Rachel's body felt cold. She knew the night outside was warm despite the
lateness of the hour, and the room was stifling, with all its candles
and the heavy silk draperies that held in the heat. But her feet and
hands were icy. It was fear that chilled her so as she sat half
listening to Tilia. She huddled in a corner of the big bed, her feet
tucked under her, her hands clenched in her lap. She wanted to jump out
the window.
Only, she was here of her own free will. And anyway the window was
barred.
"We will be watching through spy holes in the walls," said Tilia. "There
will be at least three of us. If he hurts you in any way, we will be
here in a trice to rescue you."
Tilia Caballo had a face like a frog, Rachel thought. The fat old woman
was trying to be reassuring, but just now Rachel hated her. She could
not believe Tilia would interfere with a wealthy client's pleasure no
matter how badly a girl of hers was being hurt.
The skepticism must have shown in her face, because Tilia had said, "I
know this man. He has been here five times. He is not the kind that
likes to hurt women. I do have patrons of that sort. For them I supply
women like Olivia. Sometime when you are not so frightened I may tell
you what Olivia likes men to do to her. Of course, she pretends not to
like it. Her clients would get no pleasure if they knew Olivia _wanted_
them to do what they do. But no matter how I gain my livelihood, I am
still a woman of honor." She glowered fiercely at Rachel, jowls
quivering slightly. "I do not allow certain things to take place in my
house. I do not allow my women to be mistreated."
"I know," said Rachel. "That is why I have not run away."
"You need not speak of running away," said Tilia loftily. "The door will
be open for you whenever you wish to walk through it." Rachel believed
that, just as she had believed gruff Lorenzo Celino when he told her
she did not have to go to Tilia's house. But she also knew that if she
had not come here, or if she chose now to walk out that door, these
people would do nothing more for her.
Staying, much as she might hate what would happen to her, was better
than wandering alone on the roads of Italy.
She looked up at the canopy over the bed. It was peach-colored, as were
the bed curtains. The walls of the small room were hung with yellow silk
drapes framing frescoes showing nude, smiling women fleeing from
creatures that were half man and half goat, with things that stuck out
before them like spears.
"Real men do not have pizzles as big as that," Tilia had said when she
first showed Rachel the room, pointing with a grin at a bright red
organ. "Although it may look that big to you the first time you see one
in all its glory." Tilia had stopped joking then, and had carefully told
her exactly what would happen on this night.
_I am better prepared_, Rachel thought, _than many a woman is on her
wedding night_.
Indeed, her own mother, months before she died, had already explained
much of this to Rachel. But the thought of her mother fairly broke her
heart now. Her mother would cut her own throat if she could see Rachel
in this place, about to let a man do this thing to her for money.
Her body shrank with dread.
She would rather, far rather, be the ignorant bride of a carpenter or a
traveling merchant like her poor Angelo, who had been her husband in
name only, or even the wife of a butcher, than to lie here in this
gorgeously decorated room and give her most precious gift to a stranger
who had bought the right to deflower her.
She found herself wishing poor old Angelo had asserted his right as her
husband so that she could not now let her virginity be defiled.
_Thank God Angelo is not alive to see this! But if he had lived, I would
not be doing this._
_God will never forgive me._
_But if God does not want me to do what I am doing, why did He let this
happen to me?_
Tilia sat beside the bed in a big chair with a curved bottom. The
jeweled cross she wore--which reminded Rachel that she was among
Christians here and therefore not safe--rested on her bosom, half
covered by the gold lace bordering the neckline of her gown. The cross
quivered minutely with Tilia's heartbeat.
"You are probably wondering, child, whether you are doing the right
thing."
"Yes." Rachel was so choked with fear that she could only whisper the
word.
"Well, I can tell you there are thousands of women who would give
anything to be in your place."
"In my place? To become a putana?"
