Arethusa Part 9

It was absurd to think of such a thing, and having come to this conclusion in a shorter time than it has taken me to describe his thoughts, he turned abruptly with the intention of buying her for Marco Pesaro's account.

Unfortunately, when he saw her face he could not do it.

'I will send a palanquin for you in an hour,' he said hurriedly, and he made for the door in evident anxiety to get away without exchanging another word with Zoe.

The negress followed him quickly into the next room, very much surprised at his way of doing business.

'If it please your Glory,' she began, overtaking him with difficulty, but he would not listen, and hurried on.

'I will settle with Rustan,' he said.

But in the room where he had left her, Zoe was leaning back in her chair alone, gazing at the sunlit window. At that very moment, so far as she knew, the gold was being counted out that was the price of her young life. In an hour she would be taken away in a closed litter, as she had been brought last night, she would be carried into another house, the slide would slip back, and she would be told to get down.

The voice would be a man's. Who was he? What was his name? What was she to be to him? He was a Venetian, she guessed by his dress, and she felt that his blood was gentle, like her own. But that was all, though she was already his property. It was dreadful; or, at least, it should be dreadful to think of! She felt that she ought to long for death now, a thousand times more earnestly than last night.

But she did not. For she was a most womanly woman already, though not nineteen, and there are few women of that intensely feminine temper who cannot judge at a first meeting with a man whether they can gain power over him or not. Moreover, this strength is greatest with men who are most profoundly masculine, because it is not the influence of one character over another, but the deeper, stronger, more mysterious power of s.e.x over s.e.x.

CHAPTER VI

Little Omobono's thin legs carried him up and down the stairs of Zeno's house at an astonishing pace during the next hour; for Carlo gave fifty orders, every one of which he insisted should be executed at once. It was not a small thing to instal a woman luxuriously in a house in which no woman had set foot since Carlo had lived there, and to do this within sixty minutes. It is true that the rich young merchant had great store of thick carpets and fine stuffs, and all sorts of silver vessels, and weapons from Damascus, and carved ivory chessmen from India; but though some of these things quickly furnished the upper rooms which Zeno set apart for the valuable slave's use while she remained under his roof, yet scimitars, chessmen, and heathen idols of jade were poor subst.i.tutes for all the things a woman might be expected to need at a moment's notice, from hairpins and hand-mirrors to fine linen pillow-cases, sweetmeats, and a lap-dog.

Zeno's ideas of a woman's requirements were a little vague, but he determined that Zoe should want nothing, and he charged Omobono with the minute execution of his smallest commands.

He himself lived simply and almost rudely. He slept on a small hard divan with a little hard cushion under his head, and a cloak to cover him in cold weather. He hated hot water, scented soap, and all the soft luxuries of the Roman bath. There was no mirror in his room, no elaborate toilet service of gold and silver, such as fine young gentlemen used even then. He liked a good dinner when he was hungry, good wine when he was thirsty, and a wide easy-chair when he had worked all day; but it never had cost him a moment's discomfort to exchange such a home as he now lived in for the camp or the sea.

Women were different beings, however, so he made all allowances for them, and went to extreme lengths in estimating their necessities, as Omobono found to his cost. Yet with all his preoccupation for details, Zeno forgot that Zoe must have a woman to wait on her at once, and when he realised the omission, almost at the last minute, the future conqueror of the Genoese, the terror of the Mediterranean, the victorious general of the Paduan campaign, the hero of thirty pitched battles and a score of sea-fights, felt his heart sink with something like fear. What would have happened if he had not remembered just in time that Marco Pesaro's slave must have a maid? She should have two, or three, or as many as she needed.

'Omobono,' he said, as the little secretary came up the stairs for the twentieth time, 'go out quickly and buy two maids. They must be young, healthy, clean, clever, and silent. Lose no time!'

'Two maids?' The secretary's jaw dropped. 'Two maids?' he repeated almost stupidly.

'Yes. Is there anything wonderful in that? Did you expect to wait on the lady yourself?'

'The lady?' Omobono opened his little eyes very wide.

