Arethusa Page 7

  CHAPTER VI

  Little Omobono's thin legs carried him up and down the stairs ofZeno's house at an astonishing pace during the next hour; for Carlogave fifty orders, every one of which he insisted should be executedat once. It was not a small thing to instal a woman luxuriously in ahouse in which no woman had set foot since Carlo had lived there, andto do this within sixty minutes. It is true that the rich youngmerchant had great store of thick carpets and fine stuffs, and allsorts of silver vessels, and weapons from Damascus, and carved ivorychessmen from India; but though some of these things quickly furnishedthe upper rooms which Zeno set apart for the valuable slave's usewhile she remained under his roof, yet scimitars, chessmen, andheathen idols of jade were poor substitutes for all the things a womanmight be expected to need at a moment's notice, from hairpins andhand-mirrors to fine linen pillow-cases, sweetmeats, and a lap-dog.Zeno's ideas of a woman's requirements were a little vague, but hedetermined that Zoe should want nothing, and he charged Omobono withthe minute execution of his smallest commands.

  He himself lived simply and almost rudely. He slept on a small harddivan with a little hard cushion under his head, and a cloak to coverhim in cold weather. He hated hot water, scented soap, and all thesoft luxuries of the Roman bath. There was no mirror in his room, noelaborate toilet service of gold and silver, such as fine younggentlemen 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 hadworked all day; but it never had cost him a moment's discomfort toexchange such a home as he now lived in for the camp or the sea.

  Women were different beings, however, so he made all allowances forthem, and went to extreme lengths in estimating their necessities, asOmobono 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, andwhen he realised the omission, almost at the last minute, the futureconqueror of the Genoese, the terror of the Mediterranean, thevictorious general of the Paduan campaign, the hero of thirty pitchedbattles and a score of sea-fights, felt his heart sink with somethinglike fear. What would have happened if he had not remembered just intime 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 thetwentieth 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 repeatedalmost stupidly.

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

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

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

  Omobono turned and went, not having the least idea where to go. Beforehe 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 thelady--the young person. Take two palanquins instead of one, and tellRustan to let her choose her own slaves. You can put the two into onelitter 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 businesswith Venetians,' answered Zeno, from the head of the marble stairs.

  Omobono nodded obediently and followed his instructions. So it came topass that before long he found himself within Rustan's outer wall withtwo palanquins and eight bearers, besides a couple of Zeno's trustymen-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 andweigh the ducats, but before this began Omobono delivered his messagein full.

  '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 whohave waited on her and with whom she is much pleased. As for askingtoo high a price, forty ducats for the two is nothing. They are agift, at that.'

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

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

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

  'It is far from me,' said the secretary, 'to suggest that your wordsare not literally true, according to your own light. But you must beaware 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 havebought the best of them? There has been a plague of smallpox in theircountry, and they are all pitted. They are as oranges, blighted byhail.'

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

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

  Omobono hesitated, for a new idea had struck him. Before he couldanswer, 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 wornon the previous night. It was, in fact, necessary that she should bedelivered up in return for the gold, and the negress had supposed thatthe counting was almost over.

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

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

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

  Omobono wondered what would happen after he had pronounced themysterious words. Rustan looked keenly at him and was silent for amoment. Neither of them noticed that Zoe made a quick movement as shestood by the table between them. The Bokharian rose suddenly and wentto shut the door.

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

  Omobono's face fell at the unexpected and apparently irrelevantquestion. Instantly Zoe bent down and whispered three words in hisear. Before Rustan turned back to hear the clerk's answer, she wasstanding erect and motionless again, and he did not suspect that shehad moved.

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

  'You may have the two for four-and-twenty ducats,' said Rustan. 'Butyou 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 thetwo slave-girls, whose commonplace features were wreathed in smiles,and they began to kiss the hem of Zoe's cloak. Omobono inspected themcritically.

  'Are you pleased with them, Kokona?' he enquired of Zoe. 'My master isvery anxious that you should be satisfied.'

  'Indeed I am,' Zoe answered readily. 'They are very clever littlemaids.'

