“It would gratify your patrons to hear you say so!”
“If I keep the wallow for swine,” Giacomo demanded magnificently, “must I delight in their company?” He lighted them through a doorway, dropped a last curtain into place and tilted the candle to the wick of a lamp made from a large sea-shell, set on a stand in the corner. He blew out the candle and set it down, moving with a heavy deliberation that was in keeping with his bulk. His wary expression almost matched Marco’s; he was neither friendly nor unfriendly, and Rodriga guessed that the two were barely acquainted, but had each heard so much about the other that enmity needed but a word to spark it into a blaze. Each recognised a formidable adversary, and neither would retreat an inch, though neither wished to push matters to the point of conflict. Rodriga’s mind was too full of churning emotion for her to find speech; she had been deeply moved by the song, and then ashamed of her feelings, angry and impatient with Giacomo and at the same time disarmed by his taste in music.
“If you are not weary of chastity, what brings Marco under unclean roof?” Giacomo asked briskly.
The renegade stiffened, and his hand slipped to his dagger; Rodriga had forgotten his bitter aversion to the whoremonger and all his traffic. She halted him with a movement of her hand, and put back the cloak from her head. Giacomo gasped and stared slack-jawed, incredulous as though an angel from Heaven had furled his six-fold wings in that dim little room, simply and realistically furnished with a low wooden couch, a great many cushions, and a low Turkish table. The anger that had been mounting in her through all the delays made her voice and face harshly indignant.
“You know why I am here, and do not pretend that it was to disport myself with Marco!”
“That I know,” said Giacomo, and bowed respectfully, his stupefaction clearing. “For sake of your man, donzella? I treat him gentle—yes, very gentle. Cripple, and yours.”
“So you knew that?”
“But certainly. I see him with you, day of battle. He tell you I throw him out? He is jealous. No money for girl, he try to cut liver out of man who has. So out. In my house,” he declared superbly, “I permit no bad conduct.”
“Your discipline is no concern of mine,” she answered bitingly. “But what of the poor child your victim, whom he tried to aid? It is for her sake I have come, as soon as I learned of her plight!”
He tugged at his beard in bewilderment rather than anger, with a hand on whose outer edge was imprinted a semi-circle of bloody toothmarks. “Victim?” he repeated blankly. “What poor child, donzella?”
“Will you trifle with me?” demanded Rodriga hotly. “I wish I could free all your miserable slaves, but at least I shall buy this one unhappy girl and free her from your brutal hands!”
“You mean your man’s girl, donzella?” the giant asked, his face clearing.
“That one out of your many victims, yes! I wish to buy her, so let me see her!”
His red mouth twitched. “Already you see her, donzella. The day of the battle. I smack backside for her, remember?”
The righteous wrath was smitten out of Rodriga by realisation, hard as a blow in the wind, and she stood staring blankly at Giacomo, remembering very plainly at last the wench Wulfric had pitied, had said was like an English girl. “That—that little trollop!” she gasped.
“Dio mio!” said Giacomo, and a slow grin split his beard. “She tell him she is unwilling—sold and ravished, eh? And I abuse her— yes, abuse is true this night!”
Rodriga’s whole body was scorched by shame and humiliation and wrath for her own gullibility. That little fair slut who had tried her arts on Landry, who had shown aught but reluctant, who had neglected wounded men; and she had wasted her pity on such trash, offended Giacomo, rushed headlong into this dangerous folly. “She lied?” she asked flatly.
“I will have no unwilling girl,” declared Giacomo. “Whines and whimpers, my patrons not pleased. To ravish innocents, it make trouble. This a house for gentlemen, not ribalds. I please my patrons, they come again, tell their friends. My girls pretty, skilled and willing. Glad to be here. Good food, pretty clothes, good gifts from gentlemen, no beating unless they deserve it. No better house in Acre.”
He was proud of his establishment, jealous of its repute, a tradesman dealing in wares of the highest quality. She had accused him unjustly. “I wronged you, Giacomo,” she said frankly. “I am sorry.” He grinned jovially at her, all offence forgiven. “Blame little Helga, donzella. No harm. Bid your man forget her, stay away.”
