Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘I am Gorlias Pietrogliant,’ said the stranger.

  Omobono bent his head politely, and wondered whether he should be able to repeat such an outlandish name.

  ‘I am Messer Zeno’s secretary,’ he answered. ‘What is your business, Master Porlias Dietroplant?’

  ‘Gorlias,’ corrected the other, quite unmoved. Gorlias Pietrogliant.’

  ‘Master Gorlias — I beg your pardon.’

  ‘I am an astrologer,’ observed the visitor, seating himself on a high stool at Omobono’s elbow, and relapsing into silence.

  ‘You are an astrologer,’ said the secretary tentatively, after a long pause, for he did not know what to say.

  ‘Yes, I told you so,’ replied Gorlias; and for a few seconds longer it did not seem to occur to him that there was anything else to be said.

  There was something so oddly fixed in his look and so dull in his voice that Omobono began to fear that he might be a lunatic, which was indeed, in the secretary’s opinion, much the same as an astrologer, for the Venetians were never great believers in the influence of the stars. But the visitor soon made him forget his suspicions by reviving his curiosity.

  ‘The matter which brings me to you is of a very delicate nature,’ said Gorlias, all at once speaking fluently and in a low voice. ‘I have reason to believe that we are interested in the same business.’

  ‘Are we?’ asked the secretary in some surprise.

  ‘I think we are. I think we are, by four toes and by five toes!’

  ‘Over the water,’ answered Omobono promptly, and hoping to learn more.

  ‘Both salt and fresh,’ returned Gorlias. ‘By these tokens I shall trust to your fidelity and discretion.’

  There was something so oddly fixed in his look and so dull in his voice that Omobono began to fear that he might be a lunatic.

  ‘Implicitly,’ replied the Venetian, who was sure of being discreet, but wondered what the matter might be to which his fidelity was pledged beforehand. He inwardly hoped that his visitor was not going to ask him for money, for he suspected that some awful fate must be in store for those who refused a service when appealed to by the mysterious passwords, of which he had now learnt one more.

  ‘Messer Carlo is gone out,’ said Gorlias. ‘By this time he is in the house of Messer Sebastian Polo, who wishes to marry him to his daughter. He will not come home till after dinner.’

  Omobono stared at the speaker.

  ‘You know more than I do,’ he observed.

  ‘Of course. I am an astrologer. You are in charge of the house and all it contains, and the servants and slaves are afraid of you because you have the master’s ear, but they love you because you are kind to them. Therefore, whatever you do is right in their eyes. Upstairs there are three female slaves; one is Arethusa, the other two are called Yulia and Lucilla, and wait on her. You see, I know everything. Now, for the sake of that business in which we are both interested, you must take me up to their apartment, for I must speak with the one called Arethusa.’

  Omobono wished that Gorlias had asked him for his coat, or his money, or anything that was his, rather than for such a favour; and he was about to risk refusing it, whatever the penalty might be, when a luminous idea revealed itself to him.

  ‘There is only one condition,’ he answered, after a moment’s thought. ‘I must be present while you talk with her.’

  ‘That need not disturb you,’ said Gorlias calmly. ‘I have seen the room where she is by virtue of my knowledge of the stars. It has a small covered balcony with an outer lattice against the sun, on the south side. There I will talk with Arethusa, while you stand by the door and watch us. I will draw figures, and appear to explain them to her, so that the two girl-slaves may think that I have come to amuse her by setting up her horoscope. Even Messer Carlo could not object to that, and Arethusa can veil herself, so that I shall not be able to see her face.’

  Omobono reflected a moment, but could now see no good reason for refusing the request, whereas he saw a prospect of learning something more about the mystery that interested him. Zoë herself had prompted him with the second password of the chain, in Rustan’s house, and he was almost sure that in some way she knew the rest, and the meaning of them all.

  The two went up the marble stairs to the second story, and Omobono tapped at the entrance to the women’s apartment. There came a little pattering of slippered feet, and Lucilla opened the door just enough to put her head out, for it was not yet time for the mid-day meal, and she wondered what was wanted.

