Marianne and the Rebels

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  'I'll have the irons off him as soon as we're under way again,' Captain King remarked as, round about sunset, they came in sight of what had once been the ancient port of Heraclea on the Sea of Marmara. That'll make it the easiest thing in the world for him to leave us. Although, you never know. We may be imagining things – painting your two admirers blacker than they are.'

  'It's still wise to be prepared,' Marianne replied. 'I can't thank you enough, Sir James.'

  Thus it was with a more tranquil eye that she watched the two Englishmen go ashore, amid a welter of baggage slung over the side and the shouts of the boatmen and porters hired to transport them from the three-decker, by means of a caique, to the waterfront, where a bustling, cheerful crowd was welcoming the cool of the evening.

  Cockerell and Foster quitted the ship without a word of thanks or farewell, and for a long time their green sunshades could be seen bobbing on a sea of turbans and felt hats. They vanished at last into the compact mass of brightly coloured houses and mosques, riding jerkily on donkeys and surrounded by guides armed with staves and by an eager, screaming throng of small boys.

  'The ingratitude of it!' Marianne said. They didn't even say good-bye to you. After all you've done for them!'

  But Sir James only laughed and gave the order to weigh anchor. The Jason heeled over gracefully, almost as though relieved of a disagreeable burden, and resumed her course, while the setting sun turned the sea to amethyst and silvery dolphins played about the golden islets.

  This was the last stage. The long exhausting voyage, which had so nearly cost Marianne her life on so many occasions, was drawing to an end. Constantinople was a bare thirty miles away now, and she was half-amazed to think it could be so near.

  Gradually, in the dire days that had passed, the city of the golden-haired sultana, from whom she had hoped for so much, and most of all a reason to hope, had come to seem to her like a mirage, a kind of legendary city, eternally receding from her into time and space. Yet now that harbour lay close at hand. The numbers of sails that studded the darkening sea bore witness to it, as did the lighter trails in the deep blue of the sky, already velvety with oncoming night.

  Later that evening, when the wind had dropped suddenly and the ship sailed on under slackened canvas, sliding with a silken rustle through the calm waters, Marianne stood on deck and gazed at the stars of an oriental night that was as balmy as anything she had imagined in the days when the future was still inscribed for her with the name 'Jason Beaufort'. Where was he at that moment? What seas was he sailing in his pride or his grief? Where was the Sea Witch spreading her white sails, and whose hand was at the helm? Was he still living somewhere on the face of this earth, the man who only yesterday had claimed in his pride and mastery that there were two things only in this world he loved, the woman he had won only to lose and the ship that bore the likeness of her face.

  On that last night of wandering, the onslaught of regrets grew ever more determined. She had trodden a long and painful road to reach the city whose nearness she could now sense, with the aim of doing her utmost to recall its heart – a fragile heart because it beat in a woman's breast, however ardent – to its 300-year-old alliance with France. She had shed on the way all that was true and real in her life: love, friendship, self-respect, fortune, even her clothes, to say nothing of the husband she had never even seen, murdered by the hand of a madman. Would there ever be a harvest? Would she at least return to France with the old alliance renewed? Or would there be failure there also, to match the private tragedy that still lurked in her womb, clinging with such tenacity that nothing, it seemed, could dislodge it?

  She remained there for a long time, watching the big bright stars and searching for some sign of hope or encouragement. One in particular seemed to glow more bright and then fell away from the blue vault and plunged like a miniature meteor to extinction.

  Marianne crossed herself, hurriedly, and with her eyes fixed on the point where the star had disappeared, murmured the traditional wish into the evening air.

  'Let me see him, Lord! Let me see him again, whatever the cost! If he is still alive, let me see him again, just once…'

  That Jason was still alive, in her heart of hearts, she did not doubt. In spite of the cruel way he had treated her, in spite of his raging jealousy and a manner so strange that she had come to wonder if Leighton had not been feeding him secretly with some drug to induce a murderous and frenzied state, she knew that he was too deeply embedded in her heart for her to tear him out without destroying herself; and that even if he were at the other end of the earth, his life could not cease without her being in some way aware of it, through the mysterious vibrations of the soul.

  The capital of the Ottoman Empire came in sight just at sunrise. At first it was no more than an outline, seen through a silvery haze on the distant skyline over the pearly sea, made up of nebulous domes and the faint spires of minarets.

  On the Asian side the dark green hills, dotted with white villages, tumbled into a sea thick with shipping that looked as if it might have come straight out of some eastern tale: dark brown mahones, driven by the powerful arms of colourfully-dressed oarsmen; caiques gilded and painted like odalisques; shark-nosed xebecs, red and black; antiquated galleys with their long sweeps lying parallel on the surface, like gigantic water beetles; chektirmes, with angular, skyward-pointing sails – all converging on that unreal city shimmering in the sunlight.

  Slowly it grew, until the entire city was spread out before them, flowing away from the ochre-coloured walls strung out between the fortress of the Seven Towers, past the Seven Hills and the Seven Mosques, like the arches of some titanic bridge, all the way to the black cypresses of Seraglio Point, in an astonishing jumble of red roofs, translucent domes, gardens and ruins of antiquity, like mighty shoulders braced at the critical moment to prevent the whole edifice of white cupolas ranged between the six minarets of the mosque of Ahmed and the great buttresses of St Sophia from rushing headlong into the sea.

