The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 72

He heard a loud thump to his right. A dark figure suddenly stood there.

Another thump on the left, and another in front. Men were jumping down from the rooftops.

In a moment, four men in a rough semicircle faced Lorenzo and Daoud.

Blades gleamed silvery in the moonlight.

The six others who had been pursuing them rushed out of the alley.

Filled with a despairing rage, Daoud clenched his teeth and raised his sword.

XXIV

Rachel's body felt cold. She knew the night outside was warm despite the lateness of the hour, and the room was stifling, with all its candles and the heavy silk draperies that held in the heat. But her feet and hands were icy. It was fear that chilled her so as she sat half listening to Tilia. She huddled in a corner of the big bed, her feet tucked under her, her hands clenched in her lap. She wanted to jump out the window.

Only, she was here of her own free will. And anyway the window was barred.

"We will be watching through spy holes in the walls," said Tilia. "There will be at least three of us. If he hurts you in any way, we will be here in a trice to rescue you."

Tilia Caballo had a face like a frog, Rachel thought. The fat old woman was trying to be rea.s.suring, but just now Rachel hated her. She could not believe Tilia would interfere with a wealthy client's pleasure no matter how badly a girl of hers was being hurt.

The skepticism must have shown in her face, because Tilia had said, "I know this man. He has been here five times. He is not the kind that likes to hurt women. I do have patrons of that sort. For them I supply women like Olivia. Sometime when you are not so frightened I may tell you what Olivia likes men to do to her. Of course, she pretends not to like it. Her clients would get no pleasure if they knew Olivia _wanted_ them to do what they do. But no matter how I gain my livelihood, I am still a woman of honor." She glowered fiercely at Rachel, jowls quivering slightly. "I do not allow certain things to take place in my house. I do not allow my women to be mistreated."

"I know," said Rachel. "That is why I have not run away."

"You need not speak of running away," said Tilia loftily. "The door will be open for you whenever you wish to walk through it." Rachel believed that, just as she had believed gruff Lorenzo Celino when he told her she did not have to go to Tilia's house. But she also knew that if she had not come here, or if she chose now to walk out that door, these people would do nothing more for her.

Staying, much as she might hate what would happen to her, was better than wandering alone on the roads of Italy.

She looked up at the canopy over the bed. It was peach-colored, as were the bed curtains. The walls of the small room were hung with yellow silk drapes framing frescoes showing nude, smiling women fleeing from creatures that were half man and half goat, with things that stuck out before them like spears.

"Real men do not have pizzles as big as that," Tilia had said when she first showed Rachel the room, pointing with a grin at a bright red organ. "Although it may look that big to you the first time you see one in all its glory." Tilia had stopped joking then, and had carefully told her exactly what would happen on this night.

_I am better prepared_, Rachel thought, _than many a woman is on her wedding night_.

Indeed, her own mother, months before she died, had already explained much of this to Rachel. But the thought of her mother fairly broke her heart now. Her mother would cut her own throat if she could see Rachel in this place, about to let a man do this thing to her for money.

Her body shrank with dread.

She would rather, far rather, be the ignorant bride of a carpenter or a traveling merchant like her poor Angelo, who had been her husband in name only, or even the wife of a butcher, than to lie here in this gorgeously decorated room and give her most precious gift to a stranger who had bought the right to deflower her.

She found herself wis.h.i.+ng poor old Angelo had a.s.serted his right as her husband so that she could not now let her virginity be defiled.

_Thank G.o.d Angelo is not alive to see this! But if he had lived, I would not be doing this._

_G.o.d will never forgive me._

_But if G.o.d does not want me to do what I am doing, why did He let this happen to me?_

Tilia sat beside the bed in a big chair with a curved bottom. The jeweled cross she wore--which reminded Rachel that she was among Christians here and therefore not safe--rested on her bosom, half covered by the gold lace bordering the neckline of her gown. The cross quivered minutely with Tilia's heartbeat.

"You are probably wondering, child, whether you are doing the right thing."