Tilia laughed. "You think most women are contentedly married, with
husbands to take care of them, with children who love them and neighbors
who respect them--while only a few like me and the women who work for me
are putane, whom the rest look down on. Well, listen to me, little one,
other women _envy_ us. A married woman sells herself, body and soul, to
be some man's slave for life. And she gets damned little in return. We
rent out this little part of our anatomy"--she patted her lap--"for a
moment, and we keep the profit for ourselves. If we are clever, as I
have been, we learn how to keep and increase our money. So when we no
longer have youth and beauty to sell, we can take care of ourselves. And
I tell you that a woman in her later years is likely to be a better
friend to herself than any husband."
_She speaks with conviction. But I cannot trust her, either. I have not
had a true friend in this world since Angelo was killed._
Rachel sighed. "It is just that after tonight there is no turning back.
This is for the rest of my life."
"That is right," said Tilia. "You will give up something that you can
lose only once. When you have a commodity as unique as that, my child,
you owe it to yourself to get the most you can for it." Her eyes
hardened. "Every man wants to be the first to pierce a woman and hear
her cry out and make her bleed. But what woman gets anything worth
having in return? She gives it away on a dark night to some furfante
with a smooth tongue and a handsome leg, or else the tonto she married
takes it from her and then tells her to go wash the bed linen." She
turned to stare at Rachel. "Do you know what I got for my virginity?"
Her cheeks were red with anger.
"What did you get, Signora?" The heat with which Tilia spoke reassured
Rachel. This was what the woman really felt. She was not just talking to
lead Rachel astray.
"Blows and slavery." Tilia thrust her face close to Rachel's to
underline her words. "Blows and slavery. The Genoese, may leprosy devour
their limbs and may their prickles fall off in their hands, raided
Otranto. They raped me--that was how I lost _my_ virginity. They sold me
to the Turks."
"You were a slave to the Turks?" Rachel gasped. "Where?" And how did she
escape them and come to Orvieto and grow so rich and fat?
Tilia looked away. "Never mind. It would take too long to tell you."
Rachel sensed that there was something here Tilia did not want to talk
about. But she resolved to pry the story out of her one day.
Tilia's head swung back to face her. "Have I told you what you are
getting this night for giving this man this proud moment of possessing a
virgin?"
"I--I do not remember." Tilia had named a figure, but it had been so
outrageous and Rachel had been so frightened by the prospect that she
had promptly forgotten it.
"By the five wounds of Jesus, you truly are a child, not to remember
something so important! Well, fix it in your mind this time, and think
of it when you are wondering whether you are doing right. Five hundred
golden florins. Five hundred, newly minted in Florence. That is your
share. That is half of what he is paying. The other half is mine, as is
only just. Think of it. He pays the price of a palazzo for you because
you are a very young, beautiful virgin, and that is what he most
desperately desires. Compare that with what most women get when they let
a man have them for the first time."
_That is far more money than Angelo ever saw in his whole life. Who is
this man who will pay so much to have me?_ Rachel supposed Tilia would
tell her who the man was if she asked, but she had decided it was better
not to know anything about him ahead of time. That way she could imagine
that he would be someone kind and gentle.
"I do not know what I will do with all that money," Rachel said softly.
_If I lose it, all this will have been for nothing._
Tilia's wide mouth stretched even wider in a grin. "I will show you how
to plant it."
"Plant it?"
"Yes, and then watch it grow. There are many, many fields in which to
plant money. You can place it with the Templars or certain Lombards or
men I know among your own Jews, and they use it, and when they give it
back to you there is more. Miracolo! Or you can buy beautiful and
valuable things with it, whose worth increases as they get older. Or you
can buy shares in a ship of Venice or Pisa, or even"--she spat--"Genoa,
or a German caravan, and when the caravan or the ship comes back, if it
comes back, you get your money back tenfold. That is risky, but it is
the quickest way to great wealth."
Rachel felt a momentary excitement. Then she remembered how she was
going to get the money. Her body felt colder than ever, cold as death.
