Marianne and the Rebels

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  With a painful effort, she managed to raise herself on her pillows, trying to measure the distance between herself and the water jug. The movement brought fresh stabs of pain to her head and she uttered an involuntary groan. At once a black hand put a cup to her lips.

  'Drink,' said Ishtar's quiet voice. 'You are burning hot.'

  This was true, but the presence of the black witch produced a shudder of revulsion in Marianne. She raised one hand to push away the cup but Ishtar did not move.

  'Drink!' she commanded. 'It is only a tisane. It will bring down your fever.'

  Slipping one arm underneath the pillows to lift the girl, she brought the vessel once more to the parched lips, which this time took in the tepid fluid instinctively. Marianne had no more strength to resist. Besides, it smelled pleasantly of good, familiar things, of woodland plants, mint and verbena. There was nothing suspicious there and when at last Ishtar laid her back on the pillows, Marianne had drunk it all to the last drop.

  'You will sleep again now,' she was told, 'but it will be a good sleep and you will feel better when you wake.'

  'I don't want to sleep! I don't ever want to sleep again!' Marianne burst out tearfully, seized by a fresh terror of dreams which began beautifully only to end in ugliness.

  'Why ever not? Sleep is the best medicine. And you are too tired to resist it…'

  'What about… him? That – that beast?'

  'The master is asleep also,' Ishtar responded placidly. 'He is glad because he came to you at a propitious hour and he trusts the gods will accept his sacrifice and give you a fine son.'

  At this tranquil evocation of the ghastly scene in which she had played a principal role, Marianne was overcome by a violent spasm of nausea which left her gasping and sweating on her pillows. She was suddenly aware of the violation of her body and recoiled from it in disgust. A kindly providence had taken away her senses at the crucial moment but the shame and humiliation remained, and with it the loathing of her own flesh possessed by the other.

  How, after this, could she ever look Jason in the face, supposing that God ever allowed her to see him again? The American sea captain was everything that was open, clean-cut and straightforward in mind, in no way given to superstition. Could he accept the evil conspiracy to which Marianne had fallen victim? He was jealous, and in his jealousy violent and unbridled. He had accepted, though not easily, the knowledge that Marianne had been Napoleon's mistress. He would never bear to think of her subject to Damiani. He might even kill her… he would undoubtedly leave her, overcome with revulsion, and never return.

  These thoughts jostled and battered in Marianne's aching head with a frenzy that brought an increase of suffering and despair. Her shattered nerves broke suddenly in a burst of convulsive sobbing to which the big black woman, seated silent and motionless a little way from the bed, listened with a little frown.

  Her knowledge of potions was powerless in the face of such despair and in the end she could only shrug and tiptoe from the room, leaving her prisoner to weep her heart out, with the reflection that she must ultimately cry herself to sleep.

  In this she was right. By the time Marianne had reduced herself to the last stages of nervous exhaustion she ceased to struggle against the beneficent effects of the tisane and fell asleep with her face buried in the tear-soaked red silk of her sheets, and the last dismal thought in her head that she could always kill herself if Jason rejected her.

  Thanks to three more cups administered by Ishtar at regular intervals, the fever had subsided by the morning and Marianne found herself still weak but clear-headed and very much awake, unhappily, to the desperate nature of her situation.

  However, the despair which had overtaken her at the height of her fever had dissipated itself like a breaking wave and Marianne was herself again, with all her old zest for battle in her heart. The greater the power and wickedness of her enemies, the greater was her own determination to triumph at any cost.

  Forcing herself to begin by considering her problem calmly from all angles, Marianne attempted to get up and try her strength. The piece of metal which she had succeeded in detaching from the lock of the antique chest seemed to shine brighter than the rest and drew her like a magnet. But when she sat up in bed she saw that she had a nurse: one of the negresses was seated on the steps of the bed, with her blue tunic spread out over the bearskins.

  She was not doing anything, but simply squatting with her arms about her knees which were drawn up almost to her chin. In her dark draperies she had the air of some strange brooding bird.

