Marianne and the Lords of the East

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  Marianne felt as if she were stepping inside the heart of a great turquoise. Everything was blue, from the huge carpets on the floor to the flowered tiles on the walls, and including the fountain that played in the center of the room, the countless gold and silver embroidered cushions strewn about it and the dresses of the women sitting looking at her.

  Blue also, of a luminous intensity, were the eyes of the woman squatting in the Oriental fashion with a guitar in her lap among the cushions of a broad golden throne raised up on two steps, and which, owing to the gilded rail that enclosed it, had about it something at once of the divan, the throne and the veranda. And Marianne thought that she had never seen a more beautiful woman.

  The years seemed scarcely to have touched the woman who had once been the Creole girl, Aimée Dubucq de Rivery, from Martinique, educated in the Convent of the Ladies of the Visitation at Nantes and who, as she was on her way home to her native isle, had been seized in the Bay of Biscay by the pirates of Baba Mohammed ben Osman, the aged master of Algiers. Her grace and charm were as vivid as ever.

  Dressed in a long azure gown cut low over her breast, she was so covered by pearls that she seemed like a very creature of the sea. The sequestered life of the harem had preserved the pearly transparency of her skin, and her long silken hair, its silvery locks threaded with pearls, framed a youthful face that still dimpled when she smiled. A tiny pillbox hat tipped saucily to one side was perched on her head, and set in this minuscule headgear was a single rose diamond of immense size cut to the shape of a heart and glittering with all the colors of the rainbow.

  With Marianne's entrance a silence fell. The birdlike chatter of the women died away and the strains of the guitar were silenced by the swift pressure of their mistress's hand on the strings. Conscious that she was the focus of at least a dozen pairs of eyes and more impressed than she cared to admit, Marianne stepped across the threshold and sank at once into a deep curtsy. Rising, she advanced the statutory three paces and curtsied again; three more paces and she dropped into the third curtsy, which brought her to the foot of the throne while the measured voice of the Khislar Aga was still declaiming her various names and titles in Turkish. This took some time, but before he could finish Nakshidil was laughing.

  "Very impressive," she said, "and I knew, of course, that you were a very great lady, my dear, but to me, if you will, you are my cousin and as such I am pleased to receive you. Come and sit here by me."

  She put down the guitar and moved to one side, holding out a small hand sparkling with diamonds to draw her visitor onto the cushions at her side.

  "Your Highness," Marianne said, taken aback by this simple, unceremonious welcome, "you are too kind. I hardly like—"

  The delicate laugh trilled out again.

  "You hardly like to obey? Come here, I say, so that I may see you better. My eyes, alas, are not what they were, and since I refuse to wear those horrid spectacles you will have to come very close to me so that I can see your face clearly. There, that's better!" she added, as Marianne nerved herself to sit down timidly just inside the gilded balustrade. "I want to have a good look at you. I can make out your figure well enough. When you came in in that blue dress, I thought a wave of my beloved sea had remembered me and come to visit me. Now I can see it again in your eyes. I was told that you were beautiful, my dear, but indeed the word does not do you justice."

  The warmth and gaiety of her smile were quickly putting Marianne at her ease. She smiled back, still with a touch of nervousness, "It is Your Majesty who is—oh, infinitely beautiful! And I beg you will forgive me if I seem bewildered. It is not often one meets a legendary ruler. And then to find how much the reality surpasses what one has imagined!"

  "Well, well! The Orient has nothing to teach you in the matter of courtesy, Princess! But we have much to say to one another. Let us begin by securing ourselves a little privacy."

  A word or two was enough to scatter the women who sat about the throne devouring the visitor with their eyes. Without a word they rose and, bowing silently, they hurried out in a flurry of blue veils, but their disappointment showed clearly in their faces.

  The Khislar Aga brought up the rear, as grave as ever, shepherding them with his silver staff. At the same time, black slaves entered by another door, dressed in silvery robes and bearing gold trays set with diamonds on which was the traditional coffee and the no less traditional conserve of roses which they offered to the two women.

  In spite of herself, Marianne could not help staring as she took the cup from the kneeling woman before her. Accustomed to the comfort of wealthy English homes, to the luxury of the French imperial court and the refinements practiced by such men as Talleyrand, even she was not prepared for what confronted her now. Not merely the trays, but every single item of this fabulous service was made of solid gold, encrusted with such masses of diamonds that the metal itself was almost invisible. The little spoon with which she stirred her coffee was alone worth a fortune.

  The two women drank in silence while, over the rims of their glittering cups, the green eyes and the blue met and studied one another discreetly. For behind the spontaneous friendliness of her welcome, Marianne was conscious of an alertness in her hostess. The coffee-drinking ritual allowed them both a precious moment's respite before continuing an interview whose outcome neither could predict.

  Marianne politely swallowed a spoonful of rose jam. She was not particularly fond of this Turkish national delicacy, disliking its rather scented sweetness. It made her feel slightly sick and gave her the feeling that she was eating some of her friend Fortunée Hamelin's cosmetics, for the Creole girl had attar of roses put into everything that went on her skin. But she drank the coffee with enjoyment. It was scalding hot and fragrant, and not too sweet. It was certainly the best that she had ever tasted.

  Nakshidil was regarding her with amused curiosity.

  "You seem to like coffee?" she said.

  "There's nothing I like better—especially when it is as good as this. It's both a luxury and the friendliest of comforts."

  "Perhaps you would not say as much about the rose jam?" the sultana said mischievously. "I don't think you care for it."

  Marianne reddened like a child caught out.

  "Forgive me, Your Highness, but—you are right. I do not like it very much."

  "And I hate it!" Nakshidil cried, laughing. "I've never been able to get used to it. Give me a nice strawberry jam now, or rhubarb, as they used to make it in my convent at Nantes. But try some of this halva with almonds and sesame seeds, or the baklava with nuts, which is something of a national dish with us," she added, pointing out these items on the dish of sweetmeats. The first looked like a rather solid kind of blancmange of a fine cherry red color, while the second was a cake layered with nuts.

  Marianne was not in the least hungry but she forced herself to taste the things her royal hostess offered. More cups of coffee were brought.

  Setting down the precious cup, she saw that the other woman was looking at her intently and realized that the difficult moment had arrived. She knew that she must prove herself worthy of the high trust reposed in her and she was eager now to enter the lists. But protocol demanded that she wait to be questioned. The question was not long in coming.

  The sultana's slender fingers strayed to the mouthpiece of a blue enameled nargileh and she took a few reflective puffs before remarking in a light, conversational tone: "It would seem that your journey here was a great deal more eventful and considerably less pleasant than you might have wished. Everyone has been talking about the great lady from France on whose account the English sent a squadron out off Corfu and who vanished in the Greek islands."

  The voice was amused but Marianne's quick ear had detected a faint but disturbing shade of disdain. God alone knew what tales the English had put about to damage her reputation. However, she decided to go carefully.

  "You Highness seems to be remarkably well informed in such small matters."

  "News t
ravels fast in the Mediterranean. Nor do these matters seem to me so small. English ships are not generally sent out of their way for persons of no importance—such as a lady traveling for pleasure. But the thing becomes much less astonishing if the lady in question should be also… an envoy of the Emperor Napoleon?"

  Instantly, with the mere mention of that name, the cozy intimacy of the blue salon was blown away like a whiff of perfume on the wind. It was as though the Corsican himself had swept into the room in his usual tempestuous fashion, with booted feet and flashing eyes and all the commanding strength of his powerful personality. Marianne felt that he was there, watching her and waiting…

  Slowly she drew from the pocket fashioned in the long skirts of her dress the letter given her by Sebastiani and presented it, bowing gracefully. Nakshidil eyed her questioningly.

  "Is this a letter from the emperor?"

  "No, Your Highness. It is from an old friend, General Horace Sebastiani, who begs to be remembered to you. The English were quite wrong to put themselves out over my journey, for I have no official mission."

  "Yet if you carry no word from Napoleon, you know his mind, do you not?"

  Marianne merely bowed without answering, and then, while the sultana was swiftly perusing the letter, she calmly finished her cup of coffee, cold by this time, and forced herself to swallow the last morsel of baklava in order not to offend her hostess, who had recommended it. It did not go down easily.

  "I see that you are much valued in high places, my dear. Sebastiani tells me you are a personal friend of the emperor's and that you are also held in real affection by the former empress, that unhappy Josephine who will always be Rose to me. Very well, tell me what it is that the French emperor wants of us."

  There was a brief silence while Marianne chose her words carefully. She was beginning to feel slightly sick and it was necessary to concentrate.

  She began: "I must beg Your Highness to listen carefully to what I am about to say because it is very important and involves the revelation of the emperor's most secret and cherished plans."

  "Let us hear them."

  Slowly and quietly, making herself as clear as she could, Marianne told her companion of the imminent invasion of Russia by the Grande Armée and of Napoleon's desire to defeat Alexander, whom he accused of the direst duplicity, on his own ground. She pointed out how helpful it would be to the invader if the military operations taking place on the Danube could be prolonged until at least the following summer, the date fixed for the French invasion of Russia, so as to keep General Kamenski and his troops and the Cossack regiments engaged well away from the Vistula and from the vicinity of Moscow. She hinted further that Napoleon could be relied upon to show his gratitude for this undeclared assistance as soon as the Russians had been beaten by granting to the Sublime Porte all the territory being lost, and more besides.

  "If Your Highness's forces could hold out until next July or August," she concluded, "it would be enough."

  "But that is almost a year!" the sultana exclaimed. "It is a great deal for an exhausted army whose strength is melting like butter in the sun. And I don't think—" She broke off as she caught sight of the change in her visitor's face, which had turned as green as her dress.

  "Are you unwell, Princess?" she asked. "You look very pale all of a sudden—"

  Marianne hardly dared to move. The sweetmeats had been very good in themselves, no doubt, but, added to the hearty dinner she had already eaten at the embassy, their sugary sweetness in her overloaded stomach was making her feel very ill indeed and giving her a somewhat brutal reminder that she was, after all, nearly four months pregnant. At that moment the wretched unofficial ambassadress would gladly have sunk through the cushioned throne.

  When she made no answer, the sultana, startled by her sudden pallor, asked again: "Is there something wrong? Please do not feel obliged to conceal it if you feel unwell—"

  Marianne cast her a helpless glance and tried to smile.

  "Your Highness is right—I don't feel very—oooh—!" In one bound, Marianne was off the throne and through the salon like a flash of green lightning. She brushed past the eunuchs at the door and, making for the convenient shadow of the nearest cypress, which was luckily quite close at hand, set about restoring the unwanted contents of her stomach to the earth which had yielded them. The time this took was brief enough but it seemed to her endless, and while it was going on she was far too preoccupied to consider the shock that her precipitate departure must have caused. When at last she straightened, holding tight to the friendly tree for support, she was still in a cold sweat, but the nausea was passing. She managed to gulp down a deep breath of the scented night air, cooled by the fountains, and felt better. Her strength was beginning to come back.

  Not until then did it dawn on her what she had done. She had turned her back on an empress and dashed from the room like a thief in the middle of a diplomatic talk. The scandal it would cause! Enough to make poor Latour-Maubourg faint with horror! She stood for a moment under the cypress tree, unable to move, considering the probable consequences of her sickness, convinced that when she went back to the kiosk she would find a whole troop of eunuchs with drawn swords waiting to arrest her.

  She was still hesitating there when a soft voice reached her.

  "Princess, where are you? I hope you are not still feeling ill?"

  Marianne breathed again.

  "No, Your Highness. I am here."

  Stepping out of the shadow of the trees, she found Nakshidil standing in the doorway of the little kiosk. She must have sent everyone else away, for she was quite alone, and Marianne, feeling very much in the wrong and also something of a fool, was grateful to her.

  After this unlikely start to a delicate negotiation she felt that some apology was called for, and the Princess Sant'Anna was just sinking into her best curtsy when she was promptly interrupted.

  "No, please! Are you sure you are quite better? Take my arm and let us go inside—unless you'd rather stroll a little in the gardens? It is cooler now and we might go as far as the terrace there, overlooking the Bosporus. It is a favorite place of mine."

  "With pleasure, but I do not like to ask Your Highness to put yourself out for me."

  "Who, me? My dear girl, I like nothing better than to take exercise, whether walking or riding on horseback. Unfortunately it can be a little awkward here. In our palaces in Asia it is easier. Are you coming?"

  Arm in arm, they made their way slowly toward the selected spot. Marianne was surprised to find that the sultana was as tall as she was and her slim figure was quite faultless. For that to be so at her age it was clear that the fair-skinned Creole could not have resigned herself to the lazy, cloistered existence of most women in the harem. She could only have kept that lithe, girlish figure by an addiction to the athletic sports so dear to the English. Nakshidil's interest, on the other hand, was all for her companion and while they walked she was asking with a deceptive casualness: "Do you suffer often from these turns ? Yet you look to be in high bloom ?"

  "No, Your Highness. Not very often. I believe the blame for this must go to the cook at the embassy. There is a certain heaviness about his dishes—"

  "And what I offered you was not of the lightest, either! Oddly enough, though, your sickness put me strongly in mind of what I suffered myself when I was expecting my son. I used to drink pots and pots of coffee and I couldn't stand halva or baklava—much less gulrecheli, the rose jam. The name and the color are very poetic, to be sure, but I could never abide it."

  Marianne felt her cheeks grow hot and blessed the darkness which hid her untimely blushes. Even so, she could not control the slight stiffening of her arm which told her companion all she needed to know. Nakshidil understood at once that she had touched on the truth and also that it was a point on which her guest was peculiarly sensitive.

  When the two of them reached the little terrace built of white marble, she indicated a curving bench plentifully furnished with cushions and evid
ently a much favored spot.

  "Shall we sit here for a little?" she said. "We can talk much more comfortably than in my apartments because there is no one to overhear us. Inside the palace, there are listening ears behind every door and every curtain. Here, we need fear nothing of the kind. See—where we are is like a kind of balcony overhanging the battlements and the lower gardens." She glanced at Marianne's bare shoulders. "But you are quite sure you won't be cold?"

  "No, indeed, Your Highness. I feel perfectly well now."

  Nakshidil nodded and turned to look across the arm of the sea to where the clouds were piling up over the hills of Scutari.

  "Summer is nearly over," she observed with a touch of sadness. "The weather is changing and we shall probably have rain tomorrow. It will be good for the crops because the land is parched but after that will be the winter. It can be bitterly cold here and I dread it… But we will forget all that now. Tell me about yourself."

  "Me? But there is nothing interesting about me, Your Highness, except insofar as I am the mouthpiece of Napoleon."

  The sultana put up her hand with a gesture of impatience.

  "Let's leave your emperor for the present. His turn will come, although I cannot see what is to be said about him. Whatever you may think, I find you much more interesting than the great Napoleon. And so I want to know all about you. Tell me of your life."

  "My—my life?"

  "Yes, the whole of your life! As though I were your mother."

  "But, Your Highness, it is a long story—"

  "Never mind. We have the night before us. But I want to know—everything! There are so many stories about you already and I like to get at the truth. Besides, I am your cousin and would like to be your friend. Don't you need a friend who has some power?"

  The sultana's silky little hand was laid on Marianne's, but she was already responding impulsively: "Oh, yes!" It was spoken with such feeling that her companion smiled and was confirmed in her initial conviction that this young and ravishingly lovely creature stood in desperate need of help. Accustomed by the perilous life she had been forced to lead in this palace before becoming the mistress of it, to watch the slightest change of expression in the faces of others with a closeness on which her very life might depend, Nakshidil had been struck from Marianne's first appearance by the drawn look on her lovely face and by the unconscious pathos of her great green eyes. Napoleon's envoy was very far from anything she had expected.