The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 85

A gold collar that appeared to be woven of spiral strands encircled her neck. 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 own initiation at the hands of the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+yya.

It had been the Tartars, indirectly, who had made it possible for him to take that training. They had besieged and destroyed Alamut, the great Persian fortress of the Sheikh al-Jebal, the Old Man of the Mountain, and kicked him to death after he surrendered. The Old Man's surviving followers scattered across the lands of Islam. It was inevitable that some of the highest adepts came for protection to Sultan Qutuz of El Kahira.

After they were settled, Baibars had gone to them with the proposal that certain Mameluke emirs be initiated into the secrets of the sect. Fayum al-Burz, the new Sheikh al-Jebal, saw an opportunity to infiltrate the highest levels of the Mamelukes and was only too pleased to comply.

And so it had come about that Daoud, already trained by Saadi to resist the power of has.h.i.+sh, pa.s.sed 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. He would learn no secrets. He would be the lowest of the low--a tool, like the fedawi, the devoted killers who were the source of the Sheikh al-Jebal's power.

"This is a lucky man," said Tilia, her big mouth splitting her face in a lascivious grin. "He will experience delights here tonight that many of my most distinguished patrons have never enjoyed. His pleasures will be limited only by what his body can endure."

She walked over to Sordello, asleep on the divan, and ran caressing fingers down his bare chest and belly. "And he looks to be a strong man for his age. These scars. Quite the veteran bravo, eh?"

Though the room seemed cool to Daoud, sweat ran over Tilia's bare bosom down into the deep square collar of her purple gown. Her deadly pectoral cross lay heavily against the purple satin between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She might need that cross tonight, Daoud thought, if anything went wrong with Sordello.

"I begin to envy the man," said Lorenzo. "Ill-treated as he has been up to now."

"Surely you are not such a fool," said Daoud brusquely. But then, he thought, Lorenzo had no real idea what initiation into the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+yya did 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 the pressure of her finger on a spring. The room they entered was as cool as the one they had just left, its large open window covered over with fine netting to let in air and keep out insects. But it was darker. Only a single fat candle burned in a large stick enameled green, red, and white.

Francesca, the woman Daoud had lain with on his previous visits to Tilia's, rose with a smile and came to him. As Daoud took her hand and kissed it, she squeezed his fingers. The polished, carved beams that ran up the walls and across the ceiling of this room were the same color as Francesca's hair, a dark brown. Opposite the window there was a small fireplace, dark and empty.

"Here, here, and here are the places from which you can watch what goes on in there," said Tilia, marching along one wall and pointing to tiny circular openings, each one ringed with a little _O_ of wood. Under each opening was a couch, and the openings were low enough in the wall so that one could sit, or even lie down, and still look through them. The light 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 of the wall.

"Francesca is here for your pleasure, should you find what is happening on the other side of this wall arousing," said Tilia, dabbing with a handkerchief at the pool of sweat that kept forming at the top of her cleavage. It must be her weight, Daoud thought, that made her perspire so much.

"You have thought of everything, Tilia," said Daoud.

"There is more," she said with a smile, and pulled on an embroidered strip of purple velvet hanging from the wall. Daoud heard a bell ring somewhere beyond the wall. Then through the door to the outer gallery came two more of Tilia's black servants. The first one bore a wide silver tray, and Daoud smelled a familiar and savory odor that filled the 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 of rice with peppers.

"Roast yearling!" Daoud exclaimed, delighted.

He bit into a sliver of kid. It was delicious. The meat was accompanied by 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 know about me. If I find you deserving I will tell you, one day. Meanwhile, partake! And you, Lorenzo. And Francesca. Levantine cookery will not poison you."

The second servant set a platter of peaches and figs and a flagon of kaviyeh 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 see the three women gathered around Sordello's inert form. They were ma.s.saging him gently, as instructed.

But it would be a while yet before he woke and found himself with three beautiful women, every pleasure they gave him enhanced by has.h.i.+sh.

"In the south we know and love Saracen dishes," said Lorenzo with a grin as he licked his fingers after helping himself to the kid. "But, Madama Tilia, am I to have food only? Shall I not have a companion to help me endure this night's work?"

Tilia reached up and pulled at the end of his grizzled mustache. "Only rarely does a Sicilian bullock set foot in my house. I am saving you for myself."

"Meraviglioso!" Lorenzo exclaimed. "Instead of one of the handmaidens of Venus 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. Ever since his angry words with Sophia of a few days before, he had been troubled by the thought of Rachel. And especially tonight when, even as he pa.s.sed the time here at Tilia's, Simon de Gobignon was visiting Sophia. Sophia had been to see Rachel herself, but had refused to talk about her. He wanted to rea.s.sure himself that Sophia had been wrong to condemn 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 well and happy, and richer by nearly two thousand florins. Your companion Sophia visited her and found nothing amiss. And the roast kid will get cold."

Two thousand florins. Nearly enough, Daoud reckoned, to buy a mansion like 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 was indeed well and happy, as Tilia had said. But then her dark gaze was averted, her straight brows drawn together in a little frown. She started 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 in Rachel's room were cream-colored, the tables and chairs and the bedposts painted ivory, and the canopy over the bed was cloth-of-gold. She sat in one 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 that it was a false smile. And the hint of defiance he had noticed on first meeting her in Rome was gone.

"Rachel, I only wanted to see with my own eyes that you are content here and well treated."

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, and she shrugged. "I have never till now known such comfort, Messer David."

Daoud realized that he should ask her about the Tartar. Tilia herself had given him an account of Rachel's first night with John Chagan. The pain Daoud felt at hearing what he had delivered Rachel to was relieved only slightly by knowing that the Tartar had been surprisingly gentle with her. At first, though, he had hated Tilia for being willing to risk Rachel, and, impulsively, he had resolved to kill John. That made him feel a little better, until, a moment later, he remembered that hating Tilia and killing the Tartar would be no help whatever to Rachel. And he, as much as anyone, was guilty of what had happened to her.

Since John Chagan's first visit, Daoud knew, he had been back twice more, paying a thousand florins each time to spend part of the night with Rachel. He seemed much taken with her, and continued to be careful and kindly in his use of her body, Tilia reported. Watching them, Tilia had learned nothing that Daoud could use. But there were things Rachel might have noticed, useful things Tilia could not have observed through a spy hole.

_Not tonight. I will ask her for information another time._

One thing he must know, though, was whether Tilia had been telling him the truth. "Have you been hurt in any way?"

Rachel looked at him, looked away and sighed. How enormous her dark eyes were, Daoud thought, how soulful. Her stare made him uncomfortable, and he was thankful that she soon looked away. She kept on toying with the hem of her gown.

"Everyone has been very kind. You need not worry about people hurting me. After all, Messer David, you are a merchant, as my Angelo was, and you understand that goods must be kept in the best possible condition to obtain the best price. Everyone here understands that, too."

There was no mistaking the bitterness and despair in her voice. Had he felt 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 each of his visits. And he gave me a purse of three hundred the first time. A bonus, because I was a virgin. Madama Tilia keeps it for me, but I am allowed to look at it and count it." She looked up suddenly and said earnestly, "I could not have fallen into better hands than Madama Tilia's." But there was a deadness in her eyes that belied what she said.