"Yes." Rachel was so choked with fear that she could only whisper the word.

"Well, I can tell you there are thousands of women who would give anything to be in your place."

"In my place? To become a putana?"

Tilia laughed. "You think most women are contentedly married, with husbands to take care of them, with children who love them and neighbors who respect them--while only a few like me and the women who work for me are putane, whom the rest look down on. Well, listen to me, little one, other women _envy_ us. A married woman sells herself, body and soul, to be some man's slave for life. And she gets d.a.m.ned little in return. We rent out this little part of our anatomy"--she patted her lap--"for a moment, and we keep the profit for ourselves. If we are clever, as I have been, we learn how to keep and increase our money. So when we no longer have youth and beauty to sell, we can take care of ourselves. And I tell you that a woman in her later years is likely to be a better friend to herself than any husband."

_She speaks with conviction. But I cannot trust her, either. I have not had a true friend in this world since Angelo was killed._

Rachel sighed. "It is just that after tonight there is no turning back.

This is for the rest of my life."

"That is right," said Tilia. "You will give up something that you can lose only once. When you have a commodity as unique as that, my child, you owe it to yourself to get the most you can for it." Her eyes hardened. "Every man wants to be the first to pierce a woman and hear her cry out and make her bleed. But what woman gets anything worth having in return? She gives it away on a dark night to some furfante with a smooth tongue and a handsome leg, or else the tonto she married takes it from her and then tells her to go wash the bed linen." She turned to stare at Rachel. "Do you know what I got for my virginity?"

Her cheeks were red with anger.

"What did you get, Signora?" The heat with which Tilia spoke rea.s.sured Rachel. This was what the woman really felt. She was not just talking to lead Rachel astray.

"Blows and slavery." Tilia thrust her face close to Rachel's to underline her words. "Blows and slavery. The Genoese, may leprosy devour their limbs and may their p.r.i.c.kles fall off in their hands, raided Otranto. They raped me--that was how I lost _my_ virginity. They sold me to the Turks."

"You were a slave to the Turks?" Rachel gasped. "Where?" And how did she escape them and come to Orvieto and grow so rich and fat?

Tilia looked away. "Never mind. It would take too long to tell you."

Rachel sensed that there was something here Tilia did not want to talk about. But she resolved to pry the story out of her one day.

Tilia's head swung back to face her. "Have I told you what you are getting this night for giving this man this proud moment of possessing a virgin?"

"I--I do not remember." Tilia had named a figure, but it had been so outrageous and Rachel had been so frightened by the prospect that she had promptly forgotten it.

"By the five wounds of Jesus, you truly are a child, not to remember something so important! Well, fix it in your mind this time, and think of it when you are wondering whether you are doing right. Five hundred golden florins. Five hundred, newly minted in Florence. That is your share. That is half of what he is paying. The other half is mine, as is only just. Think of it. He pays the price of a palazzo for you because you are a very young, beautiful virgin, and that is what he most desperately desires. Compare that with what most women get when they let a man have them for the first time."

_That is far more money than Angelo ever saw in his whole life. Who is this man who will pay so much to have me?_ Rachel supposed Tilia would tell her who the man was if she asked, but she had decided it was better not to know anything about him ahead of time. That way she could imagine that he would be someone kind and gentle.

"I do not know what I will do with all that money," Rachel said softly.

_If I lose it, all this will have been for nothing._

Tilia's wide mouth stretched even wider in a grin. "I will show you how to plant it."

"Plant it?"

"Yes, and then watch it grow. There are many, many fields in which to plant money. You can place it with the Templars or certain Lombards or men I know among your own Jews, and they use it, and when they give it back to you there is more. Miracolo! Or you can buy beautiful and valuable things with it, whose worth increases as they get older. Or you can buy shares in a s.h.i.+p of Venice or Pisa, or even"--she spat--"Genoa, or a German caravan, and when the caravan or the s.h.i.+p comes back, if it comes back, you get your money back tenfold. That is risky, but it is the quickest way to great wealth."