Zoë and the astrologer sat in the covered balcony in full view of the
secretary, who remained near the door, straining his sharp ears in
vain to catch some words of the whispered conversation. The maids had
been dismissed. From time to time Gorlias spoke aloud, pointing with
his compass to different parts of the figure, but what he said only
made it more impossible to guess at what he whispered. Zoë sat almost
motionless, but she had opened the folds of her veil so as to uncover
her mouth, and after her companion had been speaking some time she
bent down and answered in his ear, pretending, however, to point to
the figures on the paper, as if she were asking questions.
The substance of what Gorlias told her was that he and his friends
were interested in a mighty enterprise, and had often tried to sound
Carlo Zeno with regard to helping them to carry it out, but they had
met with no success, for he either did not understand, or he would
not. Messer Sebastian Polo, whose house he frequented, was a timid
man, and was not to be trusted with such a secret; moreover, he was so
extremely anxious to make Zeno marry his daughter, that he would
certainly never allow him to run any risks.
All this he put very clearly, and Omobono might have been surprised
to learn that he had not used any password. Then Zoë bent down to his
ear.
'What is the name of Sebastian Polo's daughter?' she asked.
'Giustina,' whispered the astrologer. 'The sun near to mid-heaven,' he
continued aloud, 'and in trine aspect to Mars, signifies fine horses
and a retinue of servants.' He dropped his voice again. 'She is
thirty, and has had the smallpox,' he whispered.
'The master has only been here once since I came,' said Zoë, bending
to his ear again. 'I have no influence with him.'
Gorlias turned his face towards her in slow surprise.
'Had he not seen you before he bought you, Kokóna Arethusa?' he
enquired.
'Yes, indeed!'
'Oh! I thought that you also might have had the smallpox,' was the
whispered answer.
Zoë could not help laughing a little. The pretty notes, muffled by the
veil, seemed to come from far away. It was the first time she had
laughed naturally since many weeks. The astrologer bent nearer to her
when she was silent again, and spoke aloud, pointing to his figure.
'Venus is in the Seventh House in benign aspect to the Moon,' he said
aloud. 'You will be fortunate in love.' Then he whispered again, 'I
will give you a philtre that has never failed. The next time he
comes----'
Zoë shook her head decidedly, with something that looked like
indignation.
'It is for a good matter, Kokóna,' Gorlias answered. 'If you will
help us, you shall have pearls and diamonds, and gold and liberty.'
'Liberty? How?'
Gorlias thought that he had tempted her with that, at least.
'If you will promise your help with Messer Carlo, I will tell you.'
'How can I promise what is not mine to give?' asked the girl.
The astrologer was not discouraged, and after more talk about the
planets, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the maids if they were
listening at the door, he went on quickly again.
'Messer Carlo is a man who loves adventures, who has led desperate and
forlorn hope to victory, both in Italy and Greece, who has the gift of
the leader, if ever a man had it. Surely, you knew all this.'
'I know he has been a soldier,' Zoë answered, for Zeno had told her
so.
'He also possesses some fortune, and has great connexions in Venice.
Moreover, I can tell you, Kokóna, that this is no small matter. If he
succeeds, he will earn gratitude of the Serene Republic and honour
everywhere.'
'As much as that?' asked Zoë, looking attentively at the astrologer
through her veil. 'How am I to believe you?'
'I thought I had spoken clearly enough,' Gorlias answered, 'but lest
you should doubt my word and promise, take these.'
He had furtively slipped his hand into the bosom of his tunic, and
when he withdrew it his fingers closed over something he held gathered
in his palm. Cleverly turning the sheet of paper on which he had shown
his astrological figures, so as to hinder Omobono from seeing, he
disclosed to Zoë a short string of very large and beautiful pearls.
'In your nativity,' he rattled on, aloud, 'the beneficent influences
altogether outweigh the malefic ones.'
He said much more to the same effect, and while he was speaking he let
the pearls slip down upon the skirts of Zoë's over-garment on the side
away from the secretary.
'They are yours,' he whispered. 'You shall have a hundred strings like
them if you succeed.'
'Give such things to my maids,' Zoë answered, 'not to me! If you are
in earnest make a sign, that I may know whence you come.'
'A sign?' repeated Gorlias, as if not understanding.
'Yes, where?' Her mouth was close to his ear as she whispered the
question, and she turned her ear towards him for the answer.
He hesitated, and for the first time the dull fixedness of his
expression was momentarily dispelled by a very faint look of surprise.
'I ask, where?' Zoë repeated, with strong emphasis, bending to him
again.
'Over the water,' he answered at last.
'Both salt and fresh,' she replied instantly.
Gorlias looked at her veiled face long.
'Who are you?' he asked at length. 'Who taught you these things?' He
glanced suspiciously at Omobono, who, as he had reason to believe, was
acquainted with the secret.
Zoë shook her head.
'No,' she answered. 'One greater than he taught me what I know. You
may go now, for your message is delivered. What I can do, I will do,
and there is no more to say, for it is my own cause as well as
his--the cause of justice, and God is with it.'