This, she thought, must be the way that poor man they killed last week
felt when he was waiting for the torturers to come for him. She
shuddered and hugged her knees tight against her chest under the gauzy
gown Tilia had given her to wear.
Tilia must have seen the sudden darkening of her mood. She moved over to
the bed and sat down beside Rachel, making the frame of the bed groan
alarmingly. She put a hand lightly on Rachel's arm.
"Listen, Rachel. I was raped. I will not be party to the rape of
another. You do not have to do this. Just tell me that you do not want
to."
A sudden heat rushed through Rachel's body. She was no longer cold. She
burned with anger.
"Stop saying that!" she screamed. "Will you leave me alone?" Being
reminded over and over again that she was doing this of her own free
will was an even worse torture than imagining what the man would do to
her.
_Oh, God, I am going to cry and make myself ugly, and he will not want
me and I will not get the five hundred florins._
She pressed her hands against her face, trying to stop tears.
"I was asking you to think, not carry on," said Tilia reprovingly. "If
you want to walk well in life, you had better learn not to burst into
tears when you have an important decision to make."
Rachel took deep breaths to calm herself.
"I decided days ago that I could not do any better for myself than this,
Signora Tilia. But I am so afraid. Perhaps the man will not want me when
he sees how afraid I am."
Tilia grinned broadly. "Nonsense. The more innocent and timid you
appear, the more you will delight him."
Rachel heard a light tapping at the door, and her heart beat so hard she
thought it would burst.
Tilia rose, brushing down her green satin gown. "The signal that he has
arrived. I thought he would never get here. It's almost morning. I must
go down and greet him, child. But remember, I will be watching
everything."
_I do not really like that._
Tilia winked and pushed on what looked like a plaster panel between two
gold-painted beams in the wall. It swung away from her and she squeezed
through.
Rachel sat in the bed, drawn up into the corner of it that was farthest
from the door, and waited. She played nervously with fingers that felt
like icicles.
A short time later she caught a glimpse of Tilia pushing open the door,
but her eyes fixed on the man standing in the doorway.
She drew in a deep, gasping breath. She wanted to scream.
The man standing in the doorway was short and broad. He wore a long,
brightly colored silk robe. His skin was brown, his eyes little black
slits. A white mustache drooped below his flat nose. A thin white beard
like a goat's hung from his chin.
She had seen this man once before, when she watched from the window of
Sophia's room at Cardinal Ugolini's, the day he arrived in Orvieto in a
great procession.
Rachel's breath, so long held, burst out of her in a moan.
The man who had come to take her virginity was a Tartar.
* * * * *
"It was as much by my choice as the cardinal's that I did not attend the
contessa's reception," said Friar Mathieu, yawning. "How could a Little
Brother of San Francesco stay up till all hours with people stuffing
themselves with rich food and drinking wine? And gambling, and kissing
each other in dark corners?"
The old Franciscan's eyes were watery with sleepiness, but the corners
of his mouth quirked with humor under his white mustache. He sat on the
edge of the cot, which, as he had insisted when he moved into the
Palazzo Monaldeschi, was the only piece of furniture in the room. Simon
paced the floor, unable to stand still.
Simon felt the barb in the mention of kissing, but he did not mind it.
When he routed Friar Mathieu out of his narrow bed in a remote corner of
the palace, he admitted at once that he had been in the atrium with
Ugolini's niece, Sophia, while David of Trebizond was so disastrously
baiting the Tartars.
"I was wrong to pay court to the cardinal's niece." He could still feel
her lips under his, still taste them, and his body tingled at the
remembrance. "I am as much at fault as de Verceuil. But it was he who
found that ignorant woman to replace you as interpreter, and then he
went off to gamble--with David's servant, of all people--and left the
Tartars alone and unprotected."
Friar Mathieu shook his head. "Yes, and drinking that wine of
Montefiascone. I wonder why God chose to make those particular grapes so
irresistible."
Simon pounded his fist into his palm. "We must confront de Verceuil,
Friar Mathieu."