Caravan To Xanadu

CHAPTER 8

DEPARTURE

It was mentioned on the Rialto that Paulos Angelos, the most considerable slave dealer operating from Venice, had returned from a journey to a near-by market. Perhaps he had laid in enough of his special kind of wares for his next journey eastward, and had lost his lively interest in Miranda. When several days had passed without any reply to my letter, I put myself under the disadvantage of approaching him again.

He received me in an office so plain that it would do for the cell of a monk. I had seen him several times before; only the present business opened my eyes to his peculiarities and distinctions. He was soberly dressed, small, swarthy, with well-carved features, curly black hair, magnetic eyes, and hands that an artist would love to paint. His manner was quiet and quite winning. I thought that he was better born and educated than most slave traders.

“Miranda is a lovely child,” he remarked, after the amenities had been seen to. “I was very eager to get her for a Thessalian duke of special tastes—I think she would have suited him to perfection. As it happened, he was in great haste for a new concubine—to console him, I believe, for the loss of a favorite—and when I was unable to deal with her keepers, I bought a beautiful blonde Asturian in her stead.”

“I’m sure you haven’t delivered her yet. Perhaps it’s not too late——”

“For this dealing, it is. You see, signor. I’ve promised Celesta the place—a very favorable one—and of course I can’t disappoint her. There will be many more dealings. I would be pleased and proud to present Miranda to my clients, but I’m not in the business—as the old saying goes—for my salubrity. If you’ll quote me a price on which I have a reasonable expectation of fair profit, I’ll buy her here and now.”

“My price is three thousand lire.” Then, as he seemed to hesitate, I added from a cramped chest, “With an understanding between us as to her disposal.”

Paulos Angelos gave me a slight bow. “Your considerateness of her does you credit. I don’t think we would have trouble on that score. And I’ll not deny she’s worth more than that, in the eyes of a connoisseur. But the question is, what can I get for her? I was prepared to pay seven hundred bezants to make a quick sale to the duke at nine hundred. To please him, although against my better judgment, I might have paid eight hundred bezants. But it’s unthinkable that I would pay such a sum with nowhere to place her. I assure you, signor, that six hundred would be a very fair price indeed.”

“I’ve been offered six, and rejected it.”

“I see very little chance of my offering more than that. However, if you wish, I’ll look at the girl again. It may be I’ll see her as suiting some good customer.”

It was in my throat to tell him he must decide now—one thousand gold bezants and not a dinero less. At least she would be saved another inspection. What would I be saved? Was that what I was getting at? I must not work in the dark or shrink from the light. Did I fear that he would reject her or that he would accept her? I did not know. I was not only deeply torn but inordinately perplexed.

He was speaking again. . . .

“I can see her the day after tomorrow, if you’re at leisure then.”

“If you please, I’d rather you saw her today.”

He looked at me curiously, then with a winning half-smile, “I’ve been through it myself, young man,” he told me, with grave charm. “She’s the first you’ve owned, and truly beautiful. If you can afford to keep her for your own, I’d envy you.”

“I thank you for your expression.”

“Since I know you wouldn’t offer her to me if she weren’t a virgin, I’ll present myself at your abode at the second hour past noon.”

When I went home, I found Miranda seated in the sunlit window, mending with thimble and thread some of the household clothes. Her eyes rose slowly to meet mine.

“Miranda, the slave dealer Paulos Angelos will be here at two o’clock,” I told her, standing still in the middle of the floor.

“Am I to dress to be shown or to be taken away?”

“He’s coming to look at you with a view to buying you.”

“Don’t tell Mustapha Sheik until after his meal.”

Paulos Angelos came in what I thought was his richest dress. When he had paid due honors to the house, I escorted him to what Mustapha called our durbar—merely our best room overlooking the lagoon. Then I opened a door and summoned Miranda. She came in, light-footed, and took her stand by a window. Her eyes were darkly glimmering and her face was calm. Angelos looked at her a long time.

“Maiden, will you turn a little to the right?” he asked. . . . “Now a little to the left. . . . Signor, she’s more beautiful to my sight than the first time I saw her—but also, more nearly unique.”

