She has received neither word nor gesture from Cilleby: no summons, no acknowledgement of her presence in the harem, not so much as a glower over the coffee pot. And she is glad of it. So she tells herself when the remembrance comes unawares of the times she swam in sagas behind a carved door and let herself begin to love. Alimah has her attending to her face and hair again (having discovered, no doubt, that Gunnhildur’s stubby fingers lack Marta’s dexterity) and Ásta is once again treated to her languorous watchfulness in the looking glass. From Husna she has sometimes received from beneath lowered lashes a glance that might be construed as sympathy.
Months have passed since Marta left, months as arid as the seasons, when she has cared for nothing and for nobody but little Jón, who skips about the house on his errands and dances away laughing when she reaches for him.
‘Pray be seated, mijnheer Pitterlingk.’
‘Cilleby.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Cilleby. Ali Pitterling Cilleby.’
‘Ah yes, forgive me.’
This is certainly no Dutchman. Taking in the dark looks under the creamy cloak and generous turban, Kifft reverts regretfully to the common tongue.
‘As you know, I have attempted to speak to you many times since I arrived last summer, hoping to conclude a ransom for a priest’s wife by the name of, let me see, Asta Tors … er-something and a lesser Icelandic woman called, um, now where was it, ah yes, Gnudele Somebody’s-daughter.’
Kifft is annoyed at himself for getting flustered. Really, nobody could manage these names and this man has no right to sit there with his arms crossed looking down his not inconsiderable Moorish nose at him as if it’s Kifft who has been stalling for months on end.
‘Well, now I am here. Perhaps you could explain yourself.’
Explain myself! Kifft breathes in deeply. The man has been well apprised all along of his mission. This house is rented from him, in Godsnaam.
‘Very well, then. As you know,’ – the emphasis is as sarcastic as he dares – ‘the Danish-Norwegian realm, which includes Iceland, has no direct relations with the Ottoman regency states of North Africa and has had to bring in other nations. King Christian instructed an agent by the name of Paul de Willem to arrange the redemption of as many of his people in Algiers as could be found and transport them to Christian territory. Mijnheer de Willem made the arrangements through Amsterdam and Marseilles, and I, your humble and obedient servant, was engaged to lead the mission. You are aware that the Low Countries have a consulate in this city?’
‘Naturally.’
Kifft fishes among the heap of documents on the table, while Cilleby looks on coolly. ‘I received a message in, hmm, let me consult my papers, yes, August of last year, to say that you were not – emphatically not, according to my note – interested in discussing a ransom of the principal hostage, but would throw in the other with one or two who were eligible for release in your other houses. Am I correct?’
Cilleby inclines his head a fraction. Kifft sighs. The fellow is most unhelpful.
‘Then an agent of yours came to me the very next month, claiming you had changed your mind and were now prepared to release both women for, in the case of the first, a considerable amount of money. A figure was finally agreed, or so I was led to believe. I have it here in my notes somewhere. But when I attempted to bring the transaction to a conclusion over the winter I was told that you were “still considering” the matter.’ Kifft’s voice rises irritably. ‘Really, Mr Pitter … um, Cilleby, it is most unsatisfactory. I know you people are out to squeeze as much money out of me as possible, but I have had enough of the game and would ask you to understand that I will allow the price to go no higher. Proceed at once, I beg you, or I will spend the money elsewhere. Goodness knows, I have expenses enough.’
Without a word Cilleby rises gracefully to his feet. Courtesy obliges Kifft to follow suit, but he is so annoyed that he remembers his knees and declines to bother. All the delays, obfuscations, bargaining tricks, difficult captives and obdurate owners he has had to deal with in the last year seem to have risen as one to mock him in the person of this haughty individual, and Kifft has had enough of them all.
‘Mr Cilleby, what are you going to do, sir?’ he calls up peevishly, as the man whisks his cloak over his shoulder and turns to leave. ‘I am sailing soon and require an answer.’
