The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 76

"You may walk with us to Cardinal Ugolini's mansion," Daoud said.

When they emerged from the alley, there was no sign of the Filippeschi.

Two of Sordello's men walked in front of Daoud and Lorenzo, and Sordello and the other man followed behind them. The wine had worn off altogether, but Daoud felt a throbbing pain behind his eyes and a great need to sleep.

"Well?" Lorenzo said, keeping his voice low. "The man wants us to hire him."

"We need more men, and we want clever street fighters," said Daoud. "He is that."

"Yes, but he is the type of man I detest," said Lorenzo. "I did not need him to kill that Filippeschi bravo for me. He acts before he thinks."

"After tonight we may not have to attack the French directly," Daoud said. "On the other hand, we are sure to have further need of bodyguards, and I think Sordello and his three companions would suit.

Let us give ourselves time to think. Tell him you will meet him and give him our answer in two days."

XXVI

It could not be worse, Rachel thought. She could not be more degraded.

An old man, and a Tartar. Were the Tartars even human, she wondered, or was she about to commit the further abominable sin of mating with an animal?

The door had closed behind him with a terribly final sound, and he was standing in front of it, showing his teeth, large and strong and very white, in a broad grin.

She wondered if he could see her knees and hands trembling. If only she had accepted Signora Tilia's offer to release her from this. Was it too late? Could she rush past the Tartar to the door and pull it open and run away? If she did that now, doubtless the Tartar would be insulted.

From what she knew about these creatures, it would be very dangerous to make him angry.

_I will pretend to be sick. When he is not looking, I will stick my finger down my throat and throw up. That will disgust him so, he will leave me alone._

Or it might antagonize him enough to kill her. Her body broke out in a cold sweat. Her eyes were shut, but she heard the monster coming closer.

She thought of what he would do to her, and her stomach heaved--she would throw up even without trying to. She hoped he _would_ kill her.

Better that than his animal's thing inside her.

She opened her eyes, to see that he had stopped halfway between the closed door and the bed.

Actually, he was not so hideous. He had a round brown face and bright black eyes, and his beard was white, as Angelo's had been.

_Ah, Rachel, Rachel, the joy of my old age_, Angelo would say. _My beard was white before you were born._

_He would not rejoice in his old age if he could see me now._

The Tartar's beard and mustache were not full and flowing, as Angelo's had been, but stringy. The beard almost seemed like a false beard, pasted on that small, sharp chin.

He said, "Buona sera, berra feeria." He had learned some Italian. But it was not evening. It was almost morning. And what was he trying to say--"bella figlia?" Beautiful daughter? He had probably asked someone what he should say, and they had told him the wrong things.

"Buona sera, Mio Signore," she answered, inclining her head slightly.

Her voice was a terrified whisper. When she heard how frightened she sounded, she became more frightened still and huddled into the farthest corner of the bed, wishing she could squeeze through a crack in the wall beside her and disappear.

The Tartar tapped his chest, smiling and nodding. "John." He wore a crimson silk tunic that fell to his knees, and over it a pale green gown, open in front, with wide sleeves. When she had stood by a window in the cardinal's palazzo and watched the Tartars' arrival in Orvieto, he and the other Tartar had worn foreign-looking silk robes, blood red, covered with blue birds with long golden tails. Now he was dressed like an Italian.

He was still nodding at her, with a questioning look on his face. He wanted her to say her name.

"Rachel," she said, touching her chest. How small her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were, she thought. He could not possibly want a girl with such small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He certainly would not want to devour them. She felt sick to her stomach again.

"Reicho. Buona sera, Reicho." He could not p.r.o.nounce the letter _l_.

"Buona sera, John," she answered. She was about to smile, but she checked herself. If she seemed to be encouraging him, he would come at her. Cold sweat broke out over her skin.

_He is going to come at me anyway._

A silver pitcher of wine with two silver goblets stood on a small marble-topped table beside the bed. Wine might make this easier for her.

Except that too much wine would make her sick. Well, was that not what she wanted? She stretched a trembling hand toward it.

"Will you take some wine, Messer John?" _Where on earth did he get a name like John?_

She poured the wine, carefully filling the goblets only two-thirds full so her trembling hands would not spill their contents.

The Tartar crossed the room and sat in the round-bottomed chair Tilia had occupied a short while earlier. Rachel held out a goblet to him, and her hand shook so badly she almost dropped it. He did not seem to notice. Maybe he was used to being waited on by trembling women. He smiled and nodded.

Tilia was watching all this, Rachel remembered. She drained her cup quickly, the silver giving the wine a slightly metallic taste. She poured a second cup for herself, and looked at him. He barely sipped from his goblet before setting it on the table, holding his hand palm down over it. Too bad, she thought. She had heard that men who drank too much could not get stiff enough to go into women.

John started talking to her in his own tongue. He spoke for a long time with many gestures, some toward himself, some toward her. She tried desperately to guess what he was saying. She did not want to respond the wrong way and anger him.

He seemed quite at ease, and he laughed occasionally, as if he were telling her funny stories that amused him as well. She saw webs of fine wrinkles in the brown skin around his eyes and thought, _He could be older than Angelo_.

He began to make a strange sound, a long-drawn-out moan. Perhaps he was in pain. Perhaps _he_ was going to be sick. Her heart leapt hopefully.

Then the moan changed pitch, and his mouth began to shape words. They must be Tartar words. He was singing to her. It was unmistakably a song, but it was strange and shrill to her ears. She almost burst out laughing, but immediately felt terror at the thought of offending him.

It began to dawn on her, though, that John was not behaving like a brute, as she had feared he would when she first saw him in the doorway.

If she looked behind the black slits that were his eyes, under the tanned-leather skin, he seemed a pleasant old man. His language might be gibberish to her, but it was clear that he was trying to entertain her, even woo her.

But she hated the thought of what he was trying to woo her _for_.

He ended his song by clapping his hands rhythmically--she counted nine handclaps. He followed that with more eager smiles and nods. He actually wanted to know whether she liked his song. She relaxed a bit.

She smiled and nodded back. "Yes. Very good, John. Che bello!" Perhaps she could get him to sing more, and put off the moment she dreaded.

But he stood up with a look on his face that froze her heart in her chest. There was nothing ferocious or cruel in it or even l.u.s.tful. There was neither kindness nor pity in it, nor anything that recognized her as a person. It was the satisfied smile of a man looking upon a possession.

He slipped off the wide-sleeved gown and unbuckled his belt. She began to tremble uncontrollably.

Daoud sat slumped with exhaustion on the carpeted floor of Ugolini's cabinet. The long night just past had drained him of all his energy. He wanted to sleep, but first he must see to it that Ugolini made good use of the advantage they had gained at the contessa's reception.

A strong, rich, familiar smell filtered into his nostrils, and his head lifted, as if a powerful hand had gripped it. The door opened, and a servant carried in a tray laden with six small porcelain cups, one each for Ugolini, Daoud, Sophia, and Lorenzo and two extra, as well as two pitchers. Ugolini pushed aside a pile of parchment on his work table, and the servant set the tray down.

As the door closed behind the servant, Daoud drew a deep breath to identify the smell and felt a glow of surprised pleasure.