  The two were almost crying with delight, and only a meaning movementof the negress's hand to her girdle checked them. They were not out ofher power yet. Omobono eyed them, and really thought them cheap attwelve ducats each, as indeed they were. He was paying four hundredfor Zoe, but Rustan did not mean her to see the gold, and had coveredit with one of his loose sleeves as she entered. He now begged hiswife take the three slaves to the
palanquins while he finishedcounting and weighing, and wrote out his receipt for the money. Hecalled the negress his pet mouse, his little bird, and thedown-quilted waistcoat of his heart, and but for her terrificappearance, and the weapon she carried in her girdle, Omobono wouldhave laughed outright.

  Rustan wrote on a strip of parchment, in bad Greek:--

  In the name of the Holy Trinity, Constantinople, the Saturday before Passion Sunday, the second year of Andronicus Augustus Caesar, and the fourteenth of the Indiction, I have received from the Most Magnificent Carlo Zeno, a Venetian, the sum of four hundred and forty gold ducats of Venice, for the following merchandise:--

  For one Greek maid slave, slave-born, between seventeen and eighteen years old, answering to the name of Arethusa, without blemish, scar, or birthmark, having natural brown hair, brown eyes, twenty-eight teeth all sound, weighing two Attic talents and five minae more or less, and speaking Greek, Latin, and Italian Ducats 400

  For two maid slaves, from Tanais, slave-born, of fourteen and fifteen, answering to the names of Lucilla and Yulia, sound, healthy, never having been tortured or branded, each having black hair, black eyes, and twenty-eight teeth, trained to wait on a lady, and speaking intelligible Greek, besides a barbarous dialect of their own, warranted docile, and not given to stealing; at 20 ducats each Ducats 40 ---------- In all Ducats 440 ==========

  RUSTAN KARABOGHAZJI, the son of Daddirjan, _Merchant_. (_Witness_)--SEBASTIAN OMOBONO, of Venice, _Clerk_.

  Omobono observed that the receipt acknowledged forty ducats as theprice of the two girls, instead of twenty-four.

  'Rustan Karaboghazji, surnamed the Truth-speaker, does not sell slavesat twelve ducats,' answered the Bokharian with dignity. 'Moreover,your employer will see that he has paid forty, and you can justly keepthe sixteen ducats for yourself.'

  'That would not be honest,' protested Omobono, shaking his neat greybeard.

  Rustan smiled, in a pitying way.

  'You Venetians do not really understand business,' he said, tighteningthe strings of the canvas bag into which he had swept the gold, andknotting them as he rose.

  A few minutes later Omobono was trudging along after the twopalanquins, wondering much at certain things that had happened to himduring the last twenty-four hours and less. For he was curious, as youknow, and it irritated him to feel that something was going on in theworld, all about him and near him, of which he could not even guessthe nature, manifesting itself in such nonsensical phrases as 'fourtoes and five toes,' and 'over the water,' which nevertheless producedsuch truly astonishing results. Since the previous afternoon he hadmet four persons who knew those absurd words,--the negress, herBokharian husband, the sacristan to Saints Sergius and Bacchus, and aGreek slave-girl, whom he was far from recognising as the beautifulcreature he had seen yesterday in the ruined house in the beggars'quarter. She was so closely veiled to-day that he could not in theleast guess what her face was like.

  Since she not only knew the first password, but had whispered thesecond to him, he wondered why she had not used her knowledge to gether freedom. It was incredible that the people who knew the wordsshould not be banded together in some secret brotherhood; but if theywere brethren, how could they sell one another into slavery? Omobonowas so much interested in these problems that he did not see where hewas till the leading palanquin entered Zeno's gate.

  Zeno himself was not to be seen. The servant at the door gave Omobonoa slip of cotton paper on which the merchant had written an order. Thesecretary was to take his charges to what was now the women'sapartment and leave them there. Zoe obeyed Omobono's directions insilence, still veiled, and the two maids tripped up the marble stairsafter her, as happy as birds on a May morning, and taking in all theysaw with wondering eyes; for they had never been in a fine housebefore.

  'This is the Kokona's apartment,' Omobono said, standing aside to letZoe pass. 'If the Kokona desires anything, she will please to send oneof her maids to me. I am the master's secretary.'