  Hearing a movement, she merely turned to look at the girl and, seeing that she was awake, clapped her hands. Her companion, so like her that she might have been her shadow, entered with a tray which she set down on the bed and then seated herself, in exactly the same attitude, in the place of her sister, who bowed and went out.

  For hours the woman sat there, as though rooted to the ground, uttering no word and appearing not to hear any that were addressed to her.

  You cannot be left alone,' Ishtar said later when Marianne complained of the guard mounted at the foot of her bed. 'We cannot have you giving us the slip.'

  'Give you the slip? From here?' Marianne cried, disappointment at finding herself thus closely guarded whipping up her anger.

  'How could I? The walls are thick and there are bars at my windows – and besides, I have no clothes!'

  'There are other ways of escaping from a prison, even when the body is secured.'

  Then Marianne understood the real reason for the watch kept on her. Damiani was afraid that in her humiliation and despair she might take her own life.

  'I shall not kill myself,' she said. 'I am a Christian and Christians believe that suicide is both a coward's way out and a sin.'

  'Perhaps. But I do not think you one to balk at flouting the gods. In any case, we can leave nothing to chance. You are too precious to us now.'

  Ignoring the implications of this, Marianne let the matter drop. Let the future take care of itself! For the present, she was well aware that it was useless to insist on the removal of her watchdog, but it cost her an effort to conceal her chagrin. The woman's presence made things much more difficult. How could she make the smallest attempt to escape under that brooding black eye? Unless she could ensure that she was helpless, by stunning her first.

  The idea worked away quietly in Marianne's brain and she, who a moment before had been proclaiming herself a Christian, now coolly considered the possibility of killing her guard in order to escape. It all depended, of course, on whether she had the strength to do it and the turn of speed to surprise a creature with the reflexes of a wild cat…

  In this way, the day passed, monotonously but not without interest, in concocting any number of plans, some more practicable than others, for getting rid of her gaoler. But when night fell, Marianne knew that she had little chance of carrying out any of them, for after supper Matteo returned, walking into the room with a candlestick in his hand: a Matteo so altered from the one she had seen hitherto that for a second Marianne forgot her anger.

  It was not simply that the mad sorcerer of the other night had vanished as if he had never been, or that the man no longer showed the slightest hint of drunkenness. He had also bestowed an unaccustomed degree of care on his appearance. He was shaved, brushed, pomaded, his nails gleamed like agate and he wore a dressing-gown of heavy dark-blue silk over a dazzling white shirt. There floated about him such a powerful smell of eau-de-Cologne that for a moment Marianne was reminded of Napoleon. He, too, was in the habit of drenching himself in eau-de-Cologne like that when—

  Her brain recoiled from the horrid comparison which suggested itself. Yet Matteo certainly looked just like any rustic bridegroom on his wedding night – only without the inevitable look of embarrassment, for his face bore a triumphant smirk and he seemed highly pleased with himself.

  Marianne drew her brows together, suddenly on her guard. When she saw him set his candle down on the bedside table s
he uttered an indignant protest.

  'Take that candle away, and yourself too! How dare you come to me like this! What do you think you're doing?'

  'Why… I've come to sleep with you! After all, you are, in some degree, my wife now, Marianne, aren't you?'

  'Your—'

  Words failed Marianne but only for an instant. Then the torrent of her rage burst forth in a stream of abuse in several languages, borrowed indiscriminately from the stable oaths of old Dobs, her groom, and the vocabulary of Surcouf's seamen. She even succeeded in astonishing herself, and the steward fell back stupified before the storm.