  ‘Bid your mistress veil herself, my child,’ said Omobono. ‘Here is a famous astrologer come to tell her the future, which will help her to pass the time.’

  Lucilla glanced at Gorlias with curiosity and smiled, showing all her teeth.

  ‘Indeed it is very dull here,’ she observed, and disappeared, shutting the door behind her.

  While the two men waited Gorlias produced from the folds of his wide tunic a big roll of parchment, which he unrolled a foot or two, displaying a multitude of incomprehensible signs and figures; he also took out a large brass compass, a sheet of cotton paper from Padua, also rolled up, and an Arabic almanack with a silver clasp. Omobono surveyed these preparations with mingled curiosity and sceptical amusement, till Lucilla opened the door again and ushered both men into Zoë’s presence. The astrologer made cabalistic signs with his right hand while he advanced, as if he were drawing imaginary figures in the air with his extended forefinger. Zoë’s face was quite concealed in the double folds of a white gauze veil, but she seemed to watch him attentively as he came towards her.

  CHAPTER VIII

  ZOË AND THE astrologer sat in the covered balcony in full view of the secretary, who remained near the door, straining his sharp ears in vain to catch some words of the whispered conversation. The maids had been dismissed. From time to time Gorlias spoke aloud, pointing with his compass to different parts of the figure, but what he said only made it more impossible to guess at what he whispered. Zoë sat almost motionless, but she had opened the folds of her veil so as to uncover her mouth, and after her companion had been speaking some time she bent down and answered in his ear, pretending, however, to point to the figures on the paper, as if she were asking questions.

  The substance of what Gorlias told her was that he and his friends were interested in a mighty enterprise, and had often tried to sound Carlo Zeno with regard to helping them to carry it out, but they had met with no success, for he either did not understand, or he would not. Messer Sebastian Polo, whose house he frequented, was a timid man, and was not to be trusted with such a secret; moreover, he was so extremely anxious to make Zeno marry his daughter, that he would certainly never allow him to run any risks.

  All this he put very clearly, and Omobono might have been surprised to learn that he had not used any password. Then Zoë bent down to his ear.

  ‘What is the name of Sebastian Polo’s daughter?’ she asked.

  ‘Giustina,’ whispered the astrologer. ‘The sun near to mid-heaven,’ he continued aloud, ‘and in trine aspect to Mars, signifies fine horses and a retinue of servants.’ He dropped his voice again. ‘She is thirty, and has had the smallpox,’ he whispered.

  ‘The master has only been here once since I came,’ said Zoë, bending to his ear again. ‘I have no influence with him.’

  Gorlias turned his face towards her in slow surprise.

  ‘Had he not seen you before he bought you, Kokóna Arethusa?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes, indeed!’

  ‘Oh! I thought that you also might have had the smallpox,’ was the whispered answer.

  Zoë could not help laughing a little. The pretty notes, muffled by the veil, seemed to come from far away. It was the first time she had laughed naturally since many weeks. The astrologer bent nearer to her when she was silent again, and spoke aloud, pointing to his figure.

  ‘Venus is in the Seventh House in benign aspect to the Moon,’ he said aloud. ‘You will be fortunate in love.
’ Then he whispered again, ‘I will give you a philtre that has never failed. The next time he comes — —’

  Zoë shook her head decidedly, with something that looked like indignation.

  ‘It is for a good matter, Kokóna,’ Gorlias answered. ‘If you will help us, you shall have pearls and diamonds, and gold and liberty.’

  ‘Liberty? How?’

  Gorlias thought that he had tempted her with that, at least.

  ‘If you will promise your help with Messer Carlo, I will tell you.’

  ‘How can I promise what is not mine to give?’ asked the girl.

  The astrologer was not discouraged, and after more talk about the planets, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the maids if they were listening at the door, he went on quickly again.

  ‘Messer Carlo is a man who loves adventures, who has led desperate and forlorn hope to victory, both in Italy and Greece, who has the gift of the leader, if ever a man had it. Surely, you knew all this.’

  ‘I know he has been a soldier,’ Zoë answered, for Zeno had told her so.