‘You will have it,’ Cilleby says curtly. ‘There are certain matters to be resolved and then you will have your answer.’
He begins to walk across the courtyard. Kifft glares after him. Not so much as a ‘good morning’. These Algerines are quite the rudest people on earth, with the possible exception of the French.
He raises his voice. ‘Pray remember that I must see this woman in person, to ascertain that she is not being held against her will. Or if she is to go, I must satisfy myself that she still adheres to the faith of Jesus Christ. This is absolutely required.’
Cilleby does not break his stride – only snorts as he raises the latch.
29
When she steps inside his chamber for the first time since she tumbled, laughing, from the satin mattress on an August morning a lifetime ago, Ásta receives no greeting. He is standing in the middle of the room, his posture at its most self-consciously erect and formal.
‘I have something to tell you.’
It’s Jón, she thinks dully and without surprise. Perhaps he has a maharajah of India in mind for her last child. Perhaps Jón is to be traded for a sack of gems from an African princeling. She is ready. This time her heart comes armed.
For his part, Cilleby finds his sternness under immediate attack. These pale, pinched cheeks and the hurt, grey eyes: she has suffered in the months since he last looked at her properly. The jolt of compassion strikes him almost as hard as on the night she staggered in from that damned sea-captain’s villa. He must never forget where that led him and how narrowly he escaped suspicion. This woman plays havoc with everything that is ordered and predictable in his life, but she makes him feel … She makes him feel. He will have to be careful. The conclusion he has reached, after months of indecision, must be conveyed without emotion. May it please Allah it is the correct one.
‘Please be seated, Ásta.’
She stalks to the table and arranges herself on the silken cushion. He joins her on the other side and folds his hands.
‘There has come to the city an envoy from the King of Denmark,’ he begins again. ‘He has been here for some weeks. Some months in fact.’
He pauses for a reaction. She gives him none, but continues to inspect a golden thread on his robe, just below the neck, from which she assures herself she will on no account remove her eyes. She will not ask why he did not tell her before. This is only the news some slave-woman in his house has been waiting nearly nine years to hear.
‘I made it known to this emissary that I had not decided whether or not you were available for ransom. A price was agreed, but I declined to finalise it.’
What?
‘I kept abreast of his mission, having other interests, as you will understand, while I have continued to ponder the matter that is of some private moment, for all that your previous behaviour should have settled it. However, now he tells me he will sail soon and the question of your ransom must be settled at once.’
The thud of Ásta’s heart is loud in her ears. Not one emotion in the tumult of feelings this news unleashes is uncontested by its opposite, except the anger. And this she is determined to control better than before. She does not move her eyes from the thread, not by so much as one blink.
Cilleby’s irritation is on the rise, too. ‘Ásta, I would have you engage with me. This is important.’
She takes her time to reply. ‘In what way does it concern you what I think on this or any other matter?’ she says at last, proud to sound neither annoyed nor sulky but, as she fancies, offhand in a dignified sort of way. She is gratified that he is becoming ruffled. She can imagine the black brows drawi
ng closer, the rain-blue eyes hardening. She could go on like this for hours, staring at his chest and maintaining this cool dignity.
‘Ásta, I am not requesting to know what you think. I’m telling you what I have been thinking and I wish you to pay attention, since it clearly has a bearing on your—’
‘It’s always about what you think and what you want, isn’t it?’ She raises her eyes furiously to his, laying instant waste to her stratagem. ‘My fate and that of my children – my place is only to be told about it.’
Even to her own ears this sounds petulant and silly. As if it could be otherwise, slave or not, Christian or Muslim, Algiers or Iceland. She is a woman.
It is exactly what Cilleby is thinking.
‘Ásta.’ He says her name softly and smiles. Oh God, his smile has always undermined her. It makes her insides shift so that she can’t think straight. ‘Ásta, you are a woman,’ he says patiently, confident that this is all the answer required to silence her. As, indeed, it is.