  As they rounded the Princes' Island they could see the crenellated line of the sea-wall, and the iridescent pearl began to take on a more precise definition.

  The great ship curtsied daintily, her tall white sails dipping to the morning breeze as she came round Seraglio Point and entered the Golden Horn.

  This was the great crossroads of the sea, where the hubbub of old Europe met the silence of Asia. The majesty of this threefold city was overwhelming. It was like stepping into some Ali Baba's cave: your eyes were blinded by the light and brilliance of it all so that you did not know where to look or what to wonder at the most. Then, in the same instant, the sheer seething life of this melting pot of all civilizations took you by the throat and left you helpless.

  Clinging to the quarterdeck rail beside Sir James, who was taking it all in with worldly, unastonished eyes, Marianne stared about her at the vast, pullulating harbour like a blue tongue poked in between two different worlds.

  To the left were the colourful, picturesque ships of the Ottoman Empire, tied up to the quays of Stamboul. Facing them, at the Galata moorings, were the ranked vessels from the west: black Genoese, Dutch and English, the multicoloured pennons decking their bare yards like so much fruit left unpicked by a careless gardener.

  On either shore swarmed the busy crowds who, directly or indirectly, won their livelihood from the sea: seamen, customs-men, brokers, scribes, agents of merchants or foreign embassies, porters, stevedores, tradesmen and shopkeepers, and, everywhere, the tall felt hats and military figures of the janissaries of the port police.

  Boatloads of men tugged furiously at the sweeps to tow the three-decker ponderously to her anchorage. At the same moment, a barge manned by hard-hatted English seamen put out from the shore and came to meet her. Upright in the stern was a very tall, thin, fair man, dressed with immense elegance. His arms were folded on his chest, and a flowing, light-coloured cloak blew about him.

  At the sight of him, Sir James gave a start of surprise.

/>   'Well, God bless my soul! It's the ambassador!'

  Marianne was startled out of her own contemplation.

  'What?'

  'It would seem, my dear, that our two troublemakers must have rather more influence than we thought. The man in that barge is Stratford Canning.'

  'Are you trying to tell me he is coming here in person to arrest a poor devil of a Greek who so far forgot himself as to try and choke the life out of a measly architect?'

  'It hardly seems likely on the face of it but – Mr Spencer!' The lieutenant appeared at his side. 'Be so good as to ask the midshipman of the watch to step down to the cable tier and cast his eye over it. If the prisoner's still there, heave him out of a gun-port if you must, only get him off this ship. Or I won't answer for the consequences. I trust his irons have been properly filed through?'

  The young man smiled. 'No need to fret about that, sir. Saw to it myself.'

  'Then all that remains for us to do,' the captain observed, surreptitiously mopping his brow with his handkerchief, 'is to greet his excellency. No, don't you run away, my dear,' he added, as Marianne made a movement to withdraw. 'I'd rather keep you with me. I may need you. He's seen you, in any event.'

  This was true. The ambassador, looking up at the little group on the quarterdeck, could not have failed to notice Marianne in her bright costume.

  Resigning herself, she watched the diplomat's approach. She was amazed to find him so young. Not even his great height and upright bearing could add many years to an undeniably boyish face. How old was Stratford Canning, she wondered? Twenty-four, twenty-five? Certainly not much more. He was handsome, too. His features might have belonged to a Greek statue. Only the thin, thoughtful mouth and rather long chin were unmistakably from northern Europe. The deep-set eyes were thoughtful also, and betrayed the poet and dreamer lurking behind the correct, diplomatic exterior.

  When the barge had hooked on to the chains, he came up the companion ladder with the ease of the born athlete and, as he came forward to where they stood waiting to greet him on the deck, Marianne could see that he was even more attractive than he had looked at first sight. There was an undeniable charm about his person, his manners and his grave, pleasant voice.

  Then, as her eyes met his for the first time, something inside her warned her that there was danger also. This man was as hard and bright and clean as a blade of tempered steel. Even his manner, perfect as it was, had something unyielding about it. Furthermore, no sooner was the ceremony of his arrival on board completed and the usual civilities exchanged than he turned from the captain and, without waiting for introductions, made her an exquisite bow and addressed her in a voice of smoothest courtesy:

  'Permit me to say how delighted I am to have this opportunity of meeting your serene highness at last. You have delayed so long that we had almost given up hope of your arrival. May I say that for my own part, I am both pleased and – reassured?'

  There was no hint of irony in the words and from the total absence of surprise with which she listened to them, Marianne knew, somehow, that she had been expecting them from the moment she had seen the ambassador in the barge. Not for one moment had she believed that a man of his eminence would go to such lengths over a simple matter of a Greek servant.

  To Captain King, however, it seemed certain that there was some misunderstanding and he gave a shout of laughter.