  ‘He also possesses some fortune, and has great connexions in Venice. Moreover, I can tell you, Kokóna, that this is no small matter. If he succeeds, he will earn gratitude of the Serene Republic and honour everywhere.’

  ‘As much as that?’ asked Zoë, looking attentively at the astrologer through her veil. ‘How am I to believe you?’

  ‘I thought I had spoken clearly enough,’ Gorlias answered, ‘but lest you should doubt my word and promise, take these.’

  He had furtively slipped his hand into the bosom of his tunic, and when he withdrew it his fingers closed over something he held gathered in his palm. Cleverly turning the sheet of paper on which he had shown his astrological figures, so as to hinder Omobono from seeing, he disclosed to Zoë a short string of very large and beautiful pearls.

  ‘In your nativity,’ he rattled on, aloud, ‘the beneficent influences altogether outweigh the malefic ones.’

  He said much more to the same effect, and while he was speaking he let the pearls slip down upon the skirts of Zoë’s over-garment on the side away from the secretary.

  ‘They are yours,’ he whispered. ‘You shall have a hundred strings like them if you succeed.’

  ‘Give such things to my maids,’ Zoë answered, ‘not to me! If you are in earnest make a sign, that I may know whence you come.’

  ‘A sign?’ repeated Gorlias, as if not understanding.

  ‘Yes, where?’ Her mouth was close to his ear as she whispered the question, and she turned her ear towards him for the answer.

  He hesitated, and for the first time the dull fixedness of his expression was momentarily dispelled by a very faint look of surprise.

  ‘I ask, where?’ Zoë repeated, with strong emphasis, bending to him again.

  ‘Over the water,’ he answered at last.

  ‘Both salt and fresh,’ she replied instantly.

  Gorlias looked at her veiled face long.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked at length. ‘Who taught you these things?’ He glanced suspiciously at Omobono, who, as he had reason to believe, was acquainted with the secret.

  Zoë shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she answered. ‘One greater than he taught me what I know. You may go now, for your message is delivered. What I can do, I will do, and there is no more to say, for it is my own cause as well as his — the cause of justice, and God is with it.’

  Gorlias spoke aloud again, and brought his explanation of the horoscope to a conclusion by informing Zoë that if she wished to know the smaller details of her wonderful future, she must consult him at intervals, as the phases of the moon had a great influence on her fate.

  ‘When the Kokóna wishes to see me,’ he said, rising, ‘Messer Omobono will send for me, and I will come.’

  Before Zoë realised that he had not picked up the string of pearls, he had made his obeisance and was at the door with Omobono, who bowed low to her, and ushered him out.

  When she was alone she took the necklace from the folds of her dress, where it had lain, and looked at it a moment before she hid it in her bosom. For she would not allow the maids to see it, and was already debating how she should hide it till she could find an opportunity of giving it back. But when the cold pearls touched her flesh they sent a little chill to her heart, and she thought it was somehow like a warning.

  She understood well enough what had happened, for she was quick-witted. Rustan, who had shown that he knew the secret, and his wife, who had spoken to him of Gorlias, had told the latter that Carlo Zeno was in love with a beautiful Greek slave, who could, of course, be easily induced by gifts to use her influence with her master. For Zeno’s past deeds had already woven a sort of legend about his name, so that even the soldiers talked of him among themselves, and told stories of the desperate bravery and amazing skill with which he had kept a small Turkish army at bay in Greece with a handful of men for nearly a whole year, and many other tales, of which the most fantastic was less strange than much that afterwards happened to him in his life.

  It must have seemed easy enough to the astrologer, and even to Omobono perhaps; but it looked strangely impossible to Zoë herself, when she remembered her only interview with the man whom she was now pledged to win over.

