'Surely that's only natural? You and Gracchus are French, and the Pasha of Yannina daren't quarrel outright with the Emperor. His son must be of the same mind.'
Arcadius gave a lopsided grin.
'If there'd been nothing but the fact of being Frenchmen to save us, I'd not be here today to tell you about it. It was touch and go whether we'd lose our heads when a whole pack of ruffians came bursting into the orlop, foaming at the mouth and waving their scimitars about in a highly dangerous fashion. But – and this is the most extraordinary part of it – Kaleb only had to say a few words to them in their own language to stop them in their tracks. They even bowed to us most politely.'
Marianne was staring at him as if he was delirious.
'Kaleb?'
'You can't have forgotten the bronzed young god you defended so magnificently when Leighton was trying to have him flogged to death? Well, I have to confess that it was he who saved us,' Jolival declared, blandly helping himself to the glass of champagne offered by a servant who wore a curious garb of white flannel below his ordinary French-style coat.
The ambassador had returned a moment or two before and was now sunk in a chair, missing nothing of what Jolival had been saying, or of the impromptu but delicious cold supper which his household staff had been called out of their beds to prepare and serve.
Marianne herself had drained the contents of her glass at a single gulp, as though the better to assure herself that this was all quite real.
'He saved you?' she cried to Jolival now. 'But Arcadius, that's absurd. He was an escaped Turkish slave himself!'
'It looks absurd at first sight,' Jolival agreed. 'But to tell you the truth I've been thinking a good deal about our runaway. According to Beaufort, who I must say seems to have been more credulous than one would have expected, this Kaleb was escaping from his Turkish masters on the waterfront at Chioggia, in other words at a respectable distance from Ottoman territory. To further his escape, he then joins the crew of a vessel belonging to a nation notorious for the practice of slavery, and later doesn't turn a hair when he hears that the ship is on its way to Constantinople, of all places. After which, we find out that he possesses a certain influence over the Turks and their associates. It makes you think.'
'You're right. It is very strange. What do you make of it?'
'Either that the man's mad, which I can't believe, or that he is serving the Ottomans in his own way. Don't forget there are plenty of negroes and those of allied races holding important posts around the throne. Even if only in the harem.'
Marianne had a vision of the Ethiopian's lithe figure and his rich, deep voice. She lifted her brows.
'A eunuch? That one? Really!'
'I did not suggest he was. It's only a theory. At all events, he certainly got us out of Veli Pasha's clutches. We barely touched the coast of the Morea, and were not obliged to leave the brig, but allowed to resume our original quarters. Then the xebec escorted us to the Bosphorus, with a prize crew belonging to Ahmet Rais on board.'
'But what became of the remainder of the crew?'
'The mutineers are dead, and the pasha's methods must have made them long for hanging. The rest have no doubt been sold as slaves. O'Flaherty, of course, shared the same clemency as ourselves and we brought him here with us.'
'And – Kaleb?'
Jolival spread his hands in a gesture of ignorance.
'From the moment we dropped anchor at Monevasia in the Morea, we have not set eyes on him, and no one would tell us where he was. The last time we saw him, he said good-bye very politely and then simply vanished, like a genie out of a bottle. Nor would he consent to answer any of our questions.'
'This gets stranger than ever.'
Marianne's thoughts dwelled for a moment on the Ethiopian slave. Had he even been born in the country of the Lion of Judah? Was he ever a slave? He did not look like one. No, Arcadius was probably right and the man was some secret emissary of the Grand Signior's, an agent of some kind, perhaps. But he had been friendly, and she was glad, even if he had been keeping some secret from them, that he was free and safe, and out of Leighton's clutches. Very soon she turned from brooding on Kaleb, with his dark skin and light eyes and his perfect physique, and fell again to pondering the one subject which preoccupied her most passionately: Jason.
Her feelings, she discovered, were queer and complex. The thought of him deep in the power of that evil man was horrifying and revolting, and yet at the same time it brought with it a kind of paradoxical happiness. Now that she knew with what diabolic cunning the doctor had gained possession of his mind, she could forgive him his rages, his injustice and all that he had done to her, because she knew now that he had not been responsible for his actions.
She swept away the past and turned to the future. She had to find Jason, she had to get him away from Leighton and to cure him… But where was she to look? And how? To whom should she turn to try and pick up the trail of two men who had vanished in the middle of the night in a small boat, somewhere between Crete and the Morea?
Latour-Maubourg's voice, heavy with sleep and stifling a yawn, brought her the answer:
'With the exception of your jewels, Princess, you'll find all your belongings here, your clothes and your credentials from the Emperor and from General Sebastiani. May I approach the Seraglio in the morning with a view to obtaining an audience for you with Nakshidil Sultan with the least possible delay. Forgive me for seeming to press you like this when you must be in need of a rest, but time presses also, and it may be several days before we hear anything.'
Life was beginning to exert its claims again, and among them that alarming mission the Emperor had charged her with.
Marianne looked up over the rim of the glass into which she had been gazing as though to prise the secrets of the future from its golden depths, and bent on the diplomat a gaze brilliant with hope.
'By all means, Comte. The sooner the better. You cannot be as eager as I am. But will I be admitted?'
'I think so,' Latour-Maubourg smiled. 'I have seen to it, by little rumours spread about, that the Haseki Sultan knows all about the French lady traveller, a kinswoman of her own into the bargain, who was braving great perils to visit her but mysteriously disappeared. She has already expressed a wish to see you, should you by any chance be found. So you will be sure of an audience, for curiosity's sake, if nothing else. It is up to you to make good use of it.'
Marianne's eyes returned to her glass of champagne. It seemed to her that she could see a face now, floating nebulously in the cloud of tiny bubbles. The features were vague, but the face was framed in a cap of golden hair, as deep and liquid as the wine itself: the unknown face of one who, long ago in the island of Martinique, had been called by the sweet name of Aimée and now ruled, unseen but all-powerful, over the warlike empire of the Osmanlis. Nakshidil. The French Sultana, the golden-haired, and the one person in the world with power enough to bring her back the man she loved.
Still smiling at the vision, Marianne closed her eyes, in utter confidence.
THE END
Footnotes
1. He had to wait until 1822 before he was at last able to found the Royal Danieli hotel, still the most exclusive in Venice.
2. Levkas
3. St Elias.
[Marianne 4] - Marianne and the Rebels Page 41