Gorlias spoke aloud again, and brought his explanation of the
horoscope to a conclusion by informing Zoë that if she wished to know
the smaller details of her wonderful future, she must consult him at
intervals, as the phases of the moon had a great influence on her
fate.
'When the Kokóna wishes to see me,' he said, rising, 'Messer Omobono
will send for me, and I will come.'
Before Zoë realised that he had not picked up the string of pearls, he
had made his obeisance and was at the door with Omobono, who bowed low
to her, and ushered him out.
When she was alone she took the necklace from the folds of her dress,
where it had lain, and looked at it a moment before she hid it in her
bosom. For she would not allow the maids to see it, and was already
debating how she should hide it till she could find an opportunity of
giving it back. But when the cold pearls touched her flesh they sent a
little chill to her heart, and she thought it was somehow like a
warning.
She understood well enough what had happened, for she was
quick-witted. Rustan, who had shown that he knew the secret, and his
wife, who had spoken to him of Gorlias, had told the latter that Carlo
Zeno was in love with a beautiful Greek slave, who could, of course,
be easily induced by gifts to use her influence with her master. For
Zeno's past deeds had already woven a sort of legend about his name,
so that even the soldiers talked of him among themselves, and told
stories of the desperate bravery and amazing skill with which he had
kept a small Turkish army at bay in Greece with a handful of men for
nearly a whole year, and many other tales, of which the most fantastic
was less strange than much that afterwards happened to him in his
life.
It must have seemed easy enough to the astrologer, and even to Omobono
perhaps; but it looked strangely impossible to Zoë herself, when she
remembered her only interview with the man whom she was now pledged to
win over.
The whole situation was known to her. A conspiracy was on foot to take
the Emperor Johannes from his prison and restore him to the throne,
imprisoning his son Andronicus in the Amena tower in his stead.
Thousands of John's loyal subjects recognised each other by passwords,
and talked secretly of a great rising, in which some foresaw vengeance
for the wrongs they had suffered, while others, like the Bokharian
Rustan, hoped for fortune, reward, and perhaps honour. But the body of
the army was not with them yet, the disaffected men lacked skill or
courage to preach the cause of the lawful Emperor to their comrades,
and the revolution had no guiding spirit. It is far easier to choose a
general among soldiers than to pick out a leader of revolt amongst
untried and untrained men.
Before he lost his liberty the Emperor had known Zeno, and though a
weak man, had judged him rightly. In his prison he possessed means of
communicating occasionally with his friends, and he had instructed
them to ask Zeno's help; but so far his message had either not been
delivered or Zeno had been deaf to the appeal, perhaps judging that
the time was not come for the attempt, or that, after all, the cause
was not a good one. Having failed to move him in all other ways, the
revolutionaries had seized the unexpected opportunity that now
presented itself.
The thought that such a man might turn the tide of history, restore
the rightful sovereign to the throne, and avenge the awful death of
Michael Rhangabé, had crossed Zoë's mind when she had first seen her
purchaser in Rustan's house, for the born leader and fighting man
generally has something in his face that is not to be mistaken; but to
influence Carlo was another matter, as she had understood when he had
supped with her. It would be as hard to induce him to do anything he
was not inclined to do of his own accord as it would be impossible to
hinder him from attempting whatever he chose to try. As for winning
him to the cause by gentler means, the high-born girl blushed at the
suggestion. He was certainly not in love with her at first sight; of
that she was as sure as that she did not love him either.
Yet while she was thinking, she suddenly wondered whether Gorlias had
spoken the truth about Giustina Polo. Was she really thirty, and was
her face pitted like a cheese-grater, as Gorlias had told her? If she
was ugly, why did Zeno go to Polo's house so often? For Zoë had no
doubt but that he went there every time he was rowed up the Golden
Horn in his pretty skiff. He was always carefully dressed when he
stepped into his boat; it was not for old Polo that he wore such fine
clothes.
She was very lonely now. During the first two days she had rested
herself in her luxurious surroundings, not without the excitement of
expecting another visit from Zeno, and she had thought with
satisfaction of all the comfort her sacrifice must have brought to her
adopted mother, to the little boys, and to poor old Nectaria. But now
she wished she could at least be sure that all was well with them,
though she was rather sadly conscious that she did not miss them as
she had thought she must. During many months she had nursed Kyría
Agatha most tenderly, and had helped the old slave to take care of the
children; the last weeks had been spent in abject misery, the last
days in the final struggle with starvation and sickness, and still she
had bravely done her best. Yet she had long felt that Kyría Agatha had
not much real affection for her, and would let her starve herself to
death to feed her and the boys. It would have been otherwise if
Rhangabé had lived; she would have willingly died of hunger for him,
but he was gone, and though she had done and borne the impossible, it
had not been for her own blood, but for the sake of the good and brave
man's memory. He was in peace, after the agony of his death, his wife
and his sons were provided for, so far as Zoë could provide by giving
her freedom and her life for them. As far as she could she had paid
her debt of gratitude to the dead, and the debt that was not wiped out
was due to her; those who had murdered Rhangabé owed her his
unspeakable sufferings and every precious drop of his heart's blood.
