The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Robert Shea (poetry books to read txt) 📖

from Lorenzo to look at Sophia. She was looking at him intently, but he could not tell what she was thinking or feeling. Tired as he was, he wished she would come to bed with him. If only she were willing. If only he could invite her.

Rachel lay with her face to the wall, crying silently. She wanted not to weep because she was still afraid of offending the Tartar, even though it was all over.

She realized that her gown was still above her waist, and she lifted her hips to pull it down. But what was the point of modesty for her anymore? Especially with this man, who had taken her virginity.

She heard the rustling of silk as he dressed behind her. He had not taken all of his clothes off, just enough to bare his member. It had been smaller than she imagined. Once, in a stable in Perugia,[310] a boy had shown himself to her and tried to rape her, but she had run away. That stableboy's thing had been much bigger.

John said something to her, but she understood only his "Reicho." He was probably telling her to stop crying.

Even though he had been kindly before getting into the bed with her, she had expected that he would become like the wild, savage Tartars she had heard about. His weight on top of her, even though he was a small man, had frightened her, but he had entered her slowly, and stopped and waited when she cried out. In the end it had been she, wanting in desperation to get it over with, who finished the piercing by pressing upward with her hips. His few quick thrusts and his shout of pleasure—a drawn-out horseman's yell—followed in a moment. And that was all there was to it.

She sobbed aloud suddenly and bit into the pillow. The thought that her whole future had been decided by a moment that had not lasted even as long as it takes to light a candle was too much to bear.

Angelo would say I am not a good woman anymore.

The Tartar spoke again, and tapped her on the shoulder. His voice was soft and kind. Quieting her sobs with one last, deep, shuddering sigh, she rolled over to look at him. More smiles and nods from him. Yes, he wanted to cheer her up. She sensed that he knew something about women, and what he knew had come not just from rapes committed on the battlefield. He must have a wife in the faraway land he came from, and he must, long ago, have done to that wife what he had just done to Rachel. More than one wife, she reminded herself, and more than one deflowering, because according to Tilia, the Tartars took several wives, as the Muslims did. He was probably a grandfather many times over back in that land.

He stood beside the bed, fully dressed. He had even tucked back and knotted his hair behind his head. His grin broadened when she looked at him. Rachel had not seen a Jewish or a Christian man as old as John with such good teeth.

He untied a small bag from his belt. He held it out to her. Should she take it? Of course she should. Was not getting paid the whole point of what she had just gone through? Was not money what her body was to be traded for from now on?

"Thank you, Messer John," she said, and reached out her hand. But he came closer and rubbed the soft leather of the bag against her cheeks, to dry her tears. She understood what he was trying to[311] tell her—that this money should pay her for her pain. Being a pagan, he could not understand the greater pain of her soul because she had sinned, because she had shamed her family and dishonored herself forever.

But I have no family—none living. That is why I am here.

John put the bag into her hand and closed her fingers over it, then pushed her hand against her chest. The bag was very heavy for its small size. He frowned, put his finger to his lips, and waved his hand. He was trying to tell her, she thought, that this was a special present for her, that she was not to tell Madama Tilia about it. He did not know that Tilia had been watching everything they had done together.

He pressed the callused palm of his hand against her cheek and said something, then turned and quickly walked out of the room.

And Rachel was alone with her desolation. She wanted to sleep. There were no windows in this room, but it must have been morning by now. She realized that she did not feel sleepy, although she was tired. She felt a dull ache down inside herself, where he had broken the seal of her virginity. The bag of money lay heavy in her lap. Perhaps if she drank some wine it would help her sleep.

She heard men's voices, loud and rough, in other parts of the house. A man laughed, and then a woman laughed. How many men had come with the Tartar? She felt too tired even to crawl to the edge of the bed and pour herself the wine. She picked up the money and pushed it under a pillow. Perhaps Tilia had not seen him give it to her. She had done this for money, and she ought to get as much as she could for it.

The door swung open and Tilia was standing there, her wide mouth stretched in a broad smile, and her hands rose in benediction. "You were just what he wanted. He seemed most pleased."

Rachel tried to smile. "It was not as bad as I thought it would be."

Tilia shrugged. "Men who are terrible in warfare are sometimes kinder in bed. I thought his zipolo rather small, did you not? That was lucky for you."

Rachel felt her face grow hot. "I have seen only one other—when it was hard like that. And it was bigger."

"Well," said Tilia, "small as this Tartar was, he was able to mount you twice, and that is remarkable for a white-haired man who has been up drinking all night." Then she laughed. "Ah, but you should have seen the French cardinal who came here with this[312] Tartar. He asked for three women, and he swived each one of them mightily. Those French! I care not for their high-horse airs, but they are a lusty lot."

