Then the tide of shame came back, and she turned her face away from the empty room, as if it had guessed her thoughts; and then, to get away from them, she called her maids, clapping her hands sharply. They came running in and stood before her.
‘Go, Yulia,’ she said, ‘find the secretary and beg him to come to me.’
While she waited, she made Lucilla arrange her veil again so that it hid her face, and this was scarcely done when Omobono was ushered in by the other girl. He bowed to Zoë and gravely stroked his pointed beard.
‘What is the Kokóna’s pleasure?’ he asked, after a pause.
‘Do you speak Latin?’ Zoë enquired, in that language.
The little man drew himself up proudly, and cleared his throat.
‘In my family we have been notaries for five generations,’ he answered, in language that was comprehensible but would have filled an average Churchman with vague uneasiness, and would have made Cicero’s ashes rattle in their urn.
Zoë was satisfied, however, for though her maids might understand Italian, she was quite sure that Latin was beyond them. She herself spoke it far more correctly than Omobono, though with a rather lisping Greek accent. She could not have helped saying ‘vonus’ for ‘bonus,’ ‘eyo’ for ‘ego,’ and ‘Thominus’ for ‘Dominus.’
‘Where is Thominus Carolus?’ she enquired, so suddenly that the secretary was almost taken off his guard.
‘He is — he is gone out,’ he answered.
‘Yes. He is gone to dine with Messer Sebastian Polo. He goes there two or three times a week.’
Zoë watched the secretary’s face with amusement; his surprise was comical.
‘Then the man is really an astrologer,’ he said, in a wondering tone, ‘and star-gazing is not all nonsense!’
‘Sebastian Polo’s daughter is young and beautiful,’ observed Zoë, who apparently did not place implicit faith in astrology.
Omobono’s face and gesture expressed a qualified assent, but he said nothing.
‘Tell me at once,’ said Zoë, ‘that she is thirty, that her complexion resembles the dust when it is pitted by raindrops after a shower — —’
‘That would not be true,’ cried the secretary. ‘Giustina Polo is not supremely beautiful, but she is young and pretty, and as fresh as roses.’
‘But she is very poor,’ suggested Zoë. ‘She has no dowry.’
‘Who says so?’ asked Omobono indignantly. ‘The house of Sebastian Polo is as prosperous as any in Constantinople! He is as rich as any Venetian here except, perhaps, Marin Cornèr!’
‘Then it is true that the master is going to marry his daughter,’ Zoë replied, as if stating a fact that could no longer be denied.
She was rapidly working the secretary into a state of excitement in which his Latin grammar went to the winds.
‘No, indeed!’ he cried. ‘It is altogether a lie! Who has told you such things?’
‘She is young, pretty, fresh as roses, and very rich,’ said Zoë, recapitulating. ‘Did you not say so?’
‘Yes — —’
‘And the master goes to dine in her father’s house three times a week — —’
‘Perhaps — —’
‘Do you suppose that Polo would invite the master so often unless he wanted him for his daughter?’
‘Perhaps not — —’
‘Or that the master would wilfully deceive Polo and the girl?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Simply that Thominus Carolus is going to marry Thomna Justina.’
‘But I tell you — —’
‘Either you are very simple, or you think I am,’ interrupted Zoë, with crushing logic. ‘Which shall it be, Master Secretary?’
Omobono thought her a terrible young person just then. He spread out his hands and looked up to the ceiling in despair, but still protesting.
‘And meanwhile,’ she continued, ‘what is the master going to do with me? Am I to be locked up here for ever?’
If anything could further disturb Omobono’s equanimity it was this question. His gentle temper was beginning to be ruffled.
‘How can I tell?’ he asked. ‘He will do what he thinks best! Ask him yourself!’
After all, she was only a slave, he said in his heart, and he was the descendant of five generations of notaries. What right had she to cross-examine him? He was the more angry with her for asking the question, because his own curiosity had tormented him for days to find an answer to it.
‘Omobono,’ Zoë said, affecting a very grave tone, ‘you know very well what the master means to do. Now I ask you solemnly, and you are warned that you must answer me — by four — —’
‘No, no!’ cried the secretary, in sudden distress. ‘Do not ask me by that!’
‘I must, Omobono; and of course you have been told what you have to expect if you refuse to help a friend over the water.’
She emphasised the last words in a way that made him tremble.
‘Yes, yes — I know — —’ he said feebly, though he had not the least notion of the penalty.
‘You will be broken to pieces by inches with a small hammer, beginning at the tips of your fingers till there is not a whole bone in your body. That is only the beginning.’
Omobono’s knees knocked together.
‘Then your skin will be turned inside out over your head and your living heart will be cut out of your body, Omobono, and you will die.’
The secretary had already such belief in the power of those who knew the magic words that he turned pale and the cold sweat stood on his forehead.
‘If all this were to be done to me now,’ he faltered, ‘I could not tell you what the master intends!’
She saw that it was the truth.
‘Very well,’ she said; ‘then you must manage that he shall come here to-day as soon as he returns from Polo’s house.’
