Marianne and the Lords of the East

'Wouldn't you rather sit down, Prince? We could talk more easily—and we have so much to say. It might take a long time.'

'You think so? I do not mean to inflict my presence on you for longer than necessary. Believe me when I say that if matters had stood otherwise I should never have dreamed of revealing myself to you. You thought me dead and it was probably better so, for you have suffered much through me, although I never willed it. God knows that when I married you I hoped with all my heart that you would find, if not happiness, at least tranquillity and peace of mind.'

This time Marianne's smile was without constraint, and as the prince had not moved she took a step toward him.

'I know that,' she said quietly. 'But do please come and sit down! As you have just said—we are married.'

'Barely!'

'Do you believe that? God, who joined us together, counts for something. We might be friends, at least. Didn't you save my life that night by the little ruined temple, when Matteo Damiani was going to kill me? Didn't you kill him in Venice and set me free?'

'Didn't you repay me by saving me from being flogged to death by John Leighton?' he retorted. But he abandoned his resistance and let her lead him to the window bay, which was still flooded with evening sunshine.

Now that she was closer to him, Marianne recognized the smell of lavender and latakia that she remembered from the previous night and it was enough to recall the strange events of that night, pushed to the back of her mind by the surprise she had just had. Before she could stop herself she had asked the question which sprang to her lips.

'It was you, wasn't it, who carried me off from Rebecca's house last night? Princess Morousi told me—'

'It's no secret. Yes, it was I.'

'Why?'

'That is one of the matters I was alluding to a moment ago, but for which you might have continued to believe me dead. In a word—the child.'

'The child!'

He smiled again, the same bleak smile that lent such charm to his almost too perfect features. Now that she was able to see him close to and in full sunlight Marianne was surprised to feel again exactly the same jolt of spontaneous admiration that she had felt seeing him on board the Sea Witch. A bronze god, she had thought then, a splendid animal. But the god had feet of clay and the wild animal was wounded.

'Have you forgotten the reason for our marriage? When my old friend Gauthier de Chazay spoke to me of his goddaughter she was with child by Napoleon. In making her my wife I was gaining an heir worthy to continue our ancient line, the child I had ceased to hope for and had always refused to beget for fear of handing on the curse that lay on us. That child you lost as a result of the fire at the Austrian embassy a little over a year ago. But now you are carrying another.'

Marianne's face flushed and she sprang up as if she had been stung. She saw it all now, she saw a great deal too much, things it frightened her to see.

'You don't mean that you want—'

'Yes. I want you to keep this child. I have had a watch kept on the Jewess's house from the moment I arrived here. There is no one else you could have gone to for a service of that kind without grave risk to your life. And I was not going to have it. You see, as soon as I realized that you were going to have a child again, I saw fresh hope—'

Marianne stiffened angrily. 'Hope? You can call it that? But surely you know—when you seem to know so much—who fathered it?'

Prince Sant'Anna merely bowed his head in answer but showed no other hint of emotion. In the face of that impassive countenance, Marianne's anger blazed up uncontrollably.

'You know!' she cried. 'You know that that—that lackey Damiani raped me, that he forced himself on me—on me, your wife—again and again, week after week until I thought I should go mad, and you dare to tell me that my ordeal gave you hope? Don't you see that it's out of the question?'

'No,' came the cold retort, 'I don't. Damiani has paid for what he did to you. For what he did to you, I killed him and I killed his three witches also—'

'For what he did to me or for what he did to you? Was it my shame you were avenging, or the death of poor Donna Lavinia?'

'For you and you alone, and that you may believe since for my part I am still very much alive and so, for that matter, is dear old Lavinia. She had the good sense to feign death when Damiani attacked her and he thought in good faith that he had killed her. But she is still alive and so far as I know is at this moment governing our house at Lucca. But to return to Matteo. It is still a fact that, criminal wretch though he was, he comes of the same blood as I myself. A bastard maybe, but far more of a Sant'Anna than Napoleon's son could ever have been.'

Marianne's anger had given way for a moment at the good news that Donna Lavinia was still alive but it flared up again at the injury contained in this last remark.

'Well, I loathe even the memory of the man!' she cried. 'And it sickens me, this thing inside me that I will not even call a child! I do not want it, do you hear? I won't have it! Not for anything in the world!'

'Be sensible! Whether you like it or not, this thing, as you call it, is still a human being, already there, at this moment, and it is your own flesh and blood that is going to the making of him. He is a part of you, made of the same substance—'

'No! No!' Marianne was protesting like a child arguing in the face of all the evidence. ' It's not possible! It can't be! I won't have it—'

'Come now. You know that isn't true. You wouldn't be fighting it so desperately if your heart were not engaged, if—if Jason Beaufort had never entered your life. It's because of him, and him alone, that you want to be rid of this child.'

It was not said as a reproach, simply as a quiet statement of fact, but in the eyes that were fixed on hers Marianne could read such sadness and resignation that, on the point of proclaiming aloud the power of her love and her right to live it, she remembered just in time that Jason had once condemned this man, whose name she bore, to die under the lash. A little ashamed, she let her eyes fall.

'How did you know?'

He made a vague movement with one hand and shrugged again.

'I know a great many things about you. From your godfather, firstly, for whom I have a great love, for he is kindness and understanding itself. And surely it was natural for me to feel some interest in your life? No,' he added quickly, seeing her movement of protest, 'I have not had you spied on—or not directly, at any rate. To have done so would have been to demean us both. But someone else did, against my orders and indeed without telling me everything. But most of my information comes from the emperor himself.'

'The emperor!'

'Why, yes. Considering the circumstances of our marriage, it was common courtesy for me to inform him of it personally and to give him certain assurances concerning you, since I was to give my name to his son. I wrote to him and he wrote back—more than once.'

There was a pause while Marianne thought over what she had just heard. It was not hard to guess who it was who had set spies on her. Matteo Damiani, of course. But that there had been correspondence between Napoleon and the prince came as something of a surprise to her, although when the emperor had told her after Francois Vidocq had brought her back from Normandy that he wished her to return to her husband, he had mentioned a letter from Sant'Anna. She was not sure whether to interpret this as a sign of affection or of distrust and decided it was best to probe no further for the moment. There were too many other points on which she desired enlightenment.

Corrado, respecting her silence, had been looking out at the gathering darkness in the garden. The sun had sunk behind the trees, outlining them dramatically against long streaks of purple and gold. A faint chill was creeping into the room and the air was vibrant with the muezzins' high-pitched calls.

Marianne hitched up the green silk shawl which had slipped from her shoulders.

'And was it the emperor who told you that Jason Beaufort would be in Venice?' she asked at last, with a