“I take it that will affect the business in hand,” I answered.

“To some degree. I would prize her more, but find her harder to place. Signor, any price I offer for her is with the understanding that she is virginal and has no unsightly mark of canker.”

“I guarantee her virginity. She has a red scar from a severe burn on the sole of her right foot.”

“A brand?” Angelos asked, palpably startled.

“It might be called that. It’s in the shape of a crescent.”

“How did she come by it, signor?”

“She told me in confidence. I may say that it does her credit. You may look at it if you like, or make any examination you wish.”

“None is necessary. I’m prepared to make an offer for her.”

He paused, plainly waiting for me to dismiss Miranda from the room.

“If you have no objection, Messer Angelos, I’ll have her remain while we conclude our business,” I said on sudden impulse.

“I’ve no objection,” he replied, almost but not quite concealing his surprise. “It’s not customary, as you know, but if it won’t rowel her feelings——”

“I don’t think it will, and I’d like to have her hear what you tell me about your plans for her, in case you buy her, and the various clients to whom you would offer her. I’ll invite her to express her own hopes and wishes in these matters, to which I’ll pay heed.”

“They would influence me also, I’ve no doubt.” And Angelos gave her a slight bow.

“Would you like to stay, Miranda?” I asked.

“Yes, master.”

“Then seat yourself on the divan. Messer Angelos, will you now make your offer?”

“It’s seven hundred gold bezants. I have in mind to offer her for nine hundred to a Parisian perfumer living in Constantinople. He is a cultivated gentleman and quite rich. His art carries him on long journeys throughout the Farther Levant, buying musk, spikenard, attar of roses, and suchlike ingredients of fine perfumes. He sent me word that he wants a lovely young girl as his companion on these journeys. I can’t guarantee it, of course, but I have every reason to believe that Miranda would suit him admirably.”

“Miranda, would such a buyer suit you?” I asked.

“If I must be sold for concubinage, instead of for farm labor, he would suit me better than any buyer I’ve heard of so far.”

“Are there any questions you want to ask about him?”

“Only one, and I fear that Signor Angelos can’t answer it.”

“I’ll try,” Angelos said, his eyes oddly lighted.

“I’d like to know if he’s reputed to be kind.”

“I can tell you, with utmost confidence in my words, that he is. The faces of his slaves bear witness to it.”

“In that case, it would be a happier outcome than I had expected.”

The room fell silent. There was no movement either except for the almost unobservable ones of our bodies and the slow wheelings of dust motes in a broad shaft of sunlight coming through the window. It happened that I occupied the great chair—a ceremonial chair, I thought, that Mustapha had brought from some quiet schoolroom beyond the desert. Paulos appeared lost in reverie. It was hard to believe that he was thinking of so many lire profit, or of pleasing customers either. I wondered if he were wondering at fate.

Miranda’s presence gave the scene a profoundly moving quality. Her bare feet were together, her hands in her lap, her two long braids glistened like pale-colored gold, her eyes appeared dark and quiet under the arched brows. I had drunk to intoxication on her lips. My lips knew as eyes alone could never know the beauty of her breast; my hands were learned as to the loveliness of her whole flesh; my mind rejoiced in hers; my spirit bowed before hers, knowing it was greater than mine in all eyes that see. So why was I considering letting her go? I could keep her for my own! The incredible promise was true! I could have her waking and sleeping, eating and working, moon shining and moon hidden, in rain, sunlight, gray fog, mist of morning, black of midnight, in pain and in joy. She would cleave to me. I would grow in strength with her hand in mine. I would uncover great mysteries. I would plumb deep secrets.

Beautiful Miranda with the blood-red brand. You sit there, not trusting me to save you. Why then do you love me?

“Then it’s understood that if you buy her, you’ll do your best to sell her to this perfumer of whom you spoke.” So I heard myself speaking to the slave trader Paulos Angelos.

“Yes, signor.”

“Will you give him the first refusal of her, regardless of what offers you receive before then?”