  'Serene highness?' he exclaimed. 'My dear Canning, you've been misinformed, I fear. This lady—'

  'Is the Princess Sant'Anna, ambassadress extraordinary – and extraordinarily discreet also – of Napoleon,' Canning took him up coolly. 'I hardly think she will deny it. So grand a lady does not stoop to lies.'

  Marianne felt a slow flush invade her cheeks as the ambassador held her eyes with his own perceptive ones, but she did not let her gaze falter. Instead, she met them with a coolness quite equal to his own.

  'It's perfectly correct,' she said. 'I am the person you seek, sir. May I inquire how you found me out?'

  'Oh, God, that was simple enough! I was roused up at dawn by a couple of rum fellows demanding justice for some kind of an attack on one or other of them which they said had been committed by the servant of a remarkable and highly aristocratic young lady who had appeared quite suddenly out of the mist one night in the middle of the Aegean. I can't say their misfortunes held much interest for me – but what did interest me more than somewhat was their enthusiastic description of the lady. It corresponded, in every detail, to a description which reached me here some time ago. I had only to set eyes on you, ma'am, for any doubts I might have had to be set at rest. I was told I should have to do with one of the prettiest women in Europe.'

  It was not flattery: merely a quiet statement of fact, which drew a rather wistful smile from its subject.

  'Very well,' she said with a little sigh. 'Now you know, Mr Canning.' She turned to her old friend, who had been listening to this astonishing exchange with a stunned expression that had altered, gradually, to one of deep disappointment.

  'Sir James, forgive me, but I couldn't tell you the truth. I was bound to do my utmost to reach here, and if I have abused your hospitality, please believe me when I say that it was only in the cause of a higher duty.'

  'You, an envoy of Bonaparte! Whatever would your poor aunt have said!'

  'I don't know. But I like to think she would not have condemned me out of hand. You see, Aunt Ellis always knew that one day my French blood would come out. She did her best to stave it off, but she was prepared for it to happen. And now, your excellency,' she went on, turning back to Ginning, 'perhaps you will be so good as to tell me what you mean to do? I do not think you are empowered to arrest me. This is the capital of the Ottoman Empire and France, as well as England, maintains an embassy here. No more – but no less. You were within your rights to try and intercept me on my way here, in fact such an attempt was made by some of your ships off Corfu, but you cannot do so now.'

  'Nor should I dream of doing so. We are in Turkish waters, I agree. However… while on board this vessel, you are on British soil. I have only to keep you here.'

  'You mean?'

  'You are not to go ashore. You are a prisoner of His Majesty's government, ma'am. Oh, no harm will come to you, of course. I shall simply ask Captain King to ensure that you remain below, in your cabin, during the hours he will remain in port. He will sail tomorrow morning for England, taking you with him under strict surveillance. Once there, you will become the most valuable, and the most charming, of hostages. If that's agreeable to you, Sir James?'

  'Perfectly, your excellency.'

  Marianne shut her eyes, fighting off the faintness that swept over her. This was the end. She had failed, hideously, on the very edge of success, and for the stupidest of all reasons: the vindictiveness of a pair of silly little men! But her pride refused to let her give way to weakness. Opening her great eyes very wide, she fixed them, sparkling with anger and suppressed tears, on the ambassador's bland face.

  'Aren't you rather exceeding your powers, sir?'

  'Not in the slightest, ma'am. It's quite within the rules of war – and we are at war. Allow me to wish you a pleasant journey home – for I should be glad to think that England might still feel even a little like home to you.'

  'A little, sir. A very little. And now, Sir James, you had better do your duty and shut me up. Good day to you, Mr Canning.'

  She turned from the ambassador, and glanced swiftly at the captain as she did so. The set look on his face killed any hope that still remained. Just as she had known when she first came aboard the Jason, James King would never let his private feelings interfere with his duty. Possibly he might even feel a certain natural resentment that she had used their old friendship to deceive him.

  Sighing, she looked away to cast one final glance over the stern rail at the forbidden city. It was then she saw the Sea Witch.

  At first she thought it must be an illusion born of her desperate longing to see the ship again, and she paused
, brushing her hand uncertainly across her eyes as though unconsciously afraid to destroy the beautiful vision. But there was no mistake. The brig was Jason's.

  She was riding easily at anchor, a few cables' lengths away at a little distance from the quay, and pulling gently at her moorings like a dog on a leash. A wave of joy swept over her, welling up from her heart and bringing a tightness to her throat and making her hands tremble as she made out her own image carved on the prow. There could be no further doubt: Jason was here, in this very port, where he had not wished to come but which to her in her abandonment, had been like the promised land.

  But how could she reach him?

  'Will you step this way, ma'am.'

  Sir James's stiff voice brought her back to reality. She was not free to hurry to the man she loved. And, as a final reminder of the fact, two marines fell in on either side of her. She was a prisoner of war now, and that was all.

  For a moment, she lost her nerve and gazed wildly up into the elderly captain's expressionless face.

  'Where are you taking me?'

  'Why, to your cabin, ma'am, as Mr Canning has suggested. Your – serene highness – ' his tongue stumbled a little over the unaccustomed words,' – will be asked to remain there, with a guard on the door. Did you think you would be put in irons? We're not in the habit of ill-treating prisoners – not even those who serve Bonaparte.'