‘And as a woman in a culture in which you were not brought up’ – Cilleby has reflected much on this and is proud of the magnanimity he has permitted to bloom in himself, despite the stinging provocation – ‘you have made some unfortunate mistakes, as I’m sure you have realised yourself since we last spoke. And “monster” was an unfair judgement on one who had secured the most prestigious position in the empire for a slave-girl.’
She is awed, truly awed, by how little he understands.
‘But no matter. I was angry, Ásta, that you should cast a successful negotiation in my face and make such outrageous accusations in public, especially after … However I have convinced myself – pray do not prove me wrong – that, with Alimah and Husna as your guides, you can be taught to behave appropriately. It is for this reason that I have decided we will enter, after all, into a formal betrothal and tell Mr Kifft to spend his money elsewhere.’
Cilleby sits back and grins, so relaxed now in his own munificence that Ásta almost forgets herself and grins back.
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you want to marry me still? Why don’t you want the money?’
He hesitates. She lets her eyes bore into his. Let him answer this one.
‘Very well, I will be honest if you don’t throw it back at me.’ Another hesitation. ‘I have missed your company, Ásta. I have wanted …’ No. He shakes his head. Nothing in his experience has given him the words, or the humility, for this kind of explanation. ‘I can only say that these last months have seemed in every way dry.’
He drops his eyes to the table and inspects the grain of the wood.
Ásta is trying to work out what she thinks. She ought to be laughing scornfully and demanding to be ransomed this instant. But is that what she wants? Is it? She looks at his polished head, his eyes lowered in the embarrassment of being unable to express whatever it is he wants to convey. She does not understand this man. But so unmade is she by sorrow and desire, all mixed up and sapping her strength and insight, that she has long since ceased to understand herself either.
‘Do I have any say in what you will tell this man Kifft?’
‘You do.’ He rallies at once. ‘I will not force you to stay here. Force is not a proper basis for marriage. But I cannot see why you would wish to avail yourself of the belated bounty of the Danish state. The old man who left you here nine years ago is surely no longer alive. You know that as well as I do. After all this time you will be a stranger in your homeland, and quite alone, for of course your son will remain here.’
‘My son?’ He is using Jón to bribe her. ‘In the name of all you worship, Cilleby, in the name of all mercy, surely you would let Jón come with me?’
‘He will stay.’ Of course the boy will stay. After all this time, does she have no idea how matters are arranged here?
She stares at him, fighting the tears she has sworn he will never see again.
‘Come now,’ he says soothingly, ‘the lad will go far in Algiers. What kind of life would a circumcised Muslim boy have in your Iceland?’
‘A free life.’
‘Really, Ásta? Really? Free to rise to the top of society? Free from the freezing poverty you have told me of? Free to eat an orange? Free to worship Allah? Jón will earn his freedom here soon enough. It’s a well-governed city and you know already how far an intelligent boy can advance.’
Cilleby is playing with her mind. Little Jón dances through it, beaming at her from the stair.
‘And one day,’ he is saying, emboldened to a flight of fancy by having arrived at an argument she cannot refute, ‘you will visit your son in his own house and sew in his roof garden as your grandchildren play at your feet. Is that not a picture for you? You will be able to tell them about the man who made poetry and buried the treasure, the one whose name I can never pronounce. And your grandchildren will pass those sagas on to their children, and they to theirs, so that within the white walls of Algiers the deeds of their Icelandic ancestors will live on through the generations. Surely that pleases you?’
It does please her. Oh, it delights her. Too much it delights her.
‘It would be a pleasing story if I didn’t know you might at any moment take it into your head to sell Jón to Tunis, Salé or Constantinople if the price is right, and never even think to tell me his ship is about to sail.’
He stands up – abruptly but, as ever, beautifully. How she has missed the elegant uncurling of limbs, the animal gracefulness of him.
‘Please don’t start again, Ásta. I am offering you honour in my house and in my bed, where, since we are in a private place and your position still provides some latitude, I may say my recollection is that you fit very well.’
