Arethusa Part 6

'I am here to be sold, just as you are,' Zoe added, returning their look. The negress laughed loudly, for she was evidently in a good humour.

'Also the n.o.ble peac.o.c.k and the sparrow are both birds, though the feathers are different!' she cried. 'But the Kokona is hungry and cold,' she continued, in a tone of servile anxiety for Zoe's comfort.

'Will she not perhaps take a bath and change her clothes before supper? Everything is ready.'

'I have supped,' answered Zoe, who had eaten a piece of black bread, 'but as for clothes, I should like to put on the cloak again, for I feel cold.'

She had hardly spoken before the two maids had wrapped her in the warm mantle.

'Thank you,' she said to them, and she turned to the negress. 'You seem to be mistress here. May I go to bed now?'

'Yes, I am the mistress,' answered the African woman, all her teeth gleaming in the lamplight. 'I am Rustan Karaboghazji's wife, Kokona.'

Zoe could not repress a movement of surprise. The negress laughed.

'Rustan is a wise man,' she said with a tremendous grin. 'It is cheaper to marry one woman with a strong hand than to keep a couple of smooth-faced thieves for gaolers, as most of the people in our business do. If the Kokona will please to follow me I will show her the room I have prepared.'

Zoe bent her head and followed, for the negress was already leading the way. They entered a room of fair dimensions which had evidently been got ready with considerable care, for it contained everything that a woman accustomed to comfort could require. A good Persian carpet covered the floor; a narrow, but handsomely chiselled bronze bedstead was furnished with two mattresses, spotless linen, and a warm coverlet of silk and wool; on a marble table stood a little mirror of polished metal, before which lay two ivory combs and a number of ivory and silver hairpins and other little things needful for a woman's toilet; there stood also a gilt lamp with three beaks, which shed a pleasant light upon everything; a low curtained door at the end of the room gave access to the small bathroom, where another little lamp was burning. The negress drew the curtain back and showed the place to Zoe, who had certainly not expected to spend her first night of slavery in such luxurious quarters. Rustan's wife opened a large wardrobe, too, and showed her a plentiful supply of fine linen and clothes, neatly folded and lying on shelves. In the middle of the room a round table was prepared with three dishes, one containing some small cold birds, another a salad, and a third mixed sweetmeats, and there was also wine and water in small silver flagons, and one silver drinking-cup. It was long indeed since Zoe had seen anything like this, and her eyes smarted suddenly when she realised that the slave-dealer's prison reminded her faintly of her old home. For it was a prison after all; she guessed that beyond the shutters of the closed window there were stout iron bars, and as she had entered she had seen a big key in the lock on the outside of the door.

'It is late,' said the negress, when she had shown everything. 'The girls will sleep on the floor, for the carpet is good and there are two blankets for them, there in the corner. Good-night, Kokona. By what name shall I call the Kokona? The Kokona will excuse her servant's ignorance!'

Zoe hesitated a moment. She had not thought of changing her name, but now she felt all at once that as a slave she must cut off all connection with her former life. What if the personage who was to buy her should turn out to have known her mother, and even herself, and should recognise her by her name? A resemblance of face could be explained away, but her face and her name together would certainly betray her. It was not so much that she feared the open shame of being recognised as Michael Rhangabe's adopted daughter; she had grown used to the meaning of the word slavery during those last desperate days.

But people would not fail to say that Kyria Agatha had sold her adopted daughter into slavery in order to save herself and her own children from misery. Zoe could prevent that, and she only hesitated long enough to choose the name by which she was to be known.

'Call me Arethusa,' she said.

Her thoughts had flown back to the deed of justice she meant to do if she should ever be near the Emperor Andronicus; and if Arete had come later to mean virtue, it had meant courage first, manly, unflinching courage; and as Zoe was only a Greek girl and not a German professor, she naturally supposed that Arete was the very word from which Arethusa was derived.

'It is a fine name,' observed her gaoler obsequiously.

'And what shall I call you?' asked Zoe.

'I am Kyria Karaboghazji.' The negress tossed her flaming head and smiled with satisfied vanity. 'My husband calls me Zoe,' she added, with an amazing smirk, and some affectation of shyness.

'Zoe!' The high-born girl repeated her own name in genuine astonishment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoe, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!']

'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoe, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!'

'I see,' said the Greek girl.

She would not have believed that before lying down in her prison that night she would be forced to make an effort to suppress a laugh.

'And now it is growing late,' said the negress again, 'and Rustan is wondering why I do not come to comb his beard and smooth his pillow, and prepare his drink for the night. Good-night, Kokona Arethusa! May Holy Charalambos send you dreams of delight!'

'And to you also, Kyria Karaboghazji,' Zoe answered, though the form of the woman's salutation was new to her.

The negress went out, still much pleased with herself, and swaying her ma.s.sive hips as she walked. She shut the door, and Zoe heard the big key move in the lock.

The two slave-girls had stood at a respectful distance throughout the conversation, their hands crossed submissively and their eyes bent on the floor, for Rustan's wife had already taught them manners in order to improve their price. But she was no sooner gone than they looked at each other, and their lips began to twitch nervously; in another moment they were both seized with a convulsion of silent laughter.

They shook from head to foot, they held their sides, they bent and swayed, and twisted their hands together, but not a sound escaped their lips. Beyond this, they could not control their mirth, and while they laughed they looked anxiously at Zoe.