‘I will tell him that you have asked to see him — —’
‘No. Tell him that I shall fall ill if I am shut up in these rooms any longer, and that if he does not believe it, he had better come and see how I am. He will probably take your advice. I do not choose to show you my face, but I assure you I am very pale, and I have no appetite.’
‘He will come,’ said the secretary confidently.
‘You can also do me another service, Omobono,’ continued Zoë. ‘I have learned that last Friday, when you went to find Rustan about buying me, you came upon him in the beggars’ quarter, near the church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, at a house where some very poor people lived. This is true, is it not?’
Omobono nodded, wondering how she knew of the circumstance.
‘A poor woman lay there ill, with children and a very old nurse, and Rustan gave them something. I wish to know how these poor people are, and where they live, if they have left that house. I am sure the master is charitable, and will let you give them something if they are still in need. There were two little boys, and there was a grown girl besides the sick woman and the other.’
‘You know everything!’ cried Omobono. ‘The man must be a great astrologer! I will go myself to the beggars’ quarter and do your bidding.’
Zoë had played her little comedy because she had by this time guessed the man’s character, and wished to make sure that she could rely on his help in anything she decided to do; for it was clear that whenever Zeno was absent, the secretary was in charge of the whole establishment, and the servants would obey him without hesitation. As Gorlias had told him, whatever he did was right in their eyes.
That he was in haste to do her bidding she discovered before the afternoon was half over, for as she sat in her window she saw him go down to wait for his master at the marble steps, and he walked slowly on the strip of black and white pavement by the water’s edge.
At last he stood still, and looked towards Blachernæ, for the skiff was in sight. Zoë drew her veil across her face and rested her head against the right-hand side of the open window as if she were very tired, a
nd she did not move from this position as the boat came near. Zeno was leaning back in the stern, and could not help seeing her as he approached the house, but from her attitude he thought she did not see him, and he looked up at her steadily for two or three seconds. She was quite motionless.
Omobono stood by the water’s edge as Zeno stepped ashore, and asked permission to say a few words to him at once. Zeno dismissed the boat by a gesture.
‘Has anything happened?’ he asked, glancing up at the window again.
Zoë had not moved, but she could see him through her veil. Then the two men walked up and down, while Omobono spoke in a low tone, but though she could not hear the words she knew what the substance was. Then came Zeno’s voice, cold and clear.
‘Certainly not,’ he said decidedly. ‘I shall do nothing of the sort! If she has no appetite send for a doctor. Do you take me for one? Send for old Solomon the Jewish physician. He is the best, and he is an old man. If he says the girl needs air, take her out in the boat, her and the maids, on fine mornings.’
A question from Omobono followed, which Zoë could not hear distinctly. Zeno was evidently annoyed.
‘Omobono, you are a good man,’ he said; ‘but you have no more sense than a cackling hen! Never think! It is not your strong point. When you do just what I tell you, you never make a mistake.’
The secretary’s voice was heard again, low and indistinct.
‘No,’ answered Zeno. ‘You need not go and tell her what I have said, for she has probably heard every word of it herself, from the window. It is useless ever to tell women anything. They always know before they are told.’
Thereupon Zeno went in, apparently in a bad temper. If anything can make a woman angry when she is overhearing a conversation about herself, it is to hear it said that she is undoubtedly listening. Zoë had not hidden herself, and Zeno must have meant her to hear what he was saying, but she felt the more deeply insulted. Her cheek burned, and she drew back her veil to feel the cool air. So he had no intention of coming to see her again! A Jewish doctor and an airing in the boat, with Omobono for company! And she had been told that she had been listening — it was not to be borne! She threw her veil on one side, her silk shawl on the other, and then walked up and down the long room with restless steps, like a young wild animal in a cage.
The little maids picked up the things and watched her uneasily, for she had always seemed very gentle. They looked at her with wide eyes now, and their gaze irritated her, till she felt that she wanted to box their ears, and wished she had the negress’s whip in her belt. Then, without any apparent reason, she threw her arms round the one that stood nearest and kissed the astonished girl a dozen times, almost lifting her from the floor. As she let her go, she laughed nervously at herself.
She was thirsty, and she drank off a tall glass of cold water at a draught; and all the time she was unconsciously repeating one phrase to herself.
‘He shall pay me for this, he shall pay me for this!’
The words rang in her ears, to a sort of silly tune that would not go away. There is a vile natural hurdy-gurdy somewhere in our brains, and when we are angry, or in love, or broken-hearted, or otherwise beside ourselves, it plays its absurd little tunes at us till we are ready to go mad. I sometimes think that devil’s music may have brought on the final fatal irritation against life, that has decided the fate of many half-mad suicides.
‘He shall pay me for this!’ She heard the words keeping time with her movements; she walked slower — faster, but it made no difference, for the infernal little notes took the beat from her steps.
She had not the least notion how Zeno was to pay for having made her so very angry, and that question did not obtrude itself on her thoughts till her temper was beginning to subside; then she suddenly felt how utterly helpless she was, and her wrath boiled up again. The only way of paying him out that suggested itself was to throw herself out of the window. Then he would be sorry for what he had done.