They should pay. If she lived, they should pay all to the uttermost.
And now, fate had placed within her reach the instrument of vengeance,
the bravest, rashest, wisest, most desperate of mankind. Her heart had
silently and joyfully drunk in every word that Gorlias had said about
the man who owned her as he owned the carpet under her feet, the roof
over her head, and the clothes that covered her.
He was within her reach, but he was not within her power. Not yet. Her
mood had changed, and for a while, not knowing what she dreamt of, she
wished that she were indeed one of those Eastern enchantresses of whom
she had often heard, without half understanding, who roused men to
frenzy, or lulled their lovers to sleep and ruin, as they would; she
wished she were that wicked Antonina, for whom brave, pure-hearted
Belisarius had humbled himself in the dust; she wished she were
Theodora, shamelessly great and fair, an imperial Vision of Sin,
compelling to her heel the church-going, priest-haunted master of half
the known world--Justinian. She knew the story of her adopted
country. What had either of those women that she had not, wherewith
to master a man?
Then the tide of shame came back, and she turned her face away from
the empty room, as if it had guessed her thoughts; and then, to get
away from them, she called her maids, clapping her hands sharply. They
came running in and stood before her.
'Go, Yulia,' she said, 'find the secretary and beg him to come to me.'
While she waited, she made Lucilla arrange her veil again so that it
hid her face, and this was scarcely done when Omobono was ushered in
by the other girl. He bowed to Zoë and gravely stroked his pointed
beard.
'What is the Kokóna's pleasure?' he asked, after a pause.
'Do you speak Latin?' Zoë enquired, in that language.
The little man drew himself up proudly, and cleared his throat.
'In my family we have been notaries for five generations,' he
answered, in language that was comprehensible but would have filled an
average Churchman with vague uneasiness, and would have made Cicero's
ashes rattle in their urn.
Zoë was satisfied, however, for though her maids might understand
Italian, she was quite sure that Latin was beyond them. She herself
spoke it far more correctly than Omobono, though with a rather lisping
Greek accent. She could not have helped saying 'vonus' for 'bonus,'
'eyo' for 'ego,' and 'Thominus' for 'Dominus.'
'Where is Thominus Carolus?' she enquired, so suddenly that the
secretary was almost taken off his guard.
'He is--he is gone out,' he answered.
'Yes. He is gone to dine with Messer Sebastian Polo. He goes there two
or three times a week.'
Zoë watched the secretary's face with amusement; his surprise was
comical.
'Then the man is really an astrologer,' he said, in a wondering tone,
'and star-gazing is not all nonsense!'
'Sebastian Polo's daughter is young and beautiful,' observed Zoë, who
apparently did not place implicit faith in astrology.
Omobono's face and gesture expressed a qualified assent, but he said
nothing.
'Tell me at once,' said Zoë, 'that she is thirty, that her complexion
resembles the dust when it is pitted by raindrops after a shower----'
'That would not be true,' cried the secretary. 'Giustina Polo is not
supremely beautiful, but she is young and pretty, and as fresh as
roses.'
'But she is very poor,' suggested Zoë. 'She has no dowry.'
'Who says so?' asked Omobono indignantly. 'The house of Sebastian Polo
is as prosperous as any in Constantinople! He is as rich as any
Venetian here except, perhaps, Marin Cornèr!'
'Then it is true that the master is going to marry his daughter,' Zoë
replied, as if stating a fact that could no longer be denied.
She was rapidly working the secretary into a state of excitement in
which his Latin grammar went to the winds.
'No, indeed!' he cried. 'It is altogether a lie! Who has told you such
things?'
'She is young, pretty, fresh as roses, and very rich,' said Zoë,
recapitulating. 'Did you not say so?'
'Yes----'
'And the master goes to dine in her father's house three times a
week----'
'Perhaps----'
'Do you suppose that Polo would invite the master so often unless he
wanted him for his daughter?'
'Perhaps not----'
'Or that the master would wilfully deceive Polo and the girl?'
'What are you saying?'
'Simply that Thominus Carolus is going to marry Thomna Justina.'
'But I tell you----'
'Either you are very simple, or you think I am,' interrupted Zoë, with
crushing logic. 'Which shall it be, Master Secretary?'
Omobono thought her a terrible young person just then. He spread out
his hands and looked up to the ceiling in despair, but still
protesting.
'And meanwhile,' she continued, 'what is the master going to do with
me? Am I to be locked up here for ever?'
If anything could further disturb Omobono's equanimity it was this
question. His gentle temper was beginning to be ruffled.
'How can I tell?' he asked. 'He will do what he thinks best! Ask him
yourself!'
After all, she was only a slave, he said in his heart, and he was the
descendant of five generations of notaries. What right had she to
cross-examine him? He was the more angry with her for asking the
question, because his own curiosity had tormented him for days to find
an answer to it.
'Omobono,' Zoë said, affecting a very grave tone, 'you know very well
what the master means to do. Now I ask you solemnly, and you are
warned that you must answer me--by four----'
'No, no!' cried the secretary, in sudden distress. 'Do not ask me by
that!'
