Marianne and the Lords of the East

'Our host has had inquiries made in the city during the day,' he said, 'which was perfectly natural since the brig bore his colors and was supposed to belong to him. He didn't like that story of a man dying suddenly of the cholera, or the speed with which the body was burned.'

'Why not? So far as I can gather, cholera isn't exactly unusual here.'

'No, but it's more usual in summer. And if you have sufficient influence, there's nothing simpler than to get hold of a body and dress it up appropriately and then burn it in a hurry. Turhan Bey thinks it is a ploy invented by the English to keep the vessel under observation, and he knows what he's talking about. So far it's certainly succeeded brilliantly.'

'But then you can't go—you will have to wait! For forty days at least.'

Her simple pleasure in the fact did nothing to lighten Jason's frown. Moving closer to her, he let go her hands and, taking her by the shoulders instead, spoke earnestly into her face.

'My darling, you don't understand. I must go and go now. Sanders is waiting for me at Messina so that we can try the Gibraltar passage together. If I want to join him, I will have to do what I failed to do the other night. I must steal my ship and escape that way.'

'But that is madness! How will you manage without a crew? She's not a fishing boat!'

'I know that just as well as you do. I managed to get together enough men to work the ship out of Constantinople the other night. I'm better off today. Craig O'Flaherty is waiting at Galata with a few men he's managed to round up from the taverns there. They're not first-rate seamen but they are seamen of a sort, Europeans, too, who are tired of the east. And if you will entrust him to me, I'll take young Gracchus also. He wants to sail with me.'

'Gracchus?'

Marianne felt a bitter pang in her heart. So Gracchus, too, wanted to leave her? In the time since she had first begun to put down roots in French soil, the urchin from the rue Montorgueil, the grandson of the laundress of the rue de la Revolte, had become much more than a servant to her. He had been a faithful friend, one she could trust and rely on. His devotion to her had been absolute. But it had not taken Jason long to win some of his heart, and Gracchus loved him almost as much as he loved Marianne and admired him deeply. Then the voyage aboard the Sea Witch had finally shown the youthful coachman the path of his dreams. The sea, with all its beauty and its tricks, its splendors and its perils, had become a real vocation and, remembering the boy's eagerness in the skirmish with the English frigates off Corfu, Marianne thought that she had no right to stand in his way.

'Take him, then,' she said quickly. 'I give him to you because I know he will be much happier with you. But why must you go so soon, Jason? Why not wait a little while—only a few days, so that I can—'

'No, Marianne. It's impossible. I cannot wait. In any case, I shall have to go secretly. There will be risks, fighting, perhaps, for the English will not let me sail out of the harbor without giving chase. I don't want to expose you to those risks. When you are quite better, you can go quietly aboard a Greek ship with Jolival and sail peacefully back to Europe. Once there, you have enough friends among seafaring men to find a vessel willing to dare the English blockade and carry you across the Atlantic.'

'I'm not afraid of danger. Nothing can frighten me as long as I'm with you.'

'You alone, perhaps, but aren't you forgetting, Marianne? You are no longer alone. Have you forgotten the child? Do you want to expose him when he's no more than a few hours old, to the perils of the sea, of gunfire and the risk of shipwreck? This is war, Marianne.'

She broke free of his tender clasp and fell back on her pillows. Her face had gone very pale and there was a painful tightness in her chest. The child! Did he have to remind her? And what need had Jason to trouble himself about the little bastard? Did he seriously imagine she was going to take it with her to that other life, which was to be all clean and fresh and new? That she was going to bring up Damiani's child with his, the children that she longed to give him? In her uncertainty, she burst out angrily to gain time: 'It is not war! Even here at the ends of the earth we know that there has been no formal declaration of war between Britain and the United States.'

'Certainly. War has not been declared, but incidents are becoming more and more frequent and it will be only a matter of weeks. Mr. Canning knows that. He'd not have hesitated to impound my brig if she hadn't been protected by Turhan Bey's colors. Would you rather it caught me here and left me rotting in an English prison while my friends and fellow countrymen were fighting?'

'I want you to be free and happy… but I want to keep you with me.'

It was a cry of despair and in the same instant Marianne had cast herself on Jason's chest and was burying her face in his coat while her thin arms—still so pitifully thin and the skin almost transparent—encircled his broad shoulders.

He held her to him, grieving for the hurt he had been forced to cause her once again, cradling her like a child while his hand caressed the soft curls at the nape of her neck.

'You can't keep me like that, my heart. I am a man, a seaman, and I must live according to my nature. Besides… would you truly love me if I were content to hide behind your skirts when danger threatened? Would you love a coward without honor?'

'I should love you anyhow…'

'No, you wouldn't. You're deceiving yourself, Marianne. If I were to listen to you, my sweet, a day would come when you would blame me for my cowardice. You'd throw it in my face with scorn and contempt. And you would be right. As God is my witness, I'd give anything to be able to stay with you, but I must choose America.'

'America!' she said bitterly. 'That endless country… with so many people in it. Does she really need you, just one among her countless children?'

'She needs them all. America only won her freedom because all those who wanted it joined together to make one people! I come of that free people… one grain of sand on the seashore, yet that grain, carried away on the winds, is lost forever.'

Marianne was weeping now, with little, hard, gasping sobs, and clinging with all her strength to the virile form that was a solid wall to her, a refuge that she was about to lose once more, and for how long? For she had lost, she knew that. She had always known it. From the first words he had uttered, she had known that she was fighting a losing battle, that she could never hold him.

As though he had divined her thought, he murmured into her hair: 'Be brave, my sweet. We shall be together again soon. Even if the chances of war mean that I cannot be there to greet you when you land at Charleston, everything will be ready to welcome you. To welcome you both, you and the baby. There will be a house, servants and an old friend of mine to look after you…'

Marianne had stiffened at the mention of the child and once again she avoided speaking of him, concentrating on her own misery instead.

'I know… but you will not be there,' she mourned. 'What will become of me without you?'

Gently but firmly he loosened the clinging arms which held him and stood up.

'I'm going to tell you,' he said.

Before Marianne could recover from her surprise or make a move to stop him, he had walked quickly from the room, leaving the door open behind him. She heard him go swiftly across the boudoir, calling: 'Jolival! Jolival! Come here!'

A moment later he was back with the vicomte on his heels. But what made Marianne gasp was the realization that, in his arms, with infinite care, he held a small white woolly bundle from which emerged two tiny, moving pink blobs.

The blood drained from Marianne's face as it came to her that Jason was bringing her the child whose very presence filled her with loathing. She cast about her wildly, seeking childishly for a way of escape, for somewhere to hide from the peril advancing on her, wrapped in a snow-white shawl and carried in the arms of the man she loved.

Coming to the foot of the bed, he tossed back the lock of black hair falling over his eyes with an automatic gesture and beamed triumphantly at the frightened girl.

'This is what is going to become of you, my sweet. An adorable little mother! Your son will keep you company and stop you thinking too much about the war. You can't imagine how quickly this little fellow will make the time pass for you.'

He was coming around the bed toward her… In another moment he would be laying the child down on the