  The whole situation was known to her. A conspiracy was on foot to take the Emperor Johannes from his prison and restore him to the throne, imprisoning his son Andronicus in the Amena tower in his stead. Thousands of John’s loyal subjects recognised each other by passwords, and talked secretly of a great rising, in which some foresaw vengeance for the wrongs they had suffered, while others, like the Bokharian Rustan, hoped for fortune, reward, and perhaps honour. But the body of the army was not with them yet, the disaffected men lacked skill or courage to preach the cause of the lawful Emperor to their comrades, and the revolution had no guiding spirit. It is far easier to choose a general among soldiers than to pick out a leader of revolt amongst untried and untrained men.

  Before he lost his liberty the Emperor had known Zeno, and though a weak man, had judged him rightly. In his prison he possessed means of communicating occasionally with his friends, and he had instructed them to ask Zeno’s help; but so far his message had either not been delivered or Zeno had been deaf to the appeal, perhaps judging that the time was not come for the attempt, or that, after all, the cause was not a good one. Having failed to move him in all other ways, the revolutionaries had seized the unexpected opportunity that now presented itself.

  The thought that such a man might turn the tide of history, restore the rightful sovereign to the throne, and avenge the awful death of Michael Rhangabé, had crossed Zoë’s mind when she had first seen her purchaser in Rustan’s house, for the born leader and fighting man generally has something in his face that is not to be mistaken; but to influence Carlo was another matter, as she had understood when he had supped with her. It would be as hard to induce him to do anything he was not inclined to do of his own accord as it would be impossible to hinder him from attempting whatever he chose to try. As for winning him to the cause by gentler means, the high-born girl blushed at the suggestion. He was certainly not in love with her at first sight; of that she was as sure as that she did not love him either.

  Yet while she was thinking, she suddenly wondered whether Gorlias had spoken the truth about Giustina Polo. Was she really thirty, and was her face pitted like a cheese-grater, as Gorlias had told her? If she was ugly, why did Zeno go to Polo’s house so often? For Zoë had no doubt but that he went there every time he was rowed up the Golden Horn in his pretty skiff. He was always carefully dressed when he stepped into his boat; it was not for old Polo that he wore such fine clothes.

  She was very lonely now. During the first two days she had rested herself in her luxurious surroundings, not without the excitement of expecting another visit from Zeno, and she had thought with satisfaction of all the comfort her sacrifice must have brought to her adopted mother, to the little boys, an
d to poor old Nectaria. But now she wished she could at least be sure that all was well with them, though she was rather sadly conscious that she did not miss them as she had thought she must. During many months she had nursed Kyría Agatha most tenderly, and had helped the old slave to take care of the children; the last weeks had been spent in abject misery, the last days in the final struggle with starvation and sickness, and still she had bravely done her best. Yet she had long felt that Kyría Agatha had not much real affection for her, and would let her starve herself to death to feed her and the boys. It would have been otherwise if Rhangabé had lived; she would have willingly died of hunger for him, but he was gone, and though she had done and borne the impossible, it had not been for her own blood, but for the sake of the good and brave man’s memory. He was in peace, after the agony of his death, his wife and his sons were provided for, so far as Zoë could provide by giving her freedom and her life for them. As far as she could she had paid her debt of gratitude to the dead, and the debt that was not wiped out was due to her; those who had murdered Rhangabé owed her his unspeakable sufferings and every precious drop of his heart’s blood. They should pay. If she lived, they should pay all to the uttermost.

  And now, fate had placed within her reach the instrument of vengeance, the bravest, rashest, wisest, most desperate of mankind. Her heart had silently and joyfully drunk in every word that Gorlias had said about the man who owned her as he owned the carpet under her feet, the roof over her head, and the clothes that covered her.

  He was within her reach, but he was not within her power. Not yet. Her mood had changed, and for a while, not knowing what she dreamt of, she wished that she were indeed one of those Eastern enchantresses of whom she had often heard, without half understanding, who roused men to frenzy, or lulled their lovers to sleep and ruin, as they would; she wished she were that wicked Antonina, for whom brave, pure-hearted Belisarius had humbled himself in the dust; she wished she were Theodora, shamelessly great and fair, an imperial Vision of Sin, compelling to her heel the church-going, priest-haunted master of half the known world — Justinian. She knew the story of her adopted country. What had either of those women that she had not, wherewith to master a man?