“If we both live to meet again, I’ll do so. And if he won’t buy her, I’ll strive to satisfy her as to a purchaser.”

“Still, I can’t let her go for seven hundred gold pieces. My price is a thousand.”

“I’ll offer you eight hundred. If the Parisian will pay me nine hundred, I’ll barely come out moneywise, and have to take my profit in good will.”

“I wish I could favor you, Signor Angelos. I’m bound to that price.”

“Consider that she’s sixteen. Consider that she’s branded on the foot. Consider that most buyers don’t want beauty of her sort. But I’ll go one step further—to cut in half the distance between your price and my offer. That will mean nine hundred pieces of gold. There’s no dealer in Venice that wouldn’t dub me a fool.”

“I can’t accept less than one thousand.”

Angelos smiled faintly, sighed, rose to his feet. I would have believed this was a trick of his trade if I had not seen him rubbing his hands together as though he were washing them.

“Thank you for letting me see her, Signor Polo,” he said. “Good-by, Miranda, and may you have your heart’s desire.”

“That last is denied me, Paulos, but you may have a good profit from me, if you’ll be bold.”

Paulos gave her a great wondering glance. It seemed almost a moment before he could speak.

“First, why do you address me as Paulos? Is that fitting in a slave?”

“Signor Polo has caused me to forget, for a while, that I’m a slave. I pray your pardon.”

“You must be accustomed to calling wealthy merchants by their given names.”

“Whatever I was accustomed to is gone. I won’t do it again, signor.”

“How did wealthy merchants address you, if you’ll tell me?”

“It will do no harm to tell you, and it may do good. They called me ‘my lady.’ ”

“By Saint Theodore, I should have known it! But what did you mean by saying that I’d make a good profit from you?”

“Buy me at Signor Polo’s price, a thousand pieces of gold. Venice is only one dot on the face of the earth—don’t weigh me by its scales. If you’ll offer me only to buyers of my liking, I’ll bring you two thousand.”

“By Heaven, I believe you will!”

I started to speak but the hand of Fate clutched my throat. I saw Paulos turn slowly, his eyes glimmering.

“Signor Polo, I’ll meet your price of three thousand lire, payable in gold bezants within thirty-six hours. In earnest thereof, I pay into your hands the usual three per cent, which comes to thirty pieces of gold.”

He counted them out from a leathern bag and put them in my cupped hands. I gazed at them in soul-sick dread of a miracle sent from on high whereby they would change to thirty pieces of gilded silver. But they remained the good gold coin of Byzantium, of fair and lawful fineness. My weakness passed away.

2

On All Saints Day, four days distant, my cousin Leo would celebrate his twenty-first birthday. I remembered the date well for having repeatedly measured his exact seniority to me. The occasion would justify a feast at the home of my uncle Zane, and it was almost as sure that Nicolo and Maffeo Polo would be invited as that I would be left out. However, as brazenly as might one of the blackbirds in the Polo coat of arms, I intended to intrude. At that feast table would sit witnesses to my bargain with Nicolo, and long-eared servants with long memories would wait on them. It would be a good time and place, I thought, to seal the deal.

To anticipate the scene did not chill me as much as it would have before I received my mother’s legacy. It was as though my temperature was somewhat higher.

Meanwhile I had other business of moment. It caused me to waken at cockcrow on the morning following Miranda’s sale. The merest milky mist on the eastern waters betokened the waning of the night, but I was glad to get up and shed my troubled dreams. A dream witch had tried to persuade my spirit that the maiden was still mine, but a stubborn, dark-browed fellow with his hard head on the pillow spoiled all the sport.

Paulos Angelos would no doubt take possession of her sometime today. I thought to open her door softly and gaze upon her at the last hour of her last sleep in our house, but I mastered the impulse, or else the fear of needless pain mastered me.

Making for the gardeners’ market that Rosa frequented, I wore my best raiment instead of the plain clothes I had worn before. In my purse were five gold pieces of the earnest money for a gift to her, such a sum as she might have dreamed of possessing when she was young and hopeful, but in these late years as remote as the moon. I thought that her face would light up at the sight of me, and she would be pleased by the people watching when I greeted her, and a little later, when I slipped the lordly gift into her hand, she would not believe her eyes. Such a worn old hand to hold so much red gold!