She herself could not help smiling when she thought of the negress's enormous self-satisfaction, but presently she shook her head at the girls and laid her finger on her lips. Their amus.e.m.e.nt subsided quickly, for though she seemed kind, they knew what they had to expect if one word from her should expose them to the negress's displeasure.

Zoe was very tired, now that the great sacrifice was made, and she let the slave-girls help her as much as they would. They even made her eat something and drink a little water. Now and then, when they looked up at her, she patted them on the shoulder and smiled faintly, but her thoughts were far away in the ruined house in the beggars' quarter.

When the girls had helped her in the bath and had dried her feet that had been stained with mud and blue with the cold, they chafed them with their hands and kissed them.

'They are like two little white mice!' said Yulia, laughing softly.

'No, they are like young doves!' said Lucilla.

And they each slipped one of her feet into a slipper of deerskin; and then they clothed her for the night, in fine dry linen and a small green silk jacket. They were skilful with their hands though they were still so young, and she let them do what they thought she needed, and lay down at last, to be covered and tucked in as warmly and comfortably as when Kyria Agatha used to put her to bed, before the boys had been born and had taken her place.

In a few minutes the little maids had put out the lamp, leaving only the small light in the bath; then they noiselessly devoured all the sweetmeats left on the table, after which they curled themselves upon the carpet under their blankets and were asleep in a moment, like young animals.

For a few moments Zoe still tried to think; tired though she was, she hated herself for being able to rest in such comfort while Kyria Agatha was perhaps awake under her pile of rags, and Nectaria was hugging the straw to keep a little warmth in her old body. But then she thought of the morrow, and of all that Nectaria would do with the gold for the sick woman and the little boys, and in this soothing reflexion she was borne softly away out of this world of slavery, through the ivory gates to the infinite gardens of dreamland.

She was waked by the suns.h.i.+ne streaming into the room through the window, and as she opened her eyes she saw the iron bars, and remembered where she was. She sighed, for she had been happy in her sleep. The girls were sitting cross-legged on the carpet, side by side, at a little distance, silently awaiting her pleasure. She turned her head on the pillow and lay on one side, looking at their small dark faces; but she did not speak to them yet. They were very much alike, she thought, commonplace girls, differing so little from thousands of other young slaves in the great city, that it would be hard for her to recognise them, if she should not see them for a few days. They would be disposed of soon, of course, for there was always a demand for healthy young house slaves who had been properly taught.

She envied them their homely features, their coa.r.s.e black hair, their angular figures, their sallow cheeks, and their cunning little black eyes. They could only be sold as workers. All her life Zoe had heard the price of house-slaves discussed, even more freely than the price of clothes or jewels, and she knew that neither of the girls was worth more than five-and-twenty ducats. She wondered what Rustan meant to ask for herself; he would certainly not demand less than double the sum he had paid.

While she was reflecting on these questions, and wis.h.i.+ng all the time that she might have news of Kyria Agatha during the day, the big key moved in the Persian lock. The two girls sprang to their feet and stood in a respectful att.i.tude, Zoe turned her eyes as she heard the sound, the door opened, and the negress's flaming head appeared in the sunlight. She saw that Zoe was awake, and she entered the room, shutting the door behind her. She greeted her valuable prisoner in the half-familiar, half-obsequious tone she had adopted from the first, asking her how she had slept, and whether the little maids had done their duty. The latter question was accompanied by a fierce look at the two girls. Zoe answered that they were most skilful and well behaved. The negress looked at the remains of the supper on the table.

'So the Kokona Arethusa is fond of sweetmeats,' she observed. 'She eats only a mouthful from one bird and all the sugar-plums!'

Zoe was on the point of uttering an exclamation of surprised denial, when she met the terrified eyes of the two slave-girls and checked herself with a smile.

'I am very fond of sweets,' she answered carelessly.

The black woman seemed satisfied and turned from the table. She opened the wardrobe next, and selected what she considered the handsomest of the dresses that lay folded on the shelves within. Zoe watched her curiously. She unfolded garments of apple-green silk, and one of peach-coloured Persian velvet embroidered with silver, with a sash of plaited green silk and gold threads. The two girls took the things from her and laid them out.

'Surely,' Zoe said, 'you do not wish me to wear those clothes!'

'They are very good clothes,' observed the negress coaxingly. 'Look at this velvet coat! There are even seed-pearls in the embroidery, and it is quite new and fresh. My husband bought it from the Blachernae palace, when Handsome John was imprisoned. It belonged to one of the favourite ladies. The slaves who ran away stole all the things and sold them.'

'I would rather wear something plainer,' said Zoe; but at the mention of the captive Emperor her brown eyes had grown very dark and hard, and her voice almost trembled.

'Kokona Arethusa must look her best this morning,' objected Rustan's wife. 'She will receive a visit.'

Zoe started a little, and instinctively drew the bed-clothes up to her chin.

'Already!' she exclaimed in a low tone.

The negress grinned from ear to ear.

'The Kokona will perhaps not spend another night under our humble roof,' she said. 'I do not know anything certainly as yet, because the customer has not seen you,' she continued more familiarly, 'but Rustan has consulted the astrologer, who says that these are fortunate days for our buying and our selling. So I do not doubt but that the customer will be pleased with your looks, Kokona, for indeed, though I do not wish to flatter you, we have not entertained such a beauty in our modest home for a long time!'

All this was, of course, intended to put Zoe in a good humour, in order that she might produce an agreeable impression on the expected purchaser. Rustan had once missed a very good bargain because the merchandise had burst into tears at the wrong moment.

'What sort of person is the customer?' asked the girl. 'Do you know who he is?'