'I must, Omobono; and of course you have been told what you have to
expect if you refuse to help a friend over the water.'
She emphasised the last words in a way that made him tremble.
'Yes, yes--I know----' he said feebly, though he had not the least
notion of the penalty.
'You will be broken to pieces by inches with a small hammer, beginning
at the tips of your fingers till there is not a whole bone in your
body. That is only the beginning.'
Omobono's knees knocked together.
'Then your skin will be turned inside out over your head and your
living heart will be cut out of your body, Omobono, and you will die.'
The secretary had already such belief in the power of those who knew
the magic words that he turned pale and the cold sweat stood on his
forehead.
'If all this were to be done to me now,' he faltered, 'I could not
tell you what the master intends!'
She saw that it was the truth.
'Very well,' she said; 'then you must manage that he shall come here
to-day as soon as he returns from Polo's house.'
'I will tell him that you have asked to see him----'
'No. Tell him that I shall fall ill if I am shut up in these rooms any
longer, and that if he does not believe it, he had better come and see
how I am. He will probably take your advice. I do not choose to show
you my face, but I assure you I am very pale, and I have no appetite.'
'He will come,' said the secretary confidently.
'You can also do me another service, Omobono,' continued Zoë. 'I have
learned that last Friday, when you went to find Rustan about buying
me, you came upon him in the beggars' quarter, near the church of
Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, at a house where some very poor
people lived. This is true, is it not?'
Omobono nodded, wondering how she knew of the circumstance.
'A poor woman lay there ill, with children and a very old nurse, and
Rustan gave them something. I wish to know how these poor people are,
and where they live, if they have left that house. I am sure the
master is charitable, and will let you give them something if they are
still in need. There were two little boys, and there was a grown girl
besides the sick woman and the other.'
'You know everything!' cried Omobono. 'The man must be a great
astrologer! I will go myself to the beggars' quarter and do your
bidding.'
Zoë had played her little comedy because she had by this time guessed
the man's character, and wished to make sure that she could rely on
his help in anything she decided to do; for it was clear that whenever
Zeno was absent, the secretary was in charge of the whole
establishment, and the servants would obey him without hesitation. As
Gorlias had told him, whatever he did was right in their eyes.
That he was in haste to do her bidding she discovered before the
afternoon was half over, for as she sat in her window she saw him go
down to wait for his master at the marble steps, and he walked slowly
on the strip of black and white pavement by the water's edge.
At last he stood still, and looked towards Blachernæ, for the skiff
was in sight. Zoë drew her veil across her face and rested her head
against the right-hand side of the open window as if she were very
tired, and she did not move from this position as the boat came near.
Zeno was leaning back in the stern, and could not help seeing her as
he approached the house, but from her attitude he thought she did not
see him, and he looked up at her steadily for two or three seconds.
She was quite motionless.
Omobono stood by the water's edge as Zeno stepped ashore, and asked
permission to say a few words to him at once. Zeno dismissed the boat
by a gesture.
'Has anything happened?' he asked, glancing up at the window again.
Zoë had not moved, but she could see him through her veil. Then the
two men walked up and down, while Omobono spoke in a low tone, but
though she could not hear the words she knew what the substance was.
Then came Zeno's voice, cold and clear.
'Certainly not,' he said decidedly. 'I shall do nothing of the sort!
If she has no appetite send for a doctor. Do you take me for one? Send
for old Solomon the Jewish physician. He is the best, and he is an old
man. If he says the girl needs air, take her out in the boat, her and
the maids, on fine mornings.'
A question from Omobono followed, which Zoë could not hear distinctly.
Zeno was evidently annoyed.
'Omobono, you are a good man,' he said; 'but you have no more sense
than a cackling hen! Never think! It is not your strong point. When
you do just what I tell you, you never make a mistake.'
The secretary's voice was heard again, low and indistinct.
'No,' answered Zeno. 'You need not go and tell her what I have said,
for she has probably heard every word of it herself, from the window.
It is useless ever to tell women anything. They always know before
they are told.'
Thereupon Zeno went in, apparently in a bad temper. If anything can
make a woman angry when she is overhearing a conversation about
herself, it is to hear it said that she is undoubtedly listening. Zoë
had not hidden herself, and Zeno must have meant her to hear what he
was saying, but she felt the more deeply insulted. Her cheek burned,
and she drew back her veil to feel the cool air. So he had no
intention of coming to see her again! A Jewish doctor and an airing in
the boat, with Omobono for company! And she had been told that she had
been listening--it was not to be borne! She threw her veil on one
side, her silk shawl on the other, and then walked up and down the
long room with restless steps, like a young wild animal in a cage.
The little maids picked up the things and watched her uneasily, for
she had always seemed very gentle. They looked at her with wide eyes
now, and their gaze irritated her, till she felt that she wanted to
box their ears, and wished she had the negress's whip in her belt.
Then, without any apparent reason, she threw her arms round the one
that stood nearest and kissed the astonished girl a dozen times,
almost lifting her from the floor. As she let her go, she laughed
nervously at herself.
She was thirsty, and she drank off a tall glass of cold water at a
draught; and all the time she was unconsciously repeating one phrase
to herself.