How gladly and proudly then would she perform her last service to Lucia’s son—only to signal to me, from an upstairs window, as Nicolo sat at meat with his kinsmen.

But at the market I looked for her in vain. I waited long past her wonted time, then went to inquire for her at a certain stall where the lentils were extra-fine.

“I’m looking for old Rosa, whom I think you know,” I said to the gardener.

“Aye, I know her well, and I saved some leeks for her that she’d ordered, but she hasn’t come.”

A tall, thin woman, older than Rosa unless I missed my guess, sniffed at some garlic and laid it down.

“Are you speaking of the beldame who always wore a tirewoman’s habit, and spoke oft of her dead mistress Lucia?”

“That’s the one,” the gardener answered.

“She won’t come for the leeks.”

“I’d like to know why not.”

“Leastwise, if she does come, you wouldn’t see her, or if you did see her, you’d faint.”

“What news do you have of her?” I asked in a firm voice.

“According to Amelia, a charwench who’s friend to my granddaughter, she died in her sleep three nights past.”

The conversation between the two went on. I heard it, thin and strange, like voices in a dream.

“Why, I’m sorry to hear it,” the gardener announced.

“In the midst of life we are in death, the Good Book says.”

“Only three mornings past she was standing where you are now, looking at white turnips.”

“She’ll look at them no more, unless they’re planted in the churchyard, and she gazes up at ’em.”

“I could count on her Tuesdays and Fridays, as sure as the bell peal of San Marco. She’d only a few coppers to spend, but ’twas worth counting at year’s end. Signor, she’d be pleased to be asked for by a gentleman of your kidney. ’Tis a pity she won’t know of it, and that the business you had with her—to her benefit, I don’t doubt—has come to naught.”

I found my voice at last.

“Is she buried yet?” I asked the lean old woman.

“Why, gentleman, this is the third day! What would they be keeping her out for, an old bag of bones like her and me? The wench told my daughter she was buried the very day they found her. They can’t get us into the ground fast enough, us who’s out-lived our use.”

I gave Rosa’s survivor some silver and walked away. When my head had cleared a little, I made for the Church of the Last Supper, where she had worshiped ever since she had first come to Venice in my mother’s service. Moneywise, this church was poor, its congregation mainly folk of humble station, but, to my joy, it had an ample cemetery, where the dead need not lie crowded, and their bones could stay undisturbed till they molded away. A young priest spoke so warmly of the crone that it brought tears to my eyes; then he showed me her tomb.

“I should like to have Mass said every fortnight for a year, and on the anniversary of her death every year for ten years, for the forgiveness of her sins.”

“I didn’t know she had any,” was his surprising answer.

“You’d never guess it, it was true. You’d think she’d been shrived of every one by Father Time himself. But she did have. She died hating one who had done evil to one she’d loved.”

“She needs no praying for that. It’s a sin of the flesh, and when the flesh is off her bones, she’ll be rid of it.”

“Worse than that, she died praying that the son of the one she loved would take vengeance on the one she hated.”

“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.”

“That it’s not. Must you stand on ceremony when you come to give birthday greetings to your cousin, who was never the lad that you were, nor is the man now? I’d rather you gave him the toe of your shoe where he needs a donkey’s tail.”

How dared the old man speak so frankly of the heir of the house? Plainly he held me worthy of his trust! I knew better, but my heart warmed to him just the same.

“Blow your horn, old friend, as loud and fine as when Nicolo returned.”

“Nicolo? So that’s what you call him! I’ve heard talk—but I’ll name you in my prayers.” With that he blew a fine blast.

