Marianne and the Lords of the East

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  "Gracchus?"

  Marianne felt a bitter pang in her heart. So Gracchus, too, wanted to leave her? In the time since she had first begun to put down roots in French soil, the urchin from the rue Montorgueil, the grandson of the laundress of the rue de la Revolte, had become much more than a servant to her. He had been a faithful friend, one she could trust and rely on. His devotion to her had been absolute. But it had not taken Jason long to win some of his heart, and Gracchus loved him almost as much as he loved Marianne and admired him deeply. Then the voyage aboard the Sea Witch had finally shown the youthful coachman the path of his dreams. The sea, with all its beauty and its tricks, its splendors and its perils, had become a real vocation and, remembering the boy's eagerness in the skirmish with the English frigates off Corfu, Marianne thought that she had no right to stand in his way.

  "Take him, then," she said quickly. "I give him to you because I know he will be much happier with you. But why must you go so soon, Jason? Why not wait a little while—only a few days, so that I can—"

  "No, Marianne. It's impossible. I cannot wait. In any case, I shall have to go secretly. There will be risks, fighting, perhaps, for the English will not let me sail out of the harbor without giving chase. I don't want to expose you to those risks. When you are quite better, you can go quietly aboard a Greek ship with Jolival and sail peacefully back to Europe. Once there, you have enough friends among seafaring men to find a vessel willing to dare the English blockade and carry you across the Atlantic."

  "I'm not afraid of danger. Nothing can frighten me as long as I'm with you."

  "You alone, perhaps, but aren't you forgetting, Marianne? You are no longer alone. Have you forgotten the child? Do you want to expose him when he's no more than a few hours old, to the perils of the sea, of gunfire and the risk of shipwreck? This is war, Marianne."

  She broke free of his tender clasp and fell back on her pillows. Her face had gone very pale and there was a painful tightness in her chest. The child! Did he have to remind her? And what need had Jason to trouble himself about the little bastard? Did he seriously imagine she was going to take it with her to that other life, which was to be all clean and fresh and new? That she was going to bring up Damiani's child with his, the children that she longed to give him? In her uncertainty, she burst out angrily to gain time: "It is not war! Even here at the ends of the earth we know that there has been no formal declaration of war between Britain and the United States."

  "Certainly. War has not been declared, but incidents are becoming more and more frequent and it will be only a matter of weeks. Mr. Canning knows that. He'd not have hesitated to impound my brig if she hadn't been protected by Turhan Bey's colors. Would you rather it caught me here and left me rotting in an English prison while my friends and fellow countrymen were fighting?"

  "I want you to be free and happy… but I want to keep you with me."

  It was a cry of despair and in the same instant Marianne had cast herself on Jason's chest and was burying her face in his coat while her thin arms—still so pitifully thin and the skin almost transparent—encircled his broad shoulders.

  He held her to him, grieving for the hurt he had been forced to cause her once again, cradling her like a child while his hand caressed the soft curls at the nape of her neck.

  "You can't keep me like that, my heart. I am a man, a seaman, and I must live according to my nature. Besides… would you truly love me if I were content to hide behind your skirts when danger threatened? Would you love a coward without honor?"

  "I should love you anyhow…"

  "No, you wouldn't. You're deceiving yourself, Marianne. If I were to listen to you, my sweet, a day would come when you would blame me for my cowardice. You'd throw it in my face with scorn and contempt. And you would be right. As God is my witness, I'd give anything to be able to stay with you, but I must choose America."

  "America!" she said bitterly. "That endless country… with so many people in it. Does she really need you, just one among her countless children?"

  "She needs them all. America only won her freedom because all those who wanted it joined together to make one people! I come of that free people… one grain of sand on the seashore, yet that grain, carried away on the winds, is lost forever."