Rachel felt herself smiling. Was it so easy to begin to think like a whore and laugh at whores' jokes?

"Well," said Tilia, "we must get you washed out at once. You do not want to be giving birth to a little Tartar in your first year as a woman, do you?" She went to a cabinet and drew out a grayish-white bladder with a tube coiled beside it.

"Peculiar-looking if you have never seen one before," said Tilia. "But there is nothing to worry about. It does not hurt. We just fill the pig's stomach with warm water and squeeze it, and the water goes through the vellum tube and up inside you. The women of Rome used them centuries ago when they did not want to get pregnant. I suppose that is why the barbarians finally overran Italy."

Rachel looked at the thing Tilia laid on the bed beside her and felt sick.

"Oh, by the way," said Tilia as she went back to the cabinet and got out a basin and a pitcher, "I will let you keep the purse he gave you. He looked so happy when he left here, I think you deserve it."

The Tartar could come and go as he pleased, thought Rachel, but she must stay. Even now, with over five hundred florins, more money than she had ever had in her life, she was alone. She knew how to travel; she had traveled for two years with Angelo. But she also knew the terrors and dangers of the road, dangers that ultimately had killed Angelo.

The best she could hope for was to endure this life for a year or two, get what she could from it, let it make her rich. When she did leave, she would have enough money to hire guards to accompany her. She would make up an elaborate story about her past. She would go where no one knew her, Sicily perhaps, and begin a new life as a wealthy woman, venturing into banking or trading for herself.

The hope of a wealthy new life—that was the raft that would bear her up when she felt she must drown in sorrow.

[313]

XXVII

Daoud's tired eyes burned. He shut them, as he entered his bedchamber, against the bright light coming through the white window glass. But, tired as he was, sleep did not come. Perhaps he was too tired.

He had missed the proper time for morning prayer, but he poured water into a basin and washed his hands and face, then turned toward the risen sun and humbly addressed God, first bowing, then kneeling, then striking his forehead on the carpet.

When I pray, I am at home no matter where I am.

After praying, he pushed open the iron casement with its diamond-shaped glass panels to let in air and then pulled the green velvet curtains across the window to shut out light.

He moved now in a cool dimness, as if underwater. He must rest, to be strong for the next battle.

Crossing the room to his sleeping mattress, which lay on the floor Egyptian-fashion, he stripped off his sweat-soaked tunic and threw it down. He unbuckled his belt and laid it carefully on the mattress. Then he kicked off his boots and dropped his hose and his loincloth. He splashed water over his body and felt cleaner and cooler.

There was another way to be home. He had been waiting for the first time he could feel he had triumphed. He knew all too well what that way could do to a man in the aftermath of defeat—sharpen his misery till he could ease the pain only by destroying himself.

But last night he had unmasked the Tartars before all the great ones of Orvieto, and he had survived a street encounter with bravos who intended to kill him. And so this morning he could allow himself this.

He had brought a cup of kaviyeh from Ugolini's room. He set it on the black marble table beside his sleeping mattress. Then from his traveling chest he took the dark brown leather pack that had[314] accompanied him here from Lucera. He felt for the small packet and drew it out. Unwrapping the oily parchment, he looked at the small black cake, a square about half the length of his finger on a side. He drew his dagger out of its sheath—the dagger that would have been poor protection for him earlier if he had had to fight those Filippeschi men. Carefully he shaved peelings from the cake to the polished black marble. With the sharp edge of the dagger he chopped at the peelings until he had a coarse powder. He held the cup of cooling black liquid below the edge of the table and scraped the powder into it. He stirred the kaviyeh with the dagger's point.

Holding the cup up before him as if he were offering a toast, he spoke the Hashishiyya invocation: "In the name of the Voice comes Brightness."

He put the cup to his lips and sipped it slowly. The lukewarm kaviyeh masked the other taste, but he knew it would begin to work as soon as it reached his stomach. He peered into the bottom of the cup to make sure he had missed no precious grains, then set it down.

The magic horse that flies to paradise, so the Hashishiyya called it.

From Sheikh Saadi he had learned how to resist the power of drugs. From Imam Fayum, the Old Man of the Mountain, he learned how to use them, when he chose.

Naked, Daoud lay back on his mattress with a sigh that sounded like a roar in his ears. If the Filippeschi came upon him to kill him now, he would greet them with a smile and open arms. Lying on his back, his head resting on a feather-filled cushion, he let his senses expand to fill the world around him. His eyes traced the intricate red-on-red floral pattern of a damask wall hanging. The humming of a large black fly that had blundered in through the open casement and the closed curtains resounded in his ears like a dervish chorus chanting themselves into an ecstasy.

Odors swept in through the open window—clean mountain air with the scent of pines in it, but from nearby the swampy foul reek of every kind of filth produced by thousands of