I entered the unbolted door and quickly passed through the anteroom into the dining hall. Because the window light was dim except for occasional flickers of lightning, my uncle Zane had lighted a great spread of candles, and the short, sharp view that I caught of the assembled diners before any of them glanced up was clear enough to paint a picture by. The seven people there sipped from cups or forked meat or worked their jaws, while the servants gave them assiduous attention. For one instant of treachery I wished I were one of them. I stood in the dusk beyond the candle shine, and a cold wind of loneliness bit me to the bone. . . .

Nicolo had the sharpest ears, the most watchful eyes. He glanced up and looked at me, but he did not start or seem more than mildly surprised. At once he turned to Zane and spoke so soon that his level voice eclipsed the sound of caught breaths all around the table.

“Why Zane, you didn’t tell us that you were expecting Marco.”

“I told you just the contrary, but I guess you didn’t hear me,” Zane replied. “Marco, you’ve gone your own way of late, which is not our way, and that’s why I didn’t invite you to join your kinsmen at this feast. I mean, of course, your kinsmen by marriage, you being Lucia’s son.”

I was instantly cool, confident, and strangely happy. Entirely competent to speak now, I waited for a better opening.

“Now he’s here, my lord, let’s make him welcome,” my aunt Flora entreated in an anxious voice.

“Why, I’ll not gainsay him, if he’s come in honor of my son’s natal day. What say you, Nicolo?”

Nicolo’s faint smile warned me that I had waited too long.

“I don’t believe it’s what he’s come for,” he remarked in a pleasant voice. “I think he’s come to tell me he’s found the money that he needs to go with Maffeo and me to Cathay.”

All eyes had been drawn to Nicolo as he spoke—now they turned on me. There was no other movement in the room, and no sound until Leo gave a harsh burst of laughter.

“What amuses you, nephew?” Nicolo asked in the same pleasant voice.

“You’re joking! Where could Marco get a thousand pieces of gold?”

“Now that’s a question, but there’s none, I believe, about him having it. He came in here without waiting to be ushered in. He didn’t fail to see my boat at the quay, and I think he expected it here today and waited for its arrival before he made his dramatic appearance. None of that smacks of a peace offering or even of paying birthday honors to Leo. Isn’t it far more likely that he wishes to tell me something in front of witnesses?”

“I swear to you that the old Arab couldn’t have raised that much——” The loudness of Zane’s voice did not hide its tremor.

“Of course he didn’t. Marco, did I guess right?”

“Yes, signor.”

I came toward him and held out the certificate of title in a shaking hand. He took it with a steady hand, looked at it not too briefly or too long, and handed it with a faint smile to Maffeo. The only sign of deeper feelings was a dangerous one—a contraction of his pupils to bright points, causing the eyes themselves to look more large and bright.

“I’d’ve never believed it, by the bones of God!” cried Uncle Zane.

“Marco, we’ll sail on the calends of May, or thereabouts, on the bireme Our Lady of Salvation. I advise you to bespeak the captain for cabin and storage space, and to lay in goods to the amount of two or three hundred bezants for sale in Lesser or Greater Armenia. As for your share of the expenses, I’ll draw on you as we go along. All this depending on whether, after all, you decide to attempt the journey.”

“I’ve already decided, signor.”

“You may have a few minutes in which to change your mind. Meanwhile I’ll make another guess—this time as to the source of your wealth. I think you obtained it in the Casa Polo on the night you hired a troop of jongleurs to perform on our fondamento. I don’t know its form, but I’m sure it’s a product of alchemy for resisting fire that your mother’s uncle brought from Tatary. I suggest that you learned of its hiding place, entered our house to get it, and sold the secret to Phineas or some company of Jews.”

“In that case, Nicolo, doesn’t it belong to you?” Uncle Zane asked, barely able to control his excitement.

“Everything that Lucia owned to the day of her death was mine, and this is not the first theft. When I saw that torn parchment in your hand, I had a strange inkling of what it was, but I didn’t believe it and let it pass. Only just now, when you showed me the certificate, did my mind leap to the truth. You’re not the first of your blood to resort to housebreaking to get what you want. But the other came to a quick and a cruel death.”

Nicolo put no stress on the last phrase, but his smile had died and his face was a little lifted and its expression was like that of a god in marble lately found in Crete and brought to Venice. His sister Flora grew wide-eyed.