Marco, tense and uneasy as a sheepdog when wolves are prowling within scent of the fold, softly uttered a few words in Italian.
Giacomo shook his head. “No one ever know she come, I swear,” he promised. “Forget dagger, Marco. The lady my guest. Great honour you trust me enough to enter my house, donzella, but this no place for you.”
“I had to come,” she said, dismay striking a fresh blow as she recognised that her errand had yet to be accomplished, and in far different fashion from her expectations.
“Not wise you come in person, donzella,” he told her bluntly. “Better you send Marco on this errand.”
She glanced aside at Marco’s frozen face, and said with complete certainty, “Only to guard me would he enter here. I would not ask it of him.” She had indeed tried his gratitude harshly by asking his escort to this place which must revive memories of his evil mother and abused childhood. “And we have not done. My poor fool is so besotted that he will achieve your death or his own if he cannot have the wench.”
Giacomo snorted. “Any man can enjoy her who pays the price. Good for nothing else.”
“She has fired him so that he is set on wedding her.”
“Dio mio!” said Giacomo with reverence. “Wed her?”
Her heart sank, for she was pledged to it. “What do you know of her?”
“Her name Helga, out of Swabia. I come to Acre after Easter, open house, many girls come to me. Many sell themselves for hunger, in winter here, you understand, and what else but the streets? That one come. Of her own will, you understand? Not bought, not hungry, not virgin. Pretty and skilled in love, the gentlemen like her.”
Rodriga nodded, reserving judgment since Giacomo did not know what had first brought her to her trade. It was much as she had feared. She had promised to help Wulfric to his heart’s desire, which now looked to be his undoing, and she knew what would happen if she returned to tell Giacomo’s version of her tale, leaving the girl to her fate. Responsibility for at least two deaths would be hers, and that burden she dared not assume. Also she was pledged, and must keep that rash promise at whatever cost. “What manner of wife will she make?” she wondered aloud.
Giacomo snorted. “That one,” he growled, “rate her charms high. Always she hope some rich knight buy her for his leman, and she win money and power—a duke’s mistress, with luck a king’s, I reckon. But noble knights choose not their lemans from the brothel, no, though commonly they abandon them to it when they weary. She think herself born to greater things, but none of my patrons see it so.”
Rodriga felt sick of the whole sordid affair. She was procuring Wulfric’s ruin by the look of things, but he would have it so. “My poor fool insists that he will marry her, and I have promised. Will you sell her?”
The giant hesitated, and then nodded. “To you, yes, donzella. I warn you, she make trouble. Even here, she stir up fights, and I will have none in my house.”
With fleeting amusement Rodriga recognised that Giacomo’s endeavours to maintain a respectable whorehouse should outrank in difficulty the fabled labours of Hercules. “And will she be willing?” she asked, catching at a last hope.
Giacomo touched the heavy belt that encircled his vast bulk and smiled grimly. “Willing? Tonight she take any way, escape me. Even wed your serving-man, however it disappoint her.”
“Honest wedlock with a true man disappoint her? By God’s Truth, it is an honour she does not deserve!” Rodriga flared.
‘‘One of small
profit, but she accept,” Giacomo said dryly. “Get beyond length of my belt, even marriage.”
“A bad bargain altogether,” she said distastefully. “How much?” He hesitated. “A bad bargain, but worth more to me than to you.” Plainly he wondered what she could afford, knowing that her father was landless and masterless, but would not offend her by saying so.
Rodriga had no notion of the wench’s value, but she had provided herself with a few of the Sarcenic gold coins, and she spread out a small handful across the table and signed to him to take what he pleased. His face cleared, and after a brief deliberation he picked out three and pushed the rest back to her. Marco, who had stiffened at sight of the gold, nodded and relaxed.
Giacomo grinned. “Fair price; Marco rip me up if I cheat you. I have warned you fair. A noble virgin who show courtesy to me, who keep the wallow for swine, command me in anything. In this I do you no service.” He straightened, and his vast shadow filled half the room with darkness. “I fetch the girl.”