Would he? He would probably send Omobono to have her corpse taken away as quickly as possible. And the day after to-morrow he would go again to see Giustina Polo in her father’s house, and she would have thrown herself out of the window for nothing. Besides, it would be wicked.
She realised how childish her thoughts were, and she sat down to think— ‘like a grown-up woman,’ she said to herself. But just then she remembered Zeno’s words to Omobono. ‘Never think, for it is not your strong point,’ he had said to his secretary; but he had of course meant it for her. Everything had been meant for her. She wished she could hold his brown throat in her hands and dig her little nails into it.
Appetite, indeed! Was it strange that she should not be hungry? How could any one eat who lived such a life, shut up between four walls? — with a tyrant downstairs who did not even take the trouble to come and look at her, but sent his silly old clerk to keep her company! He took trouble enough to go and see Giustina Polo!
This was thinking ‘like a grown-up woman,’ as she had proposed to do! She was disgusted with herself, and looked about for something to occupy her thoughts. There were sweetmeats, whole boxes of sweetmeats of every sort. Twice already they had been emptied and refilled with fresh ones, since she had been brought to the house. That was Zeno’s idea of what a woman needed to occupy her thoughts and be happy! Sweetmeats! Preserve of rose-leaves! Figs in syrup! That was all he knew of her wants!
She lay back among her cushions, her brown eyes gleamed angrily, her lips were a little parted, and her nostrils quivered now and then as she drew a sharp breath. Presently, she called Yulia to her side.
‘Go to the secretary,’ she said, ‘and tell him to send me a book.’
‘A book?’ repeated the slave stupidly, for she had never seen a woman who could read.
‘Yes. A book in Greek, Latin, or Italian; it does not matter which. I am sick of doing nothing. Tell him to be quick, too,’ she added, in a tone of authority.
The girl tripped away and found Omobono in the counting-house on the ground floor. He was in a bad humour too, but in his case it took the form of dignified sorrow. His master had compared him to a fowl, and to one that cackled.
‘What does she want with a book?’ he asked, in a dreary tone, looking up from his accounts.
‘To read, I think, sir,’ answered the little maid timidly; ‘and she told me to beg you to let her have it soon.’
‘As if a slave could read!’ He looked about him in a melancholy way, and rose to take from the shelf above his head a good-sized volume bound in soft brown leather, with little thongs tied in slip knots, for clasps, to keep it shut.
‘Take her that,’ he said, thrusting the book into the girl’s hands.
Yulia took it, and before she had left the room Omobono was gravely busy with his figures again; but each time he added up a column the sum seemed to be ‘cackling hen,’ instead of anything reasonable. But Yulia ran upstairs.
Zoë untied the thongs and opened the book in the middle. An exclamation of anger and disgust escaped her lips. The secretary, who did not believe she could really read, though she spoke Latin fluently, had sent an old volume of accounts in answer to her request. There were pages and pages of entries and columns of figures, all neatly written in his small, clear hand, on stout cotton paper. Here and there some one else had made a note, as if checking his work.
Zoë pushed the book away from her on the divan, and it fell over the edge and lay face downwards and open on the floor. Then the little tune began again in her head.
‘He shall pay me for this!’
She wished he would open the door noiselessly and be all at once beside her, as on that first evening. That had been Friday, and to-day was Wednesday; five days had gone by. Counting Friday there were six, and six days were practically a week! She had been under his roof a whole week and he had only cared to see her face once.
‘He shall pay me for this!’
The tune went on, and she quite forgot how she had longed for death, and how hi
s first anticipated coming had been dreadful beyond anything she had ever suffered, beyond cold, starvation, and misery. Or if she remembered it at all, she told herself that the man she had seen was not the kind of man she had expected, and that she had nothing to fear from him. She was quite sure of that.
She turned on one side, as she half lay on the divan, till she could reach the account-book to pick it up. One of the maids jumped up from the carpet to help her.
‘Go away!’ she exclaimed crossly, for she had got hold of the cover and had drawn the volume over the edge of the divan. ‘I will call if I want anything.’
The girls slipped away in silence and left her alone. She turned over the pages with a sort of angry curiosity, half expecting to find an entry concerning slaves bought and sold like herself. Just then she could have believed Zeno capable of anything.
But though she found a great many strange words which she did not understand, and which referred to tonnage, insurance, profit and loss, and all the complicated matters of an Eastern merchant’s business, there was nothing which could possibly be interpreted to mean that Zeno had dealt in humanity, as most of the Venetians who lived in Constantinople certainly did. Sebastian Polo’s name occurred very often. Large sums had been paid to him, and other large sums had been received from him. It was clear that the two men were in close relations of business, and constantly made ventures together, dividing the profits and sharing the losses.
That might account for Zeno’s constant visits to his fellow-merchant, though Zoë was not inclined to admit such a view. On the contrary, she made herself believe that Zeno dealt with Polo solely in order to make an excuse for seeing more of the latter’s daughter. He should pay for that, too! The little tune hammered away in her head at a great rate.
She clapped her hands.
‘Take this back to the secretary,’ she said, giving the book to Yulia. ‘Tell him I am not a merchant’s clerk, and that I want something to read.’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1172