“Marco, don’t go with him!” she burst out.

“Stay out of it please, Flora,” Nicolo said. “Marco, the theft would be difficult to prove. I’ve neither the time nor the inclination. But I advise you to stop there. You’re young and rash and not as cunning as you like to believe. In plain words—although I rebuked her, your aunt gave you good advice.”

“I’m sorry I can’t heed it.”

“Marco, I don’t want you to go with Maffeo and me to the Court of Kublai Khan. First, you’re a living witness to my wife’s whoring, and I want you out of my sight. Second, your character is such, inherited from a rogue, that you could bring our caravan into disrepute or to disaster. I made the bargain with you fully persuaded you could never raise the sum—anyway, at that first meeting with you, when you weren’t full-grown, I hadn’t realized how perfectly you reflect the adulterous union between my highborn wife and a wandering jongleur. If in spite of this you choose to hold me to my bargain, you won’t find me off guard again. Sooner or later the base blood will tell; then I’ll show you no mercy. Choose, Marco, now.”

“I choose to hold you to your bargain, and I’ll return the enmity you give me with all my heart.”

“Marco, will you work with us the best you can?” Maffeo broke in.

I could hardly believe my ears. “Yes, if you’ll let me.”

“Then, Nicolo, make the best of it. You’re a born leader and I’m not, but you’re making too much of a cuckoldry nigh twenty years cold. You made a deal with Marco, and you must give him his chance to work it out and profit by it. That’s the first law of a merchant.”

“And if you two kill each other,” Aunt Flora cried, suddenly emboldened, “you’ll be chained together in Hell.”

Nicolo and I looked at each other, and lightning through the windows must have lighted my face as it did his. It was as though we were already chained there. It was as though both of us were gazing into a slightly distorted glass.

4

There had come the day appointed for my departure. Today I had a rendezvous with sorrow, with loneliness, with a ship and the sea. Since sunrise Miranda, Mustapha, and I had kept company with one another, mainly sitting on a divan with her between the old man and the young one, talking at times, sometimes laughing over jokes and incidents that seemed of a bygone age. We pledged one another in wine. Although the drink was forbidden to good Mussulmans, Mustapha smiled and told us that what he drank now, he would take off his allotment in Paradise.

At our neighbor’s fondamento hung the gondola in which I had borne Miranda on a silver sea. On her little deck was a piece or two of hand baggage, and impatiently waiting to take me to the ship was Arturo, her regular gondolier, lent to me for the occasion. The window told me that the weather was favorable for sailing—somewhat bleak for this time of year, a gray sky lighted here and there by shrieking sea gulls, and a sharp wind out of the Carnic Alps, but that wind drove down the Adriatic in the way we wished to go; and with a little tacking we could clear the shoals of the Foci del Po before another sun.

“Many winds have made whitecaps on our sea since you brought me my medicine that day,” Mustapha said.

“It was a lucky day for me.”

“I wonder if it was. In my case, there can be no doubt. The potion I bade you bring was for my aching head, but you brought another for my old and lonely heart. I could not pay you for it, even with lore. And lore is a strange mistress. Once we start to enjoy her, we can’t get enough of her. When we cohabit with her, she insists on bearing children that are inclined to be unruly, and cause us trouble. If she hides away from us, we will search the world——”

“Master, it’s by no motive as noble as the seeking of knowledge that I’ll set sail,” I broke in with painful truth.

“That I know. But except for the knowledge I helped you gain, you would not set sail. And now the time has come to make you a parting gift. Look in the chest.”

I did so, and brought forth an astrolabe of a model and a perfection of workmanship I had never seen. Showing off a little for my master, I explained to Miranda the essentials of its use. Figuring the arch of the sky as one hundred and eighty degrees, I could measure with this instrument the altitude of the North Star. This rose or fell as we traveled north or south: thus we could determine our degree of longitude, and by measuring other stars we could get a rough idea of our degree of latitude.