  Marianne was weeping now, with little, hard, gasping sobs, and clinging with all her strength to the virile form that was a solid wall to her, a refuge that she was about to lose once more, and for how long? For she had lost, she knew that. She had always known it. From the first words he had uttered, she had known that she was fighting a losing battle, that she could never hold him.

  As though he had divined her thought, he murmured into her hair: "Be brave, my sweet. We shall be together again soon. Even if the chances of war mean that I cannot be there to greet you when you land at Charleston, everything will be ready to welcome you. To welcome you both, you and the baby. There will be a house, servants and an old friend of mine to look after you…"

  Marianne had stiffened at the mention of the child and once again she avoided speaking of him, concentrating on her own misery instead.

  "I know… but you will not be there," she mourned. "What will become of me without you?"

  Gently but firmly he loosened the clinging arms which held him and stood up.

  "I'm going to tell you," he said.

  Before Marianne could recover from her surprise or make a move to stop him, he had walked quickly from the room, leaving the door open behind him. She heard him go swiftly across the boudoir, calling: "Jolival! Jolival! Come here!"

  A moment later he was back with the vicomte on his heels. But what made Marianne gasp was the realization that, in his arms, with infinite care, he held a small white woolly bundle from which emerged two tiny, moving pink blobs.

  The blood drained from Marianne's face as it came to her that Jason was bringing her the child whose very presence filled her with loathing. She cast about her wildly, seeking childishly for a way of escape, for somewhere to hide from the peril advancing on her, wrapped in a snow-white shawl and carried in the arms of the man she loved.

  Coming to the foot of the bed, he tossed back the lock of black hair falling over his eyes with an automatic gesture and beamed triumphantly at the frightened girl.

  "This is what is going to become of you, my sweet. An adorable little mother! Your son will keep you company and stop you thinking too much about the war. You can't imagine how quickly this little fellow will make the time pass for you."

  He was coming around the bed toward her… In another moment he would be laying the child down on the counterpane… His blue eyes were alight with mischief and in that minute Marianne almost hated him. How could he?

  "Take that child away," she articulated between gritted teeth. "I have already said I don't want to see him."

  There was a sudden silence, a silence so vast and crushing that Marianne was frightened. Not daring to raise her eyes to Jason's face for fear of what she might see there, she went on in a much milder tone: "Try to understand what he means to me. I—I can't help it."

  She had been prepared for an outburst of anger, but Jason's voice remained quiet and perfectly level.

  "I don't know what he means to you—and I do not need to know. No, no, don't try to explain. Jolival has done so more than adequately and I am quite aware of the circumstances of the child's conception. But now I am going to tell you what he means to me. He's a fine, strong, healthy little man, something you have made very slowly and brought into the world with suffering that would have served to wipe out the worst of sins, if sin there was, and make it holy. And, most of all, he is your child—yours and only yours. He even looks like you."

  "That's true," Jolival put in nervously. "He looks like the portrait of your father."

  "Come, look at him at least," Jason persisted. "Have the courage to look, if only for a moment, or else you're not the woman—"

  You're not the woman I thought you were. That was what he meant. Nor did his mea
ning escape Marianne. She knew his demanding private code of honor too well not to have scented danger. If she were to refuse to do as he asked, which he evidently regarded as a perfectly natural thing, a quite normal reflex, she would run the risk of seeing the place she held in his heart shrinking a little. Already she had some reason to think that place less than it had been. For too long life had conspired to show her to Jason in her least attractive light.

  She surrendered unconditionally.

  "Very well," she sighed. "Show him to me if you insist."

  "I do insist," he said gravely.

  Marianne had expected that he would show him to her in his arms so that she could take a quick glance, but instead he bent swiftly and set down the trifling burden on one of her pillows, close by his mother's shoulder.

  She shrank a little at the unexpected contact but managed to bite back the exclamation of annoyance that rose to her lips. Jason was looking at her, studying her reaction. So she sat up cautiously and turned a little on her side. But when her eyes rested for the first time on her son, the shock was not what she had expected.