  He had been surprised when Zeno spoke of her as a 'lady,' but somehow,since she had whispered in his ear at the slave-dealer's house, andsince he had seen her movement and carriage when she walked upstairs,he instinctively treated her and spoke to her as if she were hissuperior. She nodded her thanks now, but said nothing, and he wentaway. She looked after him and listened, but no key was turned afterthe door was closed, and she heard only his retreating steps on themarble stairs. Then she turned to the window, which was open, and shethrew aside her veil and looked out upon the Golden Horn.

  The two little maids at once began a minute examination of the rooms,which occupied more than half the upper story of the house, and were,if anything, too crowded with rich furniture, with divans, carvedtables, hanging lamps, cushioned seats, and pillows of every size,shape, and colour. There were handsome wardrobes, too, full of thefine clothes Zoe was to wear. The girls touched everything and talkedby signs, lest they should disturb Zoe's meditations. They told eachother that the master of the house must be highly pleased with hisslave, since he surrounded her with beautiful things; that thesethings were all new, which was a sign that there was no other woman inthe house; and that they were very fortunate and happy to have beensold, after only a month of apprenticeship under the negress'smerciless training. They also explained to each other that they werehungry, for it was past noon. The idea of running away had probablynever occurred to either of them, even in Rustan's house. Where shouldthey go? And besides, the fate of runaway slaves was before theireyes.

  Meanwhile Zeno sat in his balconied room alone. Omobono had deliveredthe receipt and had simply told him that sixteen ducats had been savedon the bargain, though Rustan did not wish it known. Thereupon Zenogave the secretary a couple of ducats for himself, which Omobono sawno reason for not taking.

  Zeno was preoccupied and chose to be alone, so he dismissed hissecretary with injunctions to rest after the labour of installing thenew arrival, which had not been light, and he walked up and down hisroom in deep thought. He had acted on an impulse altogether againsthis own judgment, and now he was faced by the unpleasant necessity ofjustifying his conduct in his own eyes.

  One thing was quite clear; so long as he did not draw from the houseof Corner the money which Marco Pesaro had sent to the banker for thecommission, the merchandise was his property, since he had paid forit. But he must make up his mind whether he meant to call it his own,or not. If he decided to keep Arethusa, he must at once set aboutfinding another slave for Marco Pesaro, or else write to say that hedeclined to execute the commission.

  In that case, Arethusa remained his. The reason why he had so suddenlydetermined to buy her was that he fancied she was a girl of goodfamily whom some great misfortune had brought into her presentdistress. But she had calmly declared that she was a slave, andexpected nothing better than to be sold.

  If this were true he had paid four hundred ducats for a foolish fancy.She was perhaps the child of some beautiful slave, and had beencarefully educated by her mother's owner; and the latter, needingmoney perhaps, had sent her to the market; or perhaps he had died andhis heirs were selling his property.

  All this was very unsatisfactory. If she was slave-born, Zeno's bestcourse was to send Arethusa to Pesaro, as soon as the Venetian shipsailed, for he had not the least intention of wasting money in afutile attempt to free slaves whom the law regarded as born to theircondition. Their position was a misfortune, no doubt, but they wereused to it, and no one had then dreamed of man's inherent right offreedom, excepting one or two popes and fanatics who had beenconsidered visionaries. To Zeno, who was a man of his own times, itseemed quite as absurd that every one should be born free, as it wouldseem to you that everybody should be born an English duke, a Tammanyboss, a great opera tenor, or Crown Prince of the Empire
. Moreover, inthe case of a beauty, especially of one sold to live in Venice, therewere palliations, as Zeno knew. Arethusa would live in luxury; shewould also soon be the real dominant in Marco Pesaro's household, asfavourite slaves very generally were in the palaces of those who ownedthem. They had not yet all the vast influence in Venice which theygained in the following century, but their power was already waxingbalefully.

  Zeno did not hesitate long; he never did, and when he had made up hismind he sent for one of Arethusa's maids.

  'What is your name, child?' he asked, scrutinising the girl'scommonplace features and intelligent eyes.

  'Yulia, Magnificence,' she answered. 'If it please you,' she addeddiffidently, as if half-expecting that he would choose to call hersomething else.

  'Yulia,' repeated Zeno, fixing the name in his memory, 'and what doyou call your mistress?' he asked abruptly.

  The girl was puzzled by the question.

  'Her name is Arethusa,' she answered, after a moment's reflection.