“With this, you can never be quite lost,” Mustapha told me. “Although you may suspect that you’ve passed the outmost rim of the world, by making your calculations you will know that the distance between you and home is measurable in miles. With more nearly perfect instruments, which time will bring, you could discover the exact number. Perhaps that number known in some distant age will not be quite as terrifying as the rough estimate you will make before the year is out—provided you live and do not turn back. I have a strange feeling that the world is as large as Eratosthenes calculated.^[11] And it’s a sphere hung and probably revolving in the midst of the heavens—make that the basis of all your orientation, or you will sink in a bog of error. But Marco my son, in all its unbelievable expanse, it is yet one world. The same sun causes sap to flow in Italy as in Cathay; the same moon sails the sky, the same stars burn in ineffable and eternal mystery. It cannot be but that the great seas interflow. The waves that rock your ship off the Spice Isles are made of water drops that have been blown in spray on the beach of Rimini. The rain that falls in your face might have come—and in the passing of the ages I believe it did come—from your own Lake Trasimeno.”

“It will be cold rain and lonely to hear,” Miranda said quietly after a long pause.

“I’m more afraid of the blown sand of the desert,” I said.

“Remember, it is all part of our world, the birthplace and dwelling place of man. What a strange habitation! Consider the brooks that meet and form streams, and the streams that join to make rivers, and the rivers winding in divine grace to their mother the sea. We know of the Danube, the Dnieper, the Don, the giant Volga, but is it true that beyond these is one that dwarfs them all? If so, there will be men like you venturing forth in boats or casting nets. They may vary from you slightly in form and face and color of skin, but they are men as sure as God exists, and I am sure of God because He made them. Take the far-flung steppes of Tatary, the wandering sands of the Kara Kum, and the wasteland of the Gobi that may be wider than Spain. Yet you will find them there, bravely battling the hell of heat or the deadly cold, watching their herds, building their tabernacles, hunting, fishing, daring, living. Is it true that north of India there are mountains snow-cloaked halfway down their sides under the burning sun? If so, you will find man’s tracks along with those of wild sheep, the wolf, and the bear. How can man live on the slopes of these colossi, beside craters belching fire, and in the track of avalanches, harried by winds that scream like lost souls in Hell and blow the snow in blinding, freezing clouds? Yet he does. He has found a way. He has acquired knowledge and cunning and craft whereby he can parry the cruel blows of nature.”

Mustapha paused to collect his thoughts. The beauty of his face was incomparable except with that of solemn seas or skies of stars. When he spoke again, his voice had the beauty of a great singing of all the people on some memorial day.

“Marco, it is well that we join hands with them. We have much to teach, so much more to learn. By common talk, by trade of good things, and by the fellowship of humanity itself, all the more thrilling because of our slight diversions from one another, men’s lives will be better, wars will cease, hate will die, scorn will be drowned in the sea, and God’s purpose—as far as I can see it with my weak eyes—will be fulfilled. And the first task is the opening of the roads. Not by men who go with noble aim, but by adventurers seeking gold or fame or just the burning, brimming cup of utmost life. It comes to me you are one of them. I had an inkling of it long ago and I dreamed of it in great joy. It is for that that I can bear to see you go.”

His throat worked, then he leaned back, spent. I rose and went to a cubby and brought forth a parting gift for Miranda. It was a lute, one as fine as she had played in the house of Simon ben Reuben. She gave me one great proud glance, then, without our asking, tuned the strings and began to play.

The room became brimful of lovely sound as with light from a magic lamp.

Beggarman O beggarman, out on the lea,

Did you pass a bold knight of high chivalry?

I gave him a kiss, I gave him a flower.

For he’s my true lover, Young Rob o’ the Tower.

I sat beside her, feeling as though the music came partly from me. Her hands were mine by some mysterious projection, their movements in harmony with the strange stirrings of my soul; her lips were mine by an old bond and they shaped the song as they had shaped a kiss she gave me. I was looking at her for the last time. That glance would hold a few minutes more, then, unless by some strange stroke of fate, I would never see her with waking eyes again. The word “desire” means “from a star,” and she had come to me as strangely as one star to another in the deeps of the sky. Her face and small, proud form were cast in beauty.

