Her knowledge of potions was powerless in the face of such despair and in the end she could only shrug and tiptoe from the room, leaving her prisoner to weep her heart out, with the reflection that she must ultimately cry herself to sleep.
In this she was right. By the time Marianne had reduced herself to the last stages of nervous exhaustion she ceased to struggle against the beneficent effects of the tisane and fell asleep with her face buried in the tear- soaked red silk of her sheets, and the last dismal thought in her head that she could always kill herself if Jason rejected her.
Thanks to three more cups administered by Ishtar at regular intervals, the fever had subsided by the morning and Marianne found herself still weak but clear-headed and very much awake, unhappily, to the desperate nature of her situation.
However, the despair which had overtaken her at the height of her fever had dissipated itself like a breaking wave and Marianne was herself again, with all her old zest for battle in her heart. The greater the power and wickedness of her enemies, the greater was her own determination to triumph at any cost.
Forcing herself to begin by considering her problem calmly from all angles, Marianne attempted to get up and try her strength. The piece of metal which