Rodriga’s last hope was that the girl would refuse to marry Wulfric. Marco slipped soundlessly after the giant, his hand on his knife. She watched him in warm appreciation and liking. Never for a moment had his vigilance faltered; never could anyone have reached her except across his body. He moved onto the gallery. Rodriga pulled the cloak over her head and joined him, curiosity overcoming emotion. They looked into the seething confusion below.
In the corner under the further end of the gallery must be a door, for couples constantly passed back and forth that way. Suddenly she stiffened and caught her breath, recognising a face she might have expected to see here. Lothaire de Gallenard sat beyond the musicians. His fair face was flushed with wine, but he was by no estimation drunk; the drink had merely enhanced his less pleasant qualities. Then, as she drew back from the edge instinctively, Giacomo appeared at another doorway midway along the nearer wall. A shattering roar greeted him, and men and girls scrambled to clear a space before the players. Giacomo shrugged and disappeared, to return in a few moments leading a shape muffled from crown to toes in a white cloak. All the instruments spoke together.
The swaddled shape cast aside the white garment, bounded with one wild cry into the cleared space, and flung up naked arms. Rodriga gasped as though she had been doused with water, and the hairs lifted on her nape. The girl wore a profusion of beads and bracelets and nothing else, and she was black. Her body, glistening purple-brown in the light of lamps and candles, was comely by any standard, but above it was a hideous travesty of a face; splay-nosed, blubber-lipped, with receding brow, tight black wool, and ear-lobes dragged down almost to her shoulders by the weight of the ornaments swinging from them. The skin of her body and face was raised in elaborate patterns, like embossed leather.
The black girl grinned, rolling great dark eyes whose whites shone weirdly in her black face, magnificent teeth flashing. The zither twanged, and she set her feet firmly, her long black toes curling against the earth. Her belly-muscles twitched and quivered, rippling in time to the music. The rhythm quickened, and she writhed with it, her feet still and the muscles of her body leaping and heaving and twisting, faster and fiercer, incredibly controlled gyrations that had her ornaments clashing and jingling to the beat of the music. Then the zither crashed out a climax of discord with a hand swept across all the strings, and the girl stood panting, grinning, rolling her white-rimmed eyes round her for approval. Her shapely body shone as if it had been polished, and the light danced over the unbelievable patterns embossed upon it. The company bellowed its appreciation, and she laughed, as innocently delighted as a dog who has pleased his master with a new trick. Giacomo threw the cloak round her and patted her exactly as a man pats his dog. She was neither afraid nor ashamed, and plainly knew no more of Christian modesty than an animal.
It was the audience that revolted Rodriga, not the incredibly skilful performance. Sight of the avid, sweating faces, loose with wine and lust, and the hands pawing the acquiescent strumpets, finished her. She turned back into the little room, cold with disgust, and Marco followed her. His face was a rigid mask, his mouth tight. He stood just inside the curtain. Neither spoke.
At last a snivelling sob sounded outside, and Marco lifted aside the curtain, a courtesy that set anyone entering at the mercy of his knife-hand. Giacomo towed in a cringing, blubbering girl by a fistful of yellow hair, and swung her in front of him for Rodriga’s inspection. The wench’s charms had suffered considerable dilapidation since she set eyes on her before. Her face was swollen and streaked with tears, and adorned by one of the most imposing black eyes she had ever been privileged to view, just reaching full purple splendour. Giacomo had certainly dealt firmly with her, and Rodriga felt a sudden surge of pity. She looked up into his hard face with some resentment of such brutality, reminded herself that she knew nothing of the requirements of discipline in a whorehouse, and then surveyed the girl with more sympathy than she had expected to feel.
She lifted her woebegone face and gaped at Rodriga, her one serviceable eye blank with unbelief, her breath catching on a little whimper. Giacomo thrust her forward, his fist still bunched in her yellow curls. She trembled and cowered, all impudence driven from her by fear of punishment. Marco suddenly picked up the candle, lighted it at the lamp-flame, and held it high for Rodriga to see better. Under the tangled curls the girl peered furtively at them both. She was shorter than Rodriga and much plumper, with full white breasts straining at her low bodice, but she could not be more than a few months the older of the two.