'He shall pay me for this, he shall pay me for this!'
The words rang in her ears, to a sort of silly tune that would not go
away. There is a vile natural hurdy-gurdy somewhere in our brains, and
when we are angry, or in love, or broken-hearted, or otherwise beside
ourselves, it plays its absurd little tunes at us till we are ready to
go mad. I sometimes think that devil's music may have brought on the
final fatal irritation against life, that has decided the fate of many
half-mad suicides.
'He shall pay me for this!' She heard the words keeping time with her
movements; she walked slower--faster, but it made no difference, for
the infernal little notes took the beat from her steps.
She had not the least notion how Zeno was to pay for having made her
so very angry, and that question did not obtrude itself on her
thoughts till her temper was beginning to subside; then she suddenly
felt how utterly helpless she was, and her wrath boiled up again. The
only way of paying him out that suggested itself was to throw herself
out of the window. Then he would be sorry for what he had done.
Would he? He would probably send Omobono to have her corpse taken away
as quickly as possible. And the day after to-morrow he would go again
to see Giustina Polo in her father's house, and she would have thrown
herself out of the window for nothing. Besides, it would be wicked.
She realised how childish her thoughts were, and she sat down to
think--'like a grown-up woman,' she said to herself. But just then she
remembered Zeno's words to Omobono. 'Never think, for it is not your
strong point,' he had said to his secretary; but he had of course
meant it for her. Everything had been meant for her. She wished she
could hold his brown throat in her hands and dig her little nails into
it.
Appetite, indeed! Was it strange that she should not be hungry? How
could any one eat who lived such a life, shut up between four
walls?--with a tyrant downstairs who did not even take the trouble to
come and look at her, but sent his silly old clerk to keep her
company! He took trouble enough to go and see Giustina Polo!
This was thinking 'like a grown-up woman,' as she had proposed to do!
She was disgusted with herself, and looked about for something to
occupy her thoughts. There were sweetmeats, whole boxes of sweetmeats
of every sort. Twice already they had been emptied and refilled with
fresh ones, since she had been brought to the house. That was Zeno's
idea of what a woman needed to occupy her thoughts and be happy!
Sweetmeats! Preserve of rose-leaves! Figs in syrup! That was all he
knew of her wants!
She lay back among her cushions, her brown eyes gleamed angrily, her
lips were a little parted, and her nostrils quivered now and then as
she drew a sharp breath. Presently, she called Yulia to her side.
'Go to the secretary,' she said, 'and tell him to send me a book.'
'A book?' repeated the slave stupidly, for she had never seen a woman
who could read.
'Yes. A book in Greek, Latin, or Italian; it does not matter which. I
am sick of doing nothing. Tell him to be quick, too,' she added, in a
tone of authority.
The girl tripped away and found Omobono in the counting-house on the
ground floor. He was in a bad humour too, but in his case it took the
form of dignified sorrow. His master had compared him to a fowl, and
to one that cackled.
'What does she want with a book?' he asked, in a dreary tone, looking
up from his accounts.
'To read, I think, sir,' answered the little maid timidly; 'and she
told me to beg you to let her have it soon.'
'As if a slave could read!' He looked about him in a melancholy way,
and rose to take from the shelf above his head a good-sized volume
bound in soft brown leather, with little thongs tied in slip knots,
for clasps, to keep it shut.
'Take her that,' he said, thrusting the book into the girl's hands.
Yulia took it, and before she had left the room Omobono was gravely
busy with his figures again; but each time he added up a column the
sum seemed to be 'cackling hen,' instead of anything reasonable. But
Yulia ran upstairs.
Zoë untied the thongs and opened the book in the middle. An
exclamation of anger and disgust escaped her lips. The secretary, who
did not believe she could really read, though she spoke Latin
fluently, had sent an old volume of accounts in answer to her request.
There were pages and pages of entries and columns of figures, all
neatly written in his small, clear hand, on stout cotton paper. Here
and there some one else had made a note, as if checking his work.
Zoë pushed the book away from her on the divan, and it fell over the
edge and lay face downwards and open on the floor. Then the little
tune began again in her head.
'He shall pay me for this!'
She wished he would open the door noiselessly and be all at once
beside her, as on that first evening. That had been Friday, and to-day
was Wednesday; five days had gone by. Counting Friday there were six,
and six days were practically a week! She had been under his roof a
whole week and he had only cared to see her face once.
'He shall pay me for this!'
The tune went on, and she quite forgot how she had longed for death,
and how his first anticipated coming had been dreadful beyond anything
she had ever suffered, beyond cold, starvation, and misery. Or if she
remembered it at all, she told herself that the man she had seen was
not the kind of man she had expected, and that she had nothing to fear
from him. She was quite sure of that.
She turned on one side, as she half lay on the divan, till she could
reach the account-book to pick it up. One of the maids jumped up from
the carpet to help her.
'Go away!' she exclaimed crossly, for she had got hold of the cover
and had drawn the volume over the edge of the divan. 'I will call if I
want anything.'
