Marianne and the Lords of the East

to engage himself for any length of time, not wishing to outstay the brig in Constantinople.

As a result, leaving word for Jolival that he could be found at the bar known as the San Giorgio, which had become his favorite haunt, the Irishman had plunged happily into two smuggling expeditions, both of which were crowned with success and besides restoring his fortunes in a most agreeable way had made the time hang much less heavily on his hands.

As luck would have it, he had just returned from the second of these voyages and was back in Galata when Gracchus came looking for him with the news of Jason's arrival and his initial instructions. Craig O'Flaherty had promptly celebrated the happy event by downing an enormous glass of Irish whiskey, procured from heaven alone knew where, and had then set off, towing Gracchus after him, to cross the Golden Horn and hasten to the Phanar waterfront, to be greeted with the disconcerting sight which Gracchus had described.

The two of them had spent the whole day running up and down trying to find out where the brig was lying, so that sunset had caught them on the wrong side of the Golden Horn and they had been obliged to spend the night in a Greek tavern at considerable risk of being taken up by the watch.

There they had drowned their sorrows in a resinated wine which had left them both with aching heads, and at daybreak they had flung themselves into a boat to cross the water again and make their report.

Ignoring Gracchus's anguished query, Jason asked merely: 'Where have you left Mr. O'Flaherty?'

'With the porter—the kapiji, I mean. He didn't like to come in—not knowing Turhan Bey. He's waiting there for your orders.'

'I'll go and bring him in. We must decide what is to be done. And there's the child still not come—'

'Mon Dieu!' Gracchus exclaimed. 'What with everything else, I was forgetting the baby! Isn't it born yet?'

'No,' Jolival said. 'He—or she, because there's no saying it will be a boy, after all—is taking his time about it.'

'But—isn't it dangerous, taking so long?'

Jolival shrugged. 'I don't know. We must hope not.'

Their hopes were justified. For even as the vicomte was speaking, Rebecca's long, supple and experienced hands, reaching right into the body of her patient to turn the child, which was positioned badly, were delivering Marianne at last.

She, poor girl, had suffered so much that the actual birth drew from her no more than a plaintive cry, followed by merciful unconsciousness. She did not hear the baby's first, remarkably vigorous wail as Rebecca slapped it sharply. Or Donna Lavinia's delighted exclamation: 'It's a boy! Sweet Jesus, we have a son…'

'And a very fine boy, too,' the Jewess added. 'He must weigh nearly nine pounds. He'll be a splendid man. Go and tell those two fools who were smoking away in the next room. No doubt you'll find them in the gallery.'

But the faithful nurse of the Sant'Annas was no longer listening. She had fled from the chamber, picking up her starched petticoats to run the faster, and was making straight for the prince's apartments. As she ran, she was laughing and crying and babbling aloud, possessed by a joy that must be shared.

'A son!' she was crying. 'He has a son! The curse is lifted. God has taken pity on him at last…'

In the meantime, while Rebecca attended to the newborn child Marianne was recovering consciousness under the ministrations of Jelal Osman Bey. The doctor had roused himself at last from his fatalistic stillness and hurried to revive the young mother from her dangerous swoon. The life of a woman capable of bringing into the world such a boy as she had just given birth to was not to be lightly thrown away.

Marianne, opening her eyes, was vaguely aware of a dark face with a little pointed beard which she was able to identify after a moment.

'Doctor,' she breathed. 'Will it… will it be much longer now?'

'Are you still in pain?'

'N-no. No… that's right. The pains have stopped.'

'And so they should have done, for it is all over.'

'Over?'

Marianne drew the word out slowly, as though struggling to grasp its meaning. She was conscious of little beyond the blessed relief to her tortured body. Over! The frightful agony was over. The pain was not going to come again and she could go to sleep at last.

But the face was still hovering over her and she could smell the scent of ambergris that clung to his garments.

'You have a son,' the doctor said, still more gently but with a hint of respect in his voice. 'You should be proud and happy because he is a magnificent boy.'

One by one the words were beginning to penetrate, to acquire a meaning. Marianne's hands moved slowly over her body, and as realization broke over her that the monstrous swelling had gone, that her stomach was almost flat once more, the tears welled from her eyes.

They were tears of joy, relief and gratitude toward a Providence that had taken pity on her. As the doctor had said, it was over. Never had the word 'delivery' been charged with a deeper meaning.

It was as though the bars of an iron cage which had stood between her and a glorious landscape bathed in sunlight had fallen away all at once. She was free. Free at last! And the very word itself was as if she had newly rediscovered it.

Rebecca, returning with the child in her arms, mistook the reason for the tears that were rolling down her face in a melancholy stream.

'You must not cry,' she said gently. 'You made the right choice, for it would have been a shame to lose such a child as this. See how beautiful he is?'

She was holding out her arms with their soft burden but even as she did so the reaction came, harsh and sudden. Marianne set her jaw and turned her head away.

'Take it away! I don't want to look at it!'

The Jewess frowned. Accustomed as she was to the unpredictable ways of women, she was shocked by the violence in the girl's voice. Even where the child was not wanted, the most stubborn and determined woman would be softened with pride and pleasure after giving birth to a son. She persisted, as though she had not understood.

'Do you not want to see your son?'

But Marianne shut her eyes tightly with a desperate obstinacy. It was almost as if she were afraid of what she might see. She rolled her head on the pillow and the damp mass of her hair clung like seaweed about her face.

'No! Send for Donna Lavinia. She must look after it. I only want to sleep… sleep, that's all I want.'

'You shall sleep later,' Rebecca said sharply. 'It is not finished yet. Another half hour or so.'

She was laying the child down in the big cradle of gilded wood which two women had brought into the room when Donna Lavinia returned.

The housekeeper's eyes were like stars. Oblivious of everything else, she went straight to the bed and fell on her knees beside it, as though before an altar, and pressed her lips fervently to the hand which lay abandoned on the sheet.

'Thank you,' she murmured. 'Oh, thank you… our princess!'

Embarrassed by a gratitude she could not feel was in any way deserved, Marianne tried to withdraw her hand. She could feel it wet with tears.

'Please! Don't thank me so, Donna Lavinia! I—I don't deserve it. Only tell me—that you are happy. That is all I want—'

'Happy? Oh, my lady—'

Unable to say any more, she rose and turned to Rebecca. Drawing herself up gravely, she held out her arms.

'Give me the prince,' she ordered.

The sound of the title came as a shock to Marianne. She realized all at once that the tiny thing which, while it still lay within her body, she had refused even to think of as a child, this formless being had taken on a new identity on coming into the world. He was the heir! The one hope of a man who, from the day of his own tragic birth, had been paying for someone else's sin, a man so wretched that he could be grateful for a son sired by another man—even such a man! On the little bundle of fine linen and lace which Donna Lavinia was cradling to her