by Robert Shea
XXX
Well satisfied with what Tilia had accomplished, Daoud gazed about atthe frescoed moons, stars, and suns scattered across the dark blue wallsof the apartment. A cool night breeze blew through the rooms fromwindows hidden by screens and gauzy curtains. In the large centralchamber an oval pool gave off a scent of roses. Hangings of violet,silver, and azure turned the rooms into a maze that baffled the eye.
Everywhere Daoud looked he saw beds and divans and cushions. The floorswere covered with soft rugs and the tables laden with pitchers of wineand plates of peaches, grapes, and melon slices.
In a corner of a smaller room, its walls covered with maroon and blackdrapes, the flame of a large candle warmed a solution of wine andhashish in a green earthenware bowl. A single silver cup stood besidethe candle.
"All this for one lousy traditore?" said Lorenzo.
"After he has experienced what I have prepared for him tonight, he willno longer be a traitor," said Daoud. "His very soul will be mine, andthat will be worth--all this."
He watched the two silent black men lug in the naked body of Sordello,and he pointed to a forest-green divan beside the pool. Gently they laidSordello there.
Tilia Caballo appeared from behind a curtain. At a gesture from her, thetwo black men bowed to Daoud and left.
Three women followed Tilia into the room.
"Goddesses!" whispered Lorenzo, staring.
Daoud, who had chosen them, agreed. Two of them, Tilia had told him,were sisters whose specialty was working together with one man. They hadhair the color of honey, olive skin, and Grecian profiles. Each had agold fillet in her hair and wore a short tunic of pure white linen. Eachtunic left one delicate shoulder and one perfect breast exposed. OnOrenetta the uncovered side was the right, and on Caterina the left.
The third woman was tall, taller than most men, and her bare shoulderswere broad. But her body, tightly wrapped in a gown of black silk thatstopped just above her breasts, was magnificently female. Her longunbound hair was lustrous and black as her gown, her skin pale as snow.A gold collar that appeared to be woven of spiral strands encircled herneck. Maiga, Tilia said, was from Hibernia, an island west of Britain,and she spoke no Italian and did not need to.
Daoud felt a fluttering in his chest as the sight of the three women,and the scent of the simmering wine brought back memories of his owninitiation at the hands of the Hashishiyya.
It had been the Tartars, indirectly, who had made it possible for him totake that training. They had besieged and destroyed Alamut, the greatPersian fortress of the Sheikh al-Jebal, the Old Man of the Mountain,and kicked him to death after he surrendered. The Old Man's survivingfollowers scattered across the lands of Islam. It was inevitable thatsome of the highest adepts came for protection to Sultan Qutuz of ElKahira.
After they were settled, Baibars had gone to them with the proposal thatcertain Mameluke emirs be initiated into the secrets of the sect. Fayumal-Burz, the new Sheikh al-Jebal, saw an opportunity to infiltrate thehighest levels of the Mamelukes and was only too pleased to comply.
And so it had come about that Daoud, already trained by Saadi to resistthe power of hashish, passed through the gates of paradise and learned,in time, how to administer the same experience to others.
Of course, Sordello, after he went through this, would be no adept. Hewould learn no secrets. He would be the lowest of the low--a tool, likethe fedawi, the devoted killers who were the source of the Sheikhal-Jebal's power.
"This is a lucky man," said Tilia, her big mouth splitting her face in alascivious grin. "He will experience delights here tonight that many ofmy most distinguished patrons have never enjoyed. His pleasures will belimited only by what his body can endure."
She walked over to Sordello, asleep on the divan, and ran caressingfingers down his bare chest and belly. "And he looks to be a strong manfor his age. These scars. Quite the veteran bravo, eh?"
Though the room seemed cool to Daoud, sweat ran over Tilia's bare bosomdown into the deep square collar of her purple gown. Her deadly pectoralcross lay heavily against the purple satin between her breasts. Shemight need that cross tonight, Daoud thought, if anything went wrongwith Sordello.
"I begin to envy the man," said Lorenzo. "Ill-treated as he has been upto now."