The girls slipped away in silence and left her alone. She turned over
the pages with a sort of angry curiosity, half expecting to find an
entry concerning slaves bought and sold like herself. Just then she
could have believed Zeno capable of anything.
But though she found a great many strange words which she did not
understand, and which referred to tonnage, insurance, profit and
loss, and all the complicated matters of an Eastern merchant's
business, there was nothing which could possibly be interpreted to
mean that Zeno had dealt in humanity, as most of the Venetians who
lived in Constantinople certainly did. Sebastian Polo's name occurred
very often. Large sums had been paid to him, and other large sums had
been received from him. It was clear that the two men were in close
relations of business, and constantly made ventures together, dividing
the profits and sharing the losses.
That might account for Zeno's constant visits to his fellow-merchant,
though Zoë was not inclined to admit such a view. On the contrary, she
made herself believe that Zeno dealt with Polo solely in order to make
an excuse for seeing more of the latter's daughter. He should pay for
that, too! The little tune hammered away in her head at a great rate.
She clapped her hands.
'Take this back to the secretary,' she said, giving the book to Yulia.
'Tell him I am not a merchant's clerk, and that I want something to
read.'
Again little Yulia tripped downstairs to the ground floor. But the
counting-house was locked, and the men-servants told her that Omobono
had gone out. She would not leave the book with them, for she had a
superstitiously exaggerated idea of the value of all written things;
therefore, after a moment's hesitation, she turned and carried it
upstairs again, though she did not like the idea of facing her
mistress.
At the first landing she almost ran against the master of the house,
who asked her what she was carrying and where she was going. He spoke
rather sharply, and Yulia was frightened and told him the whole story,
explaining that Zoë seemed to be in a bad temper, and would be angry
with her for bringing back the account-book, but that it was Omobono's
fault. How could he dare to suppose that the Kokóna could not read?
And why was he out? And if he was not out why had the men-servants
told her that he was?
The little slave did as all slaves and servants naturally do when they
wish to gain favour with the master; she hinted that all the other
servants in the house were in league to do evil, and that she only was
righteous. Zeno carelessly looked through the pages of the
account-book as he stood listening to her tale.
'You talk too much,' he observed, when she paused. 'Go upstairs.'
Thereupon he turned his back on her and went in under the heavy
curtain to his own room, taking the book with him and leaving Yulia
considerably disconcerted. She looked at the curtain disconsolately
for a few seconds, and then slowly ascended the second flight of steps
to the women's apartments.
A few minutes later Zeno himself followed her, with another book in
his hand. He knocked discreetly at the outer door, and Lucilla opened,
for Yulia was still explaining to Zoë what had happened. The maid
stood aside to let the master pass through the vestibule which
separated the inner rooms from the staircase. Zeno raised the curtain
and went in.
'I am no great reader,' he said, as he came forward towards the divan,
'but I have brought you this old book. It may amuse you. The man died
more than fifty years ago, and I fancy he was mad; but there must be
something in his poem, for it has been copied again and again. This
was given me by the Emperor Charles when I was with him in Venice.'
Zoë had time to recover from her surprise and to study his face and
manner while he spoke, and again she was convinced that he was a
little shy in her presence. If she changed colour at all he did not
see it, for though he glanced at her two or three times, he looked
more often at the book he held. As he finished speaking he placed it
in her hands and his eyes met hers.
Possibly Zoë had guessed that if she could make a stir in the house by
sending messages to Omobono, the master would at last come in person;
at all events she felt a little thrill of triumph when he was before
her bringing his book and speaking pleasantly, as a sort of
peace-offering for having neglected her so long.
'Thank you,' said she, very sweetly. 'Will it please your lordship to
be seated?'
Yulia had pushed forward a large fold-stool, and Zoë motioned to her
and her companion to sit down in a corner. Zeno thought she had sent
them out of the room, and he looked round and saw them squatting on
their carpet, side by side.
'Shall I send them away?' asked Zoë, with a sweet smile.
'They are not in the way,' Zeno answered coldly; for he felt that
they might be if they understood, but nothing would have induced him
to dismiss them just then.
A little pause followed, during which Zoë opened the manuscript and
read the illuminated title-page.
'It is dull for you, here,' said Carlo awkwardly.
Zoë did not even look up, and affected to answer absently, while she
turned over the pages.
'Oh no!' she said. 'Not in the least, I assure you!' She went back to
the title and read it aloud. '"The Divine Comedy of Dante
Alighieri"--I have heard his name. A Sicilian, was he not? Or a
Lombard? I cannot remember. Have you read the poetry? The paintings
are very pretty, I see. There is much more life in Italian painting
than in our stiff pictures with their gilt backgrounds. Of course,
there is a certain childlike simplicity about them, an absence of
school, of the traditions of good masters, of reverence for the old
art! But they mean something that is, whereas our Greek pictures mean
something that never was. Do you agree with me?'
She had talked on in a careless tone, toying with the book, and only
looking up as she asked a question without waiting for a reply. By the
time she paused she had asked so many that Zeno only noticed the last.
'You would like Venice,' he said, 'but you would like Florence better.
There are good pictures there, I believe.'
'You have not seen them yourself?'