  'I know that. But when you speak to her, what do you call her? Whenshe gives you an order, how do you answer her? You do not merely say,"Yes, Arethusa," or "No, Arethusa," do you? She would not be pleased.'

  Yulia smiled and shook her head.

  'We call her Kokona,' she answered. 'Is not that the Greek word foryoung lady, your Magnificence?'

  'Yes,' said Zeno, 'that is the Greek word for young lady. But Arethusais only a slave as you are. Why do you give her a title? What makesyou think she is a lady?'

  'She is a different kind of slave. She cost much gold. Besides, if wedid not call her Kokona she would perhaps pull our hair or scratch ourfaces. Who knows? We are only ignorant little maids, but so much thebig negress at the slave-prison taught us.'

  'She taught you manners, did she?' Zeno smiled at the idea.

  'She made us cry very often, but it was the better for us,' answeredthe maid, with philosophy beyond her years. 'We have fetched a goodprice, and we have a good master, and we are together, all because wewaited cleverly on the Kokona one night and one morning.'

  'One night?' asked Zeno, in surprise.

  'She was only brought to the slave-prison yesterday evening,Magnificence.'

  'At what time?'

  'It was the third hour of darkness, for the black woman sent theothers to bed as soon as she was brought.'

  Zeno thought over this information for a moment.

  'Tell her,' said he, 'that I shall sup with her this evening. That isall.'

  Yulia, who had kept her hands respectfully before her, made a littleobeisance, turned quickly, and ran away, leaving the master of thehouse to his meditations. She found Zoe still sitting by the window,and the dainty dishes which Lucilla had received on a chiselled bronzetray and had placed beside her were untasted.

  'The master bids me say that he will sup with you to-night, Kokona,'said Yulia.

  Zoe made a slight movement, but controlled herself, and said nothing,though the colour rose to her face, and she turned quite away from themaids lest they should see it. They stood still a long time, waitingher pleasure.

  'Will it not please you to eat something?' asked Yulia timidly, aftera time. 'You have eaten nothing since last night, and even then it waslittle.'

  'I thought I ate all the sweetmeats,' answered Zoe, turning andsmiling a little at the recollection of the girls' terror.

  The hours passed and nothing happened. Some time after dinner she sawfrom her upper window that Zeno came out of the house and went downthe marble steps to a beautiful skiff that was waiting there. As hestepped in, she drew far back from the window lest he should look upand see that she had been watching him. She heard his voice as he gavean order to the two watermen; their oars fell with a gentle plash, andwhen she looked again they were pulling the boat away upstream,towards the palace of Blachernae and the Sweet Waters.

  The maids, having eaten of the most delicious food they had evertasted till they could eat no more, had curled themselves up togetheron a carpet not far from their mistress, and were fast asleep. Theshadow of the house lengthened till it slanted out to the right beyondthe marble steps upon the placid water, and the bright sunlight thatfell on Pera and Galata began to turn golden; so, when gold has beenmelted to white heat in the crucible, it begins to cool, grows tawny,and is shot with streaks of red.

  As the day waned in a purple haze and the air grew colder, the twomaids awoke together, rubbed their eyes, and instantly sprung to theirfeet. Zoe had not even noticed them, but just then the even plashingof oars was heard again, and she saw the skiff coming back, butwithout Zeno. She looked again to be sure that it was the same boat,and a ray of hope flashed in her thoughts like summer lightning.Perhaps he had changed his mind, and would not come--not to-night.

  The maids reminded her of his message, and she let them dress heragain for the evening. They arranged her hair, and twined strings ofpearls in it, which they had found in a sandal-wood box on thedressing-table. They took clothes from the wardrobes, fine linen,wrought with wonderful needlework, and pale silks, and velvet offaintest blue embroidered with silver threads; and when they had donetheir best they held two burnished metal mirrors before her and behindher, that she might admire herself. They had lighted many little lampsthat were all prepared, for it was now dark out of doors, and they hadspent two hours in arraying Zoe. And she smiled and patted theircheeks, and called them clever girls, for she was sure that Zeno hadchanged his mind. He would not come to her to-night.

  But even as she repeated the words to herself, he came softly throughthe warm lamplight and stood before her, and her heart stoppedbeating.

  For the first time since she had taken the final step, she felt thewhole extent and meaning of what she had done. She was really a slave,and she was alone with her master.