Lurching, he started to cross the shining expanse of tiles, one hand stretched out before him in search of support. He found it in one of the columns of the bed and clung there, gripping it with all his strength.
Marianne watched with disgust the nearer approach of that dark, mottled face, its once not ignoble features now dissolved in fat. The eyes which she remembered clear, insolent, even ruthless, were bloodshot and wandering like candle flames in a draught.
He was panting as if he had just run a long way, and the smell of his breath, heavy and sour, sickened her. He spoke thickly.
'Well, then, my beauties? Been – getting to know each other, have you?'
Her mind torn between disgust, fear and sheer astonishment, Marianne tried vainly to understand how the man had come to this. He had been strange, even frightening, but he had possessed a certain dignity and an overweening vanity. How could that devil, whom Leonora had painted in all the colours of the subtlest evil, and whom Marianne herself had seen practising the rites of black magic, have become this lump of lard soused in drink? Was it the ghost of his unhappy and too-trusting master haunting the faithless servant who had murdered him? Always supposing Matteo Damiani was capable of remorse.
Casting himself bodily on to the bed, he was clutching with trembling fingers at the red silken sheet which covered the cowering Marianne.
Take this off, Ishtar!… It's too hot… and anyway, I told you I would not have you leave her any clothes! She… she's a slave and s-shlaves go naked in that heathenish land of yours. S-shlaves and c-cattle! An' she's the brood mare on whom I'll get the princely foal I need.'
'You're drunk!' the black woman told him with contempt. 'If you go on soaking yourself this way you'll never get your foal – unless another does it for you. Look at you, sprawling there! You're in no fit state to make love!'
The man gave a drunken laugh which ended in a hiccup.
'Give me some of your potion, Ishtar, an' I'll be s-shtronger 'n' a bull! Bring me a drink to heat my blood, my lovely witch! An' be sure you give her some as well… make her pull like a she-cat on heat… But first, help me to get this off her! Let me once see her body and I'll be strong again! I've dreamed of it… night after night!'
He scrabbled at the sheet with clumsy, drunken hands, itemizing her charms with a madman's concentration, while the girl shrank away from him in horror. Within an ace of retching, she sought desperately for some way of fending off the drunkard and his black helper. Terror lent her unexpected strength. Snatching the silky fabric out of the fat man's hands, she jerked herself with a swift twist of her body sideways out of bed and across the room, securing the sheet tightly under her arms as she ran. As she had done earlier downstairs, she grasped the iron candelabra on the coffer with both hands and held it poised, with its load of lighted candles. Burning hot wax fell on her arms and on her naked shoulders, but anger and fright redoubled her strength and made her insensible to pain. In the uncertain light, her green eyes glittered like those of a panther brought to bay.
'This is for the first of you that tries to touch me!' she hissed through clenched teeth.
Ishtar, who was looking at her with awakened interest, shrugged.
'Don't waste your strength. He'll not touch you tonight. The moon is not at the full and the stars are contrary. You would not conceive… and he is quite incapable!'
'He shan't touch me, tonight or ever!'
The dark face hardened into an expression of such implacable rigidity that for a moment it looked like a statue carved of ebony.
'You are here to bear a child,' the woman said harshly, 'and you shall do it. Remember what I said: I belong to him and when the time comes I shall help him.'
'How can you belong to him?' Marianne cried. 'Look at him! He is vile, loathsome – a lump of lard steeped in wine!'
Indeed, Damiani was slumped on the bed in his crumpled gold doth, as though the matter had ceased to concern him. He was breathing heavily and so obviously sunk in a drunken stupor that Marianne began to take heart. The man was a confirmed toper and all Ishtar's efforts to restrain him had evidently failed. It might be a long time yet before the stars were 'favourable', and before then some way of escape from this madhouse might present itself, even if she had to jump stark naked into the cut and swim ashore in broad daylight in the middle of Venice. She would probably be arrested but at least she would escape from this nightmare.
Her arm muscles were trembling with the strain of holding up the candelabra and, slowly, she relaxed. She had no strength left and perhaps, after all, it was not really necessary. Across the room, Ishtar had grasped Matteo round the body and was hoisting him over her shoulder as if he were nothing more than a sack of meal. Not even bending under his weight, she bore him to the door.
'Get back to bed,' was her contemptuous advice to Marianne. 'For tonight, you may sleep in peace.'
'And – other nights?'
'You'll see. At all events, don't flatter yourself he'll drink as much in future. I'll see to that. Tonight, perhaps, he… overdid the celebrations. He has been waiting a long time for this. Good night.'
The strange creature vanished with her burden and Marianne found herself alone again with the prospect of long hours ahead. The nightmare feeling lingered, even in her tired brain which no longer seemed to be working very well, so that it could not grasp the idea of her mysterious husband's death, or the incredible alteration in circumstances which followed from it.
In spite of the heat, she found that she was shivering, but with excitement, and she knew that, exhausted as she was, she would not be able to sleep. All she wanted was to escape, as soon as possible! The absurd and revolting scene which had just taken place had left her in a kind of daze from which only the sheer animal instinct of self-preservation had roused her briefly when she made her dash for the candelabra.
She knew that she must break out of this deathly fog and rid herself of the paralysing fear which held her. She had to get a grip on herself. After all, this was not the first time she had been a prisoner, and so far she had always managed to escape, however desperate her situation. Why should luck and courage desert her now? Her captor was half-mad and her gaolers half savages. With wit and patience she ought to be able to find a way out.
Comforted a little by these reflections, Marianne made a further bid to regain her self-possession by washing her face and then drinking a little water and eating some fruit. The fresh, fragrant scent of it did her good. Then, because its voluminousness still draped about her got in the way, she tore the sheet in half and knotted one of the pieces firmly round her chest. For all the thinness of the covering, the sensation of being more or less dressed was reassuring.
Thus prepared, she repeated the tour of her room with minute care, in the vague hope of finding something passed over during her first examination. She stood for a long time at the door, studying the complicated play of the lock, only to reach the dispiriting conclusion that it was impossible to open it without the key. The sinister chamber was as securely fastened as any strong box.
Next, the captive returned to the window and studied the bars. They were thick but not very close together, and Marianne was slim. If she could only get one out she might be able to slip through the gap and, with the help of her sheets, climb down into the little inner court from which there must surely be some way out. But how to shift the bars? And what with? The mortar welding them into the stone was old and might crumble easily enough if attacked with a strong tool. The difficulty lay in finding such a tool.
There was the tray, but the cutlery on it was made of fragile silver-gilt, quite unequal to the task. That was no use.
But Marianne, thirsting for freedom, was not to be so easily discouraged. What she wanted was a piece of iron and she continued her obstinate search for it in every nook and cranny, studying the walls and furniture attentively in the hope of finding some answer, some object she could use.
Her perseverance was rewarded when she came to the big coffer and saw that the lock was ornamented with dainty but thoroughly medieval volutes of wrought iron ending in sharp points. A quick reconnaissance with eager, careful fingers produced a gasp of joy, quickly stifled. One of them was loose, its nails rusted through. It might come off.
Trembling with excitement, Marianne took the cloth off the tray to save her fingers and sitting down on the floor by the chest began working at the iron to loosen the grip of the nails in the antique wood. It was harder than she had first thought. The nails were long and the wood sound. In fact, it was painful and tiring work, made no easier by the heat, but with her whole mind concentrated on her goal, Marianne was unaware of it, any more than