  'Out!' Marianne commanded. 'Get out of here at once, you murderous brute! You miserable, sneaking cur! You're nothing but a lackey, the swinish offspring of a sow and a he-goat! Even your weapons are a lackey's weapons! The snare and the knife in the back! That's how you killed your master, isn't it? Cowardly, from behind? Or did you cut his throat while you were shaving him? Or was it a drug, like the one you used on me to get me in your power? And do you think, now, that your mumbo-jumbo has made me like yourself? Do you imagine I enjoyed the things you did to me? And do you think I must be so enamoured of your charms I'll share my bed with you, like any tradesman's wife! Take a look at yourself – and look at me! I'm no milkmaid to be tumbled in the hay, Matteo Damiani, I'm—'

  'I know what you are!' Matteo cried, his patience at an end. 'You have told me often enough! Princess Sant'Anna! Well, like it or not, I'm a Sant'Anna, too, and my blood—'

  'That is not proved, and you have yet to convince me! Easy enough to claim a great lord as your father when he is no longer there to confirm it. And, so far, the way you go about things tells against you. From what I know of the Sant'Annas, they at least killed openly. Theirs may have been a cruel and merciless kind of justice, but I do not think that they would ever have recourse to an African sorceress to help them get the better of a helpless woman—'

  'Any means are fair with such a woman as you! Your own marriage was a cheat. Where is the child you pledged yourself to give your husband? Where is it, the one thing he married you for, you emperor's whore?'

  'Miserable flunkey! One of these days, before I see you hanged, I'll have you flogged until you scream for mercy, until you wish you'd never dared to raise your hand against me – or your master!'

  The room re-echoed with their rage as they confronted one another, face to face, both gripped by an equal fury, if not of an equal quality.

  Marianne, white-faced, her green eyes flashing, poured scorn on the apoplectic Damiani who, with bloodshot eyes and heavy, congested features quivering with rage, was clearly in a mood to kill, but she was past caring. Her anger was beyond all control now, and she spat out her hatred and disgust without even pausing to ask herself why this strange urge had come upon her to avenge a husband who, not so long ago, had inspired her with nothing but fear.

  Matteo, beside himself, was on the point of hurling himself at Marianne to throttle her, but even as his hands went for her throat, Ishtar sprang between them.

  'Are you mad?' she cried. 'You are the master and whatever she may say, she is yours! Why should you kill her? Have you forgotten what she means to you?'

  Her words acted on Damiani like a douche of cold water. He stood for a moment, breathing heavily, striving to take hold of himself, and then, with unexpected gentleness, he put the negress aside and turned again to Marianne.

  'She – she is right,' he gasped. 'Flunkey I may be, Princess, but this flunkey has got you with child, I doubt not, and when the child is born—'

  'It is not born yet and you have no means of knowing whether your base treachery has borne fruit. And if it is true I am to bear your child, then you will have to kill me to keep me silent, for no power on earth shall prevent me delivering you into the Emperor's hands!'

  'Then I shall kill you, lady. Why not, when you have done your part? In the meantime…'

  'What in the meantime?'

  For answer, Matteo set about removing his dressing-gown, which he laid over a chair, and then returned to the bed with the evident intention of getting in. But before he could so much as lay a finger on the sheets, Marianne had sprung out and, regardless of her unclothed state, had made a lightning dash for the curtains where she clung.

  'If you dare to set foot in that bed, Matteo Damiani, then you will sleep in it alone. Nothing shall make me share it with such a creature as you!'

  As calmly as though she had not spoken, Matteo got into bed, plumped up the pillows and settled himself against them with obvious enjoyment.

  'Like it or not, my lady, we shall be bedfellows for as long as I choose. What you said just now was very true. The best-laid plans can go astray and it may be that you are not yet breeding. So we'll do our best to make it certain. Come here!'

  'Never!'

  Marianne tried to run, to avoid the clutching hand which groped towards her, but she found Ishtar barring her way. The tall negress seemed enormous, standing there, as though the evil genie out of eastern tales had suddenly risen up before her to cast her back into the devil's power. Without apparent effort, not even seeming to notice Marianne's instinctive struggles, Ishtar picked her up bodily, screaming and kicking, and flung her on to the bed, straight into Damiani's arms, at the same time saying something in her strange tongue. The steward answered her in Italian.

  'No, no hashish. She reacted badly and the child might suffer. We have other means. Call your sisters. You shall hold her down.'

