increased greatly, and if she will consent to become my concubine, I’ll pay you my top price of three thousand lire—a thousand gold bezants. As for your yielding to her in fear of your neck, it was at least human. And I am obliged to you for not offering me some asinine excuse.”

I bowed low. He nodded his head in reply and departed. Deeply depressed rather than angry, I roamed about a few minutes, then went to find Miranda. She was lying on her bed, her eyes red and her face tear-stained. As she started to spring up I bade her lie still.

“I told my lord that if I sold you to him, you’d have me killed,” I said. “So he’s gone.”

“I’ve shamed you in front of him?”

“It would seem so.”

“Why don’t you take a stick and beat me? By every law of slavehood, I deserve it.”

“Because if I again saw your naked back, I’d lust for you.”

“What of it? You would control it as you did before. And if beating me would rid you of your anger toward me, I’d gladly stand the pain. I can hardly bear for you to hate me, master.”

“I don’t believe I understand that.”

“Whom do I have besides you? Simon and his son are gone—the old Arab is lost in his readings. My father and mother and my sisters and brother and the rest of my people are far away, where I will never lay eyes on them again. Only in dreams can I see their faces. I can’t hear their voices save in dreams.”

“I’m only your owner——”

“What else has a dog?”

I could not refrain from stepping close to her, bending down, and kissing her childish lips. Perhaps I did not try. It seemed that I was moved only by pity for her, but that was a cheat. Another passion had lain in wait for my first unguarded moment, and it blazed up like Greek fire. Her soft, warm, delicious mouth should have invoked a tenderness in me; instead I devoured it while my hands, rude as a Tatar’s, ravished her body. Then her gaze arrested mine. It was not pleading and it was not afraid, but it was sorrowful and strange. For the space of only one caught breath it made me pause. She saw no remorse in my face, but shame was there, and it was as though she leaped to my help.

With one strong upsurge, almost unbelievable in so slight a form, she broke my grasp upon her and thrust me back. Then, turning on her side so I could not see her face, she cried like a broken-hearted child.

“I should have let you go on,” she wailed. “I should have torn my own clothes to give you way. Then you’d have to keep me—and I would be saved.”