'I mean,' answered Zeno, correcting himself, 'the--the young person who is going to be lodged here. Lose no time, I say! Go as fast as you can!'

Omobono turned and went, not having the least idea where to go. Before he had reached the outer door, Zeno called after him down the stairs.

'Stop!' cried the merchant. 'It is too late. You must go and get the lady--the young person. Take two palanquins instead of one, and tell Rustan to let her choose her own slaves. You can put the two into one litter and bring them all together.'

'But the price, sir?' enquired Omobono, who was a man of business.

'Rustan will ask what he pleases if I take him such a message!'

'Tell him that if he is not reasonable he shall do no more business with Venetians,' answered Zeno, from the head of the marble stairs.

Omobono nodded obediently and followed his instructions. So it came to pa.s.s that before long he found himself within Rustan's outer wall with two palanquins and eight bearers, besides a couple of Zeno's trusty men-servants, well armed, for he carried a large sum of money in gold.

The Bokharian and the secretary went into an inner room to count and weigh the ducats, but before this began Omobono delivered his message in full.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour.]

'I have the very thing,' said Karaboghazji. 'There are two girls who have waited on her and with whom she is much pleased. As for asking too high a price, forty ducats for the two is nothing. They are a gift, at that.'

'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour.

'If it is dear,' said Rustan, his face becoming like stone, 'may my tongue never speak the truth again!'

Considering attentively the consequences of such an awful fate Omobono did not think that the Bokharian risked any great inconvenience if the imprecation should take effect.

'It is far from me,' said the secretary, 'to suggest that your words are not literally true, according to your own light. But you must be aware that the price of maid-servants has fallen much since yesterday, owing to the arrival of a shipload of them from Tanais.'

Rustan shook his head and maintained his stony expression.

'They are worthless,' he said. 'Do you suppose I should not have bought the best of them? There has been a plague of smallpox in their country, and they are all pitted. They are as oranges, blighted by hail.'

As Omobono had invented the ship and its cargo, he found it hard to refute Rustan's argument, which was quite as good as his own.

'May my fingers be turned round in their sockets and close on the back of my hand, if I have asked one ducat too much,' said the Bokharian with stolid calm.

Omobono hesitated, for a new idea had struck him. Before he could answer, a door opened and Rustan's wife, who had put off her finery, ushered in Zoe, closely veiled and wrapped in the cloak she had worn on the previous night. It was, in fact, necessary that she should be delivered up in return for the gold, and the negress had supposed that the counting was almost over.

'My turtle dove,' said Rustan in dulcet tones, 'fetch those two girls who have waited on Kokona Arethusa. The Venetian merchant will buy them for her.'

The negress grinned and went out. By this time Omobono had made up his mind what to say.

'My dear sir,' he began, in a conciliatory tone, consider that we are friends, and do not ask an exorbitant price. I beseech you to be obliging, by four toes and five toes.'

Omobono wondered what would happen after he had p.r.o.nounced the mysterious words. Rustan looked keenly at him and was silent for a moment. Neither of them noticed that Zoe made a quick movement as she stood by the table between them. The Bokharian rose suddenly and went to shut the door.

'Where?' he asked as he crossed the small room.

Omobono's face fell at the unexpected and apparently irrelevant question. Instantly Zoe bent down and whispered three words in his ear. Before Rustan turned back to hear the clerk's answer, she was standing erect and motionless again, and he did not suspect that she had moved.

'Over the water,' answered Omobono, with perfect confidence.

'You may have the two for four-and-twenty ducats,' said Rustan. 'But you cannot expect me to take anything off the price of the Kokona,'

he added. 'I bargained with your master, and he agreed.'

'No, no! Certainly! And I thank you, sir.'

'I suppose,' said Rustan, 'that you would do as much for me.'

'Of course, of course,' answered Omobono. 'Shall we count the ducats?'

When the operation was almost finished, the negress returned with the two slave-girls, whose commonplace features were wreathed in smiles, and they began to kiss the hem of Zoe's cloak. Omobono inspected them critically.