  At once, three pairs of black hands clamped down on Marianne, gripping her arms and legs and holding her flat on the bed, in spite of her screams and tears of rage. A gag was put in her mouth to quiet her and this time there was no merciful unconsciousness to spare her the shame and disgust.

  For what seemed like endless minutes she was forced to suffer her tormentor, lying half-stifled and utterly helpless in the grip of those vice-like hands, and dying a hundred deaths of shame and sorrow. She felt as if she had fallen into the pit of hell itself, with the man's gross, scarlet, sweating countenance thrusting close to hers and the three black figures, standing still as stones, their blank eyes contemplating the rape with as much indifference as if it had been a mating of beasts. And that was what it was: she, Marianne, was being used like an animal, a brood mare to produce the right stock.

  When they let her go at last, she lay unmoving on the ravaged bed, choking with sobs and drowned in tears, exhausted by her body's futile attempts at resistance. She had no more strength even to abuse her ravisher and when Matteo rose, still panting from his exertions, and began, grumbling, to put on his dressing-gown, she could only groan.

  'She's so unwilling, there's no pleasure in it! But we'll keep it up, all the same, every night until we're sure. Let her be now, Ishtar, and come with me. That cold creature would put Eros off his stroke!'

  So Marianne, broken and defeated, was left in her hated room, alone except for the other two women who remained as mute but watchful guards. No one even took the trouble to cover her. She had ceased to have any hope, even in God. She knew now that she would have to endure every step of this abominable martyrdom, until the time came when Damiani had what he wanted from her.

  'But he shan't win – he shan't!' she vowed silently, out of the depths of her misery. 'I'll get rid of the child somehow, or if I fail I'll take him with me…'

  Vain words, the desperate ravings born of fever and the paroxysms of humiliation she had suffered, yet Marianne repeated them over and over again in the nights that followed, nights in which even horror began to acquire a kind of monotony. Even revulsion became a kind of habit.

  She knew that this was the witch Lucinda taking her revenge, that it was her power reaching out through Matteo from beyond the tomb. Sometimes, in the dark, it seemed to Marianne that she could see the marble statue from the little temple come to life. She heard its laughter… and would wake then in a bath of sweat.

  The days were all alike, all dreary. Marianne spent them locked in her bare
room under the watchful eye of one of the women. She was fed, bathed, even clothed after a fashion in a kind of loose tunic, like those worn by the black women, and a pair of slippers. Then, when night fell, the three she-devils bound her, for greater convenience, to the bed and left her so, naked and defenceless, to the tender mercies of Matteo. He, in point of fact, seemed to find increasing difficulty in performing what he appeared to regard as some kind of duty. More often than not, Ishtar was obliged to provide him with a glass of some mysterious liquid to revive his flagging powers. From time to time the prisoner's food was drugged, making her lose all sense of time, but she had ceased to care. In the end, overwhelming disgust had finished by inducing a kind of insensitivity. She had become a thing, an inanimate object incapable of reaction or of suffering. Her very skin seemed to have atrophied and grown dull to all sensation, while her sluggish brain held room for only one single, fixed idea: to kill Damiani and then die herself.

  This idea, like a persistent, nagging thirst, was the one thing that remained alive in her. Everything else was stone and dead ashes. She no longer knew even if she loved, or whom she loved. All the people in her life seemed as strange and far-off as the characters on the tapestried walls of her room. She had ceased even to think of escape: how could she, guarded as she was by night and day? The she-devils who watched over her seemed incapable of sleep, fatigue or even inattention. All she wanted now was to kill, and then to do away with herself in turn. Nothing else mattered.

  They had brought her some books, but she had not even opened them. Her days were spent seated in one of the high-backed chairs, as still and silent as her black guardians, staring at the hangings or at the marks of soot on the ceiling of her room. Words seemed out of place in that room where the silence was like that of the tomb. Marianne spoke to no one and did not answer when they spoke to her. She suffered herself to be cared for, fed and watered with no more response than a statue. Only her hatred was awake amid the silence and the stillness.