'Oh yes! But I do not understand such things. This man Alighieri
describes some of them in his book. He was a Florentine.'
As Zeno showed himself more willing to talk, Zoë seemed to grow more
indifferent. She laid the book down beside her, leaned back, and
looked out of the window, turning her face half away from him. It was
the first time he had seen her by daylight since she had come, and the
strong afternoon light glowed in her white skin, her eyes, and her
brown hair. He could have seen on her cheek the very smallest
imperfection, had it been as tiny as the point of a pin, but there was
none. He looked at her tender mouth; and in the strong glare he could
have detected the least roughness on her lips, if they had not been as
smooth as fresh fruit. Moreover, the line from her ear to her neck was
really as perfect as it had seemed at first sight. Her nervous,
high-bred young hand lay on the folds of her over-garment, within his
reach, and he felt much inclined to take it and hold it. He did not
remember that any woman's near presence had disturbed him in the same
way, nor had he ever hesitated on the few occasions in his life when
he had been inclined to take a woman's hand. He had the fullest rights
which the laws of the Empire could give him, for Arethusa, as he
called her, was his property out-and-out, and if he died suddenly she
would be sold at auction with the furniture. Yet, for some wholly
inexplicable reason he did not quite dare to touch the tips of her
fingers.
'I have heard that you are a hero,' Zoë observed, without looking at
him. 'Is it true?'
Then she turned her eyes to him and smiled a little maliciously, he
fancied, as if she had guessed his timidity from his silence.
'Who told you such nonsense?' Zeno asked, with a laugh, for her
question had broken the ice--or perhaps had quenched the fire for a
while. 'I am a man like any other!'
'That I doubt, sir,' answered Zoë, laughing too, though not much.
'You have no experience of men,' he said. 'They are all like me, I
assure you. One sheep is not more like another in a flock.'
'I should not have taken you for one of the common herd. Besides, I
know of your deeds in Italy and Greece, and how you fought a Turkish
army for a whole year with a handful of men----'
'I have seen some fighting, of course,' Zeno replied. 'But that is all
in the past. I am a sober, peace-loving Venetian merchant now, and
nothing else.'
'It must be very dull to be a sober, peace-loving Venetian merchant,'
said Zoë, faintly mimicking his tone.
'Making money is too hard work to be dull.'
'I suppose so. And then,' she added, with magnificent calm, 'I have
always heard that avarice is the passion of old age.'
Zeno fell into the trap.
'Dear me!' he cried in astonishment. 'How old do you think I am?'
Zoë looked at him quietly.
'I have no experience of men,' she said, with perfect gravity, 'but
from your manner, sir, I should judge you to be--about fifty.'
Zeno's jaw dropped, for she spoke so naturally and quietly that he
could not believe she was laughing at him.
'I shall be twenty-nine in August,' he answered.
'Only twenty-nine?' Zoë affected great surprise. 'I should have
thought you were much, much older! Are you quite sure?'
'Yes.' Carlo laughed. 'I am quite sure. But I suppose I seem very old
to you.'
'Oh yes! Very!' She nodded gravely as she spoke.
'You are seventeen, are you not?' Zeno asked.
'How in the world should I know!' she enquired. 'Is not my age set
down in the receipt Rustan gave you with me? How should a slave know
her own age, sir? And if we knew it, do you think that any of us could
speak the truth, except under torture? It would not be worth while to
dislocate my arms and burn my feet with hot irons, just to know how
old I am, would it? You could not even sell me again, if I had once
been tortured!'
'What horrible ideas you have! Imagine torturing this little thing!'
Thereupon, without warning, he took her hand in his and looked at it.
She made a very slight instinctive movement to withdraw it, and then
it lay quite still and passive.
'I am sure I could never bear pain,' she said, smiling. 'I should tell
everything at once! I should never make a good conspirator. I suppose
you must have been wounded once or twice, when you were young. Tell
me, did it hurt very much?'
He let her hand fall as he answered, and she drew it back and hid it
under her wide sleeve.
'A cut with a sharp sword feels like a stream of icy-cold water,' he
answered. 'A thrust through the flesh pricks like a big thorn, and
pricks again when the point comes out on the other side. One feels
very little, or nothing at all, if one is badly wounded in the head,
for one is stunned at once; it is the headache afterwards that really
hurts. If one is wounded in the lungs, one feels nothing, but one is
choked by the blood, and one must turn on one's face at once in order
not to suffocate. Broken bones hurt afterwards as a rule, more than at
first, but it is a curious sensation to have one's collar bone smashed
by a blow from a two-handed sword----'
'Good heavens!' cried Zoë. 'What a catalogue! How do you know how each
thing feels?'
'I can remember,' Zeno answered simply.
'You have been wounded in all those different ways, and you are
alive?'
Zeno smiled.
'Yes; and you understand now why I look so old.'
'I was not in earnest,' Zoë said. 'You knew that I was not. You need
only look at yourself in a mirror to see that I was laughing.'
'I was not very deeply hurt by being taken for a man of fifty,' Zeno
answered, not quite truthfully.