Of late, that beauty had increased. The change did not wholly derive from my own clearer sight; there had occurred a delicate transfiguration. Was its cause such a common thing as love?

I love you, Marion Redvers, daughter of a great house, who should be mistress of Castlebrook. I love you, blue-eyed waif.

I fear he’ll not wed you, fair maiden of Devon,

He died in the battle and rode on to Heaven;

And gifts that you gave him in sweet unbless’d hour

Will fetch you to Fire, not to Rob o’ the Tower.

The song, the melody, that particular shape of beauty, died away. And at that moment there rose Mustapha from his seat, tall, brown, his black eyes tear-wet, the skin drawn tight over his facial bones in augury of death.

“I’m going now to my gulphor, Marco my son, and I’ll bid you farewell.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me between the eyes. Then a door closed behind him.

“Then, Miranda, it’s time I said good-by.”

“Full time,” she answered.

“Why did you tell Paulos Angelos that he could sell you for twice the price I asked for you? Otherwise he wouldn’t have bought you.”

“You’ve no right to ask me, but I’ll answer. I wanted him to buy me.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to be chosen.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“Why should you?”

“For him to choose you as a slave to sell, or some buyer to choose you to keep?”

“Both of them.”

“Did you tell him the truth?”

“That’s not your lookout, but I’ll answer that, too. I told him the truth. Someone will pay that for me, and I’ll be worth it. He shall have my body and the joys of it and they will be greater joys than you can yet imagine. If I can give it to him, he shall have my love.”

“You knew I loved you.”

“Yes, but you didn’t choose me.”

“Do you know that I’ll love you greatly and forever?”

“You told me so, and I believe you, and my heart tells me so.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“Since I’ve fallen so low, it will take very little to make me happy. Anyway, I’ll strive for happiness.”

“Will I be happy? I bid you prophesy.”

“No. If you’d chosen me, you would be happy, but at what price?”

“Won’t even being a king in Cathay make me happy?”

Miranda laughed softly. “You can never find happiness now. You sold it for what you thought was a just price. It comes to me that every human being has one fair chance to buy it, one fair chance to sell it, and neither will ever come again. But Marco, you are doomed to wander over the face of the earth in this life and perhaps in the life to come.”

“Will you love me all that time?”

“You’ve no right to ask, but I’ll answer just the same. Yes, I’ll love you always. Now I’m done with prophesying, and my heart aches.”

“Tell me one more thing. Will I ever see you again?”

“We’ll see each other in dreams.”

At that instant Dasa, Mustapha’s servant, clapped his hands once, then drew aside the curtain.

“Young master, there is a marriage in the city, the bridegroom being a cousin of Arturo the gondolier, and he has left his post.”

“No matter. I’ll row the gondola myself, and leave it at the quay where hung Our Lady of Salvation.”

Dasa bowed and withdrew.

“You sang so beautifully,” I said to Miranda. “Will I ever hear your voice?”

“I’ll sing to you in your dreams.”

I looked at her, and this was the rendezvous I had with sorrow and loneliness. In its crying to her, my heart forgot to be proud.

“Have I lost the right to kiss you good-by?”

“Yes, but I’ll kiss you good-by.”

She came and put her arms around my neck and her lovely mouth against mine. I felt her whispering:

“When you lie cold and lonely, call me, and I’ll come.”

Doors closed behind me. I unfastened a rope from an iron ring. I mounted to the platform in the stern and dipped the long oar.

I could have headed straight into the lagoon but instead I rowed past our little quay. Then out on the balcony came my beloved, her eyes glimmering with tears, her lute in her white hands. The sunlight glistened on her flaxen hair.

She sang to me of a little maid of Devon and her lost lover. I stroked in time with the music, long, strong strokes, and the boat bore me swiftly on my way. When I was too far for notes to carry, I still saw her, her hand raised in identification and salute. And the music seemed to linger in the little cabin, as though I were taking it with me across the world, to be my companion always.