  Not only was there nothing in the baby to recall his horrible sire, but he was truly such a perfect little cherub that in spite of herself her heart missed a beat.

  Swaddled in his absurdly complicated assortment of garments, the little prince was sleeping with total concentration. His tiny fingers lay spread like a starfish against the woolen shawl. A cloud of fine black hair showed faintly under his cap of Valenciennes lace, curling lightly above a small round face which had the downy softness of a peach. He seemed to be having pleasant dreams because the corners of his tiny mouth quivered slightly as if he were already trying to smile.

  Marianne stared at him, fascinated. The look of the Marquis d'Asselnat was unmistakable. It came chiefly from the shape of the mouth, the determination about the tiny chin and the promise of intelligence in the high, sculptured brow.

  Looking at the small person she had feared so greatly, Marianne felt as if something inside her were struggling to spread its wings and be free. It was as though somewhere, in the secret depths of her being, there was another birth about to take place, unknown to her. A strange force, formed of a conspiracy between mind and heart, was welling up in her whether she would or no.

  Almost fearfully, she put out a cautious finger and touched one of the little hands as softly as a butterfly. The movement was too shy to be called a caress. But the tiny fist stirred suddenly. The miniature fingers uncurled and then closed firmly around their mother's with a tenacity unexpected in a newborn baby.

  At that something broke in Marianne. As though a window had been violently flung open by a gale of wind, the thing that had been struggling inside her took flight and soared heavenward, flooding her with a joy that was almost painful in its intensity. Tears sprang to her eyes and poured down her cheeks in a refreshing stream, washing away the bitterness and disgust, all the mire which had clogged Marianne's soul for so long and stifled it. What did it matter now how the child had come into her life and, like a tiny, indomitable tyrant, had demanded her very flesh and blood. She discovered with a wondering amazement that he was hers, flesh of her flesh, breath of her breath, and that she acknowledged him for what he was.

  The two men standing on either side of the bed held their breath and dared not move a muscle as they watched the miracle taking place before their eyes, the miracle of the awakening of mother love. But when, still held prisoner by her son, she began to cry, Jason bent again and lifted the baby gently to place him in his mother's arms. This time they closed and held him.

  The little silky head settled of its own accord against the warm breast in a gesture so instinctively caressing that it took Marianne's breath away. Then she looked up at Arcadius, who was weeping unashamedly, and at Jason, who was smiling with eyes she saw sparkling through her tears like diamonds in the sun.

  "You need not look like that," she said softly. "Your little plot has succeeded. You have won."

  "It was no plot," Jason said. "We merely wanted you to agree that your son is the most beautiful baby in the world."

  "Well, you've done it. I do agree."

  Meanwhile, Jolival, who had not shed so many tears since he could remember, was sniffing and fumbling in his pockets from which he extracted, first, a handkerchief, into which he blew with a noise like the last trumpet, and secondly, his watch, which he consulted uneasily. Then he glanced with an anxious expression at Marianne. But Jason, who had observed this proceeding, spared him the role of spoilsport.

  "I know," he said quietly. "It is more than time and O'Flaherty must be at the beach already."

  The delicate veil of Marianne's brand-new happiness was rent in an instant. Lost in her discovery, she had temporarily forgotten what loomed ahead.

  "Oh, no!" she cried out. "Not so soon!"

  Feverishly, as though feeling herself suddenly a prisoner, she thrust the baby at Jolival and threw back the covers as if to get up. But she had overestimated her strength and almost before her feet had touched the ground she felt her head swimming and she fell forward with a little cry into Jason's arms as he hurried around the bed to catch her.

  He lifted her and held her briefly in his arms, alarmed to find her so light. He was suddenly torn by a parting he had not known would be so painful, and he covered her face with kisses before laying her back with infinite gentleness in her silky nest and drawing the covers tenderly over her trembling body.