'Oh no!' laughed Zoë. 'I cannot imagine that my opinion of your age
could make any difference to you. It was silly of me--only, for a man
who has had so many adventures, you do look absurdly young!'
'So much the better, since my fighting days are over.'
'And since you are a sober, peace-loving merchant,' said Zoë,
continuing the sentence for him. 'But are you so very sure, my lord?
Would nothing make you draw your sword again and risk your life on
your fencing? Nothing?'
'Nothing that did not affect my honour, I truly believe.'
'You would not do it for a woman's sake?' She turned to him, to watch
his face, but its expression did not change.
'Three things can drive a wise man mad,--wine, women, and dice.'
'I daresay! Your lordship reckons us in good company. But that is no
answer to my question.'
'Yes it is,' said Zeno with a laugh. 'Why should I do for a woman what
I would not do for dice or wine?'
'But dice and wine never tempted you,' Zoë objected.
Zeno laughed louder.
'Never? When I was a student at Padua I sold everything, even my
books, to get money for both. It was only when the books were gone
that I turned soldier, and learned the greatest game of hazard in the
world. Compared with that, dice are an opiate, and wine is a
sleeping-draught.'
He only smiled now, after laughing, but there was a look in his face
as he spoke which she saw then for the first time and did not forget,
and recognised when she saw it again. It was subtle, and might have
passed unnoticed among men, but it spoke to the sex in the girl, and
made her young blood thrill. For worlds, she would not have had him
guess what she felt just then.
'Fighting for its own sake would tempt you, if nothing else could,'
she answered quietly.
'Ah--perhaps, perhaps,' he answered, musing.
'But you would need a cause, though ever so slight, and you have none
here, have you?'
'None that I care to take up.'
'You may find something to fight for--over the water,' Zoë suggested,
emphasising the words a little and watching his face.
The phrase meant nothing to him.
'Over the water?' he repeated carelessly. 'At home, in Venice, you
mean. Yes, if Venice needed me, I should not wait to be called twice!'
It was quite clear that he attached no meaning to the words she had
used, and this fact tallied with what the astrologer had told her in
the morning as to his having been deaf to all advances made to him by
the imprisoned Emperor's party.
Zoë leaned back in silence for a while, almost closing her eyes, and
she saw that he watched her, and that an unmistakable look of
admiration stole into his face. She was wondering whether it would
ever turn into something more, and whether she should ever see the
gleam of fight in his eyes, for her sake, that had flashed in them a
moment ago at the mere thought of battle. What did women do, to make
men love them? There is an age when girls believe that love need only
be called, like a tame dove, and that he will fly in at the window;
and there is an age when he comes to them uncalled-for. If only the
ages were the same for all, much trouble might be spared. Zoë was
perhaps between the two, but she still believed that there was some
fixed rule on which clever women acted to make men fall in love with
them, those wicked women who are described to young girls as
'designing,' and are supposed to know precisely the effect they can
produce on men at any moment, to the very nicety of an eyelash.
Zeno broke the long silence with an unexpected speech which roughly
awakened Zoë from her reflection.
'As for this Emperor John whom his son has locked up,' he said, 'his
friends have done their best to interest me in his cause. He has even
sent me messages, begging me to help him to escape. Why? What
difference can it make to me whether he or his son dies in the Amena
tower? They are poor things, both of them, and for all I care John may
starve in his chains before I will lift a finger!'
Zoë sighed and bit her lip to check herself, for his voluntary
declaration had dashed the palace of her hopes to pieces in an
instant.
Then she was ashamed of having even dreamt that he might love her,
since he despised the very cause for which she had wished to win his
love. But this state of mind did not last long, either. She was too
brave to let such a speech pass, as if she agreed with it.
'You are wrong,' she said, quite forgetting that she had set herself
to play the part of the slave. 'You ought to help him, if you can--and
you can, if you will.'
Zeno looked at her in surprise. There was something like authority in
her tone, and the two little maids, whom he had forgotten in their
corner behind him, stared in astonishment at her audacity. Not a word
of the conversation had escaped them.
'I mean,' continued Zoë, before he could find an answer to her plain
statement, 'if you are a true Venetian you should wish to put down the
man whom the Genoese and the Turks have set on the throne. Johannes is
your friend and your country's friend, though he is a weak man and
always will be. Andronicus is an enemy to Venice and a friend to her
enemies. He is even now ready to give the island of Tenedos to
them--the key to the Dardanelles----'
'What?' asked Zeno in a loud and angry tone. 'Tenedos?'
His manner had changed, and he almost rose from his seat as he bent
forwards and seized her wrist in his excitement. She was glad, and
smiled at him.
'Yes,' she answered, 'the Genoese demand it as the price of their
protection, and they will force him to give it to them. But it may not
be easy, for the governor of the island is loyal to Johannes.'
'How do you know these things?' asked Zeno, still holding her wrist
and trying to look into her eyes.
'I know them,' Zoë answered. 'If I am not telling you the truth, sell
me in the market to-morrow.'
[Illustration: 'I know them,' Zoë answered. 'If I am not telling you
the truth, sell me in the market to-morrow.']
'By the Evangelist,' swore Zeno, 'you will deserve it.'