“The noble lady,” Giacomo announced, “buy you. A sorry bargain, but you will be virtuous while stripes smart.”
She caught her breath and lifted her hands to her throat. Giacomo loosed her, and she dropped to her knees as though her legs would no longer support her and held out her hands in mute appeal. It was an attitude which would probably have had greater effect on a man than on another woman. Under no circumstances would Rodriga so fawn at anyone’s feet, and her pity was tinged with disgust and vicarious shame for her abasement. Then the bowed yellow head lifted a little, and the blue eyes raked her from head to foot in one quick calculating appraisal before they were covered by her trembling hands. Hurt, scared and bewildered she certainly was, but her sharp wits were working efficiently. She was deliberately appealing for sympathy with a pretence of broken spirit.
“Buy me—you?” she whimpered.
“The lady buy you for her one-handed cook you make sorry enough to wed you,” Giacomo explained with relish, tugging at his beard. Rodriga noted again the half-circle of toothprints darkening on his hand, and knew how they came there. She mentally apologised to Giacomo for misjudging him.
“Marry—a one-handed cook?” she blurted in open dismay and scorn.
Rodriga’s hand moved almost without conscious volition, so that she barely checked herself from slapping her headlong. Giacomo, unhampered by any gentle breeding or compunction, dispassionately kicked her bottom, which was conveniently near his toe. She sprawled forward with a yelp, and lay wailing.
“My cook,” said Rodriga levelly, holding her anger in leash with an effort that made her voice harsh, “offers you honest wedlock, which honours you above your deserts. You accept, and live chastely as his wife in my household, or remain with Giacomo. Choose.”
She scrambled up, whimpering and cherishing her behind, gave Giacomo a glare of virulent hatred and turned dejectedly to Rodriga, her attitude dramatically one of hopeless submission. “Take me with you, my lady, away from this great pig’s dropping! I will serve you—anything to escape him ! Save me, my lady!”
Rodriga stiffened with fury. “Then you will marry Wulfric?”
Giacomo, who had obviously not relished the epithet she had used of him, shifted his hands on his broad belt. The girl chose wedlock in panicky haste, and was sent off to fetch her belongings, with a pungent warning to say nothing to anyone else in the house if she valued her skin. Giacomo took the candle and led them back the way they had come. In
the kitchen the goblin girl-child was still gobbling. She grinned at Giacomo through a mouthful of crumbs. Rodriga checked.
“Will you sell me the child also?” she asked impulsively.
“Not mine to sell, donzella. Aymar’s daughter, Aymar the singer.”
“And he brings her here!”
“Better here than street,” Giocomo answered soberly, and she realised that she was treading where she had no right to trespass. If the frail musician found the House of the Black Girl a haven, it was not for her to denounce him. Then the girl Helga appeared, clutching a cloak about her disfigured face with one hand and a bulky bundle with the other, and they were out in the cluttered courtyard and Giacomo was drawing the bolt. “God go with you, noble donzella,” he said, bowing deeply. He nodded to Marco and pushed the girl after them, bidding her farewell in a rattle of Italian that drew a faint chuckle from the renegade. Rodriga wisely forebore to ask for a translation.
Marco led them back through the maze of alleys. They were as impenetrably dark, and sounded and stank like those they had come by, but Rodriga recognised nothing of her whereabouts until they entered the street where they lived, and she knew that only by Robert de Veragny’s lodging jutting forward from the rest. She eyed it warily, but it was blank and dark; all these houses faced inwards upon their courtyards and not the street. For that she was this night devoutly thankful, and might be more so in the future. She gave a little sigh of relief, and glanced impatiently at the girl, whose name she must remember was Helga. She had stuck close as a burr to her skirts all the way, snivelling at intervals. She shrugged.
“Marco, I am most grateful to you,” she said softly. “There is no one else who would have aided me in this.”
“Your father will probably thank me after another fashion,” he commented dryly.
“I can always persuade my father,” she answered confidently, though misgiving assailed her; she had never yet tried his tolerance so highly as to introduce a harlot into his household.
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