She feels her face reddening, and his look softens. ‘We will make a bed of stories, Ásta, you and I. I will take care of you and you will tell me sagas until we’re old.’
‘That too is a fairy-tale,’ she mumbles. He has always understood how to seduce her. ‘Well, then. What must I do?’
He smiles comfortably. ‘This Kifft fellow has rented a house, from me, in fact, where those whose purchase has been completed are awaiting departure. Be so kind as to tell him my decision. He insists on seeing you personally. I assure you he will be glad to find himself many hundreds of Danish dollars the richer.’
It is a shock to see the men and women seated around the plain courtyard talking openly to one another. They are free now, but still, a shock. Making her way tentatively past them, Ásta assumes she must know many of these people of old, but they are not easy to recognise, the women still veiled and the men worn to leather and bone by years of hard labour. The tall, cloaked man with a hood pulled close to his head and his eyes burning above a black hole in his face must be Einar Loftsson. Unrecognised behind her own veil, she makes no move to greet him. She cannot risk being tugged back into that world. She is here to speak to one person alone.
‘Is your name Kifft?’ she asks the man with an ostrich-feather hat presiding over a sea of papers in the corner.
He hauls himself to his feet and she glances over the dark breeches, the grimy cape and the long hose that might once have been yellow. Merchants strutting the port in European dress are not a rarity, but the dirty socks and the hair straggling from beneath the wide-brimmed black hat on to a collar of soiled lace are obscurely comforting none the less.
‘I am Ásta Thorsteinsdóttir.’ How strange to speak her father’s name after all this time. ‘Thorsteinsdóttir,’ she repeats, both for her own pleasure and for the benefit of Mr Kifft, who is looking blank.
‘Ah, yes, yes.’ He gestures to a spot on the floor and descends ponderously himself. ‘I have been expecting you, madame. Let me just find the document I need.’
He scrabbles among the papers with one hand, holding a pair of round eye-glasses to the bridge of his nose with the other.
‘Apologies for the disarray, mevrouw.’ Kifft pushes aside a closely written list of figures and launches tetchily int
o his latest gripe. ‘I have been calculating the year’s expenses in preparation for departure. I must say I did not expect to have to spend so much money on having dresses made for women who only possess, er, well … And shoes too. Does no slave in this city have a pair of shoes?’
He glances at Ásta over his spectacles, which are on the slide, and rests his gaze on her feet. ‘Although I am not referring to you, of course, mevrouw. Mind you, those pretty lambskin slippers are hardly up to the rigours ahead and you may be glad of a sturdier pair. Now, here we are.’
Kifft taps the paper with a knobbly finger. His nails, she notes with distaste, are long and dirty.
‘Now Mrs, er, Torstiens, I have here the amount of your ransom. As I intimated to your master, a most objectionable man, it is time we sorted this out. And I’m sure it is an understatement to suggest that you will be as relieved as I to do so, hmm?’
He picks up an elegant swan’s feather. ‘Your master also talked of throwing in an Icelandic maid for a paltry sum, so you should know we settled some time ago on 500 Danish dollars for both of you. However, I have not thus far been able to get him to finalise the sale. I’m delighted you are here at last to end the prevarication.’
‘Five hundred dollars,’ Ásta says softly. So much money he is prepared to sacrifice. She will never understand that man if she lives to be sixty.
‘You may well repeat the sum. The ransom is higher than anyone else’s.’ Kifft makes a preparatory flourish with the quill at the top of a fresh page. ‘Now, madame, I only need to hear from your own lips that you still adhere to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and then we shall be done. A mere formality in your case, of course, as the wife of a notable priest.’
Ásta’s head is beginning to swim in the heavy afternoon air. A man in yellow socks is talking to her of Jesus Christ, to whom she has not given a thought in aeons. He jabs her conscience like a janissary knife by speaking the word wife in a context quite other than the one that has been so intensely occupying her. Snatches of Icelandic drift drowsily across the atrium. Ásta, feeling as if she has wandered into another life, tries to gather her wits.
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