"Surely you are not such a fool," said Daoud brusquely. But then, hethought, Lorenzo had no real idea what initiation into the Hashishiyyadid to a man.
A few last soft words of instruction to Caterina, Orenetta, and Maiga,and Tilia led Daoud and Lorenzo to a wall panel which swung open at thepressure of her finger on a spring. The room they entered was as cool asthe one they had just left, its large open window covered over with finenetting to let in air and keep out insects. But it was darker. Only asingle fat candle burned in a large stick enameled green, red, andwhite.
Francesca, the woman Daoud had lain with on his previous visits toTilia's, rose with a smile and came to him. As Daoud took her hand andkissed it, she squeezed his fingers. The polished, carved beams that ranup the walls and across the ceiling of this room were the same color asFrancesca's hair, a dark brown. Opposite the window there was a smallfireplace, dark and empty.
"Here, here, and here are the places from which you can watch what goeson in there," said Tilia, marching along one wall and pointing to tinycircular openings, each one ringed with a little _O_ of wood. Under eachopening was a couch, and the openings were low enough in the wall sothat one could sit, or even lie down, and still look through them. Thelight in this room had to be lower than in the room where Sordello was,Daoud realized, or the peepholes would be visible on the other side ofthe wall.
"Francesca is here for your pleasure, should you find what is happeningon the other side of this wall arousing," said Tilia, dabbing with ahandkerchief at the pool of sweat that kept forming at the top of hercleavage. It must be her weight, Daoud thought, that made her perspireso much.
"You have thought of everything, Tilia," said Daoud.
"There is more," she said with a smile, and pulled on an embroideredstrip of purple velvet hanging from the wall. Daoud heard a bell ringsomewhere beyond the wall. Then through the door to the outer gallerycame two more of Tilia's black servants. The first one bore a widesilver tray, and Daoud smelled a familiar and savory odor that filledthe air of the room. As the servant laid the tray on a round table,Daoud saw slices of roast kid garnished with shredded cheese on a bed ofrice with peppers.
"Roast yearling!" Daoud exclaimed, delighted.
He bit into a sliver of kid. It was delicious. The meat was accompaniedby sliced boiled lemons sprinkled with nadd and scented with ambergris.
"But where did you learn to prepare such a dish?"
The stout little woman rolled her eyes. "There is much you do not knowabout me. If I find you deserving I will tell you, one day. Meanwhile,partake! And you, Lorenzo. And Francesca. Levantine cookery will notpoison you."
The second servant set a platter of peaches and figs and a flagon ofkaviyeh beside the lamb. A good meal for a long night, thought Daoud.
He sat on one of the couches to peer through a peephole. He could seethe three women gathered around Sordello's inert form. They weremassaging him gently, as instructed.
But it would be a while yet before he woke and found himself with threebeautiful women, every pleasure they gave him enhanced by hashish.
"In the south we know and love Saracen dishes," said Lorenzo with a grinas he licked his fingers after helping himself to the kid. "But, MadamaTilia, am I to have food only? Shall I not have a companion to help meendure this night's work?"
Tilia reached up and pulled at the end of his grizzled mustache. "Onlyrarely does a Sicilian bullock set foot in my house. I am saving you formyself."
"Meraviglioso!" Lorenzo exclaimed. "Instead of one of the handmaidens ofVenus I shall have Venus herself."
Lorenzo's wit was itself meraviglioso, thought Daoud. But for him,something other than the games of Venus was uppermost in his mind. Eversince his angry
words with Sophia of a few days before, he had beentroubled by the thought of Rachel. And especially tonight when, even ashe passed the time here at Tilia's, Simon de Gobignon was visitingSophia. Sophia had been to see Rachel herself, but had refused to talkabout her. He wanted to reassure himself that Sophia had been wrong tocondemn him and that all was well with the girl.
"While we wait, Tilia," he said, "I would have a private word with you."
When they stepped out of the room Daoud said, "I want to see Rachel."
Tilia frowned and was silent for a moment. "In all honesty, she is welland happy, and richer by nearly two thousand florins. Your companionSophia visited her and found nothing amiss. And the roast kid will getcold."
Two thousand florins. Nearly enough, Daoud reckoned, to buy a mansionlike Ugolini's. But what of Rachel herself?
"Just take me to her, Madama."
* * * * *
When he first saw Rachel's surprised smile, he thought that she wasindeed well and happy, as Tilia had said. But then her dark gaze wasaverted, her straight brows drawn together in a little frown. Shestarted playing with the gold lace on the hem of her white satin gown.
Daoud said. "Well, Rachel. You look like a queen sitting there."
Each woman at Tilia's had her special room, Daoud knew. The hangings inRachel's room were cream-colored, the tables and chairs and the bedpostspainted ivory, and the canopy over the bed was cloth-of-gold. She sat inone corner of the bed, with her legs curled under her.
_It must have been on this bed that the Tartar had her._
"I am so pleased to see you, Messer David," she said in a low voice."How can I serve you?" She smiled at him, but his trained eye saw thatit was a false smile. And the hint of defiance he had noticed on firstmeeting her in Rome was gone.
"Rachel, I only wanted to see with my own eyes that you are content hereand well treated."
Her eyebrows lifted slightly, and she shrugged. "I have never till nowknown such comfort, Messer David."
Daoud realized that he should ask her about the Tartar. Tilia herselfhad given him an account of Rachel's first night with John Chagan. Thepain Daoud felt at hearing what he had delivered Rachel to was relievedonly slightly by knowing that the Tartar had been surprisingly gentlewith her. At first, though, he had hated Tilia for being willing to riskRachel, and, impulsively, he had resolved to kill John. That made himfeel a little better, until, a moment later, he remembered that hatingTilia and killing the Tartar would be no help whatever to Rachel. Andhe, as much as anyone, was guilty of what had happened to her.
Since John Chagan's first visit, Daoud knew, he had been back twicemore, paying a thousand florins each time to spend part of the nightwith Rachel. He seemed much taken with her, and continued to be carefuland kindly in his use of her body, Tilia reported. Watching them, Tiliahad learned nothing that Daoud could use. But there were things Rachelmight have noticed, useful things Tilia could not have observed througha spy hole.
_Not tonight. I will ask her for information another time._
One thing he must know, though, was whether Tilia had been telling himthe truth. "Have you been hurt in any way?"
Rachel looked at him, looked away and sighed. How enormous her dark eyeswere, Daoud thought, how soulful. Her stare made him uncomfortable, andhe was thankful that she soon looked away. She kept on toying with thehem of her gown.
"Everyone has been very kind. You need not worry about people hurtingme. After all, Messer David, you are a merchant, as my Angelo was, andyou understand that goods must be kept in the best possible condition toobtain the best price. Everyone here understands that, too."
There was no mistaking the bitterness and despair in her voice. Had hefelt any differently after the Turks captured him, raped him, beat him,and sold him in the slave market?
"You are being given the money you have earned?"
She nodded, not looking up. "My share is five hundred florins for eachof his visits. And he gave me a purse of three hundred the first time. Abonus, because I was a virgin. Madama Tilia keeps it for me, but I amallowed to look at it and count it." She looked up suddenly and saidearnestly, "I could not have fallen into better hands than MadamaTilia's." But there was a deadness in her eyes that belied what shesaid.
"We did not force you to give yourself to the Tartar," he burst out.
A light came into her eyes then, the fire of anger. "Thank you forreminding me that I became a whore of my own free will. Is that why youcame to see me, Messer David? To tell me that this is all my own fault?"Her lips stretched in a ferocious grin. "Pay me enough and I will sayanything you want to hear."
Rachel's eyes were fixed on his, and his on hers, and they stayed thatway, frozen, until Daoud shut his eyes and slowly turned away.
He could not even think of a word to say in farewell. As he closed thedoor to her room behind him, his eyes burned and there was an achingheaviness in his chest. Remorse. He felt as if he had killed achild--two children. Not just Rachel, but the boy David who had alwayslived inside him. The pain was unbearable. He longed to escape it.