  "I love you, Marianne… Never forget that I love you. But for God's sake be reasonable! We shall meet again soon, I know… A few weeks, only a few weeks, and we shall be together again and you will have your strength and health again… and then nothing shall ever part us."

  He was so obviously overcome that Marianne smiled tremulously at him, but still with a flicker of irony that showed a little of her old fighting spirit.

  "Nothing? Not even the war?"

  He kissed her again, her nose, her forehead, her lips and both her hands.

  "You know very well that no power on earth can divide us forever. Certainly no paltry war is going to do it."

  Then, almost as if he were afraid of a tenderness that might sap his courage, he tore himself from her arms and fled from the room, striding straight past Jolival, who stood staring after him, the child in his arms.

  Jolival's eyes turned uncertainly to Marianne. He wondered if he ought to give her back the baby. But all her newfound bravery had abandoned her and she was lying face down, with her head buried in her pillows, weeping as if her heart would break. At that moment there was nothing the vicomte could say to comfort her and besides, he wanted to go after Jason and see with his own eyes the success or failure of his rash enterprise.

  He left the room on tiptoe and went to restore baby Sebastiano to Donna Lavinia.

  The big bedchamber was quiet except for the soft purring of the stove and the sound of sobbing. But outside in the cold night the wind was rising.

  Chapter 7

  A Night for the Devil

  BY the time that Jason, Gracchus and Jolival reached the rendezvous, which was that same unfrequented stretch of shore behind the mosque of Kilij Ali Pasha where the Klepht, Theodoros, had borne Marianne unconscious from the sea, it was so dark, in spite of the obligatory lanterns, that at first they did not see Craig O'Flaherty and his men at all.

  A strong wind was sweeping along the beach, tossing up the sand and whipping the sea into heavy, grinding breakers that spattered the darkness with white foam.

  The time was that moment just before the dawn when the night is at its darkest and thickest, as if all the forces of darkness were gathering to help it keep possession of the earth and fight off the onslaught of the light. The three were more than fifteen minutes late. Preparations for departure had taken longer than anticipated because Gracchus had been temporarily mislaid, having been locked in a cellar through an oversight of the butler. In addition, the party had been stopped more than once in the two leagues between Be
bek and Galata by patrols of janissaries out hunting for a miscreant who had caused sacrilegious disturbances in no less than three separate mosques.

  The beach was so dark and empty that for a moment the three men believed themselves alone. Jason swore furiously into the wind, regardless of who might overhear him.

  "Perhaps they thought we'd never get aboard in this gale," Jolival hazarded. "Or else they decided that we were not coming—"

  "They had no business to think or decide," Jason snarled. "As to the gale, well, they're sailors, aren't they? In any case, I'm sure they can't be far off. I know O'Flaherty."

  His previous loud cursing might well have sufficed but to make doubly sure he whistled three times on a particular note and a moment later was answered in an identical fashion. Almost immediately Craig O'Flaherty and his men appeared, dark shadowy figures which the privateer's eyes, accustomed to peering through the blinding spray, were soon able to pick out from the surrounding blackness.

  The crew the Irishman had assembled could scarcely have been said to constitute the cream of the world's seamen. There were two Genoese, a Maltese, a Greek, an Albanian and two Georgians whom Craig had ruthlessly bribed away from the service of his friend Mamoulian. But they looked capable enough and stood up to Jason's practiced scrutiny.

  "So here you are at last," was Craig's welcome. "We were beginning to give up hope."

  "I daresay," retorted Jason dryly. "Several hours without a drink is a long time. Where were you, O'Flaherty? Find a bar somewhere still open?"

  "In a safe place, and on consecrated ground, what's more," the Irishman retorted, indicating the vague outline of a small tekke of Whirling Dervishes which made a white blur against the dark bulk of the mosque. "You may not have noticed, but it's blowing fit to skin a cat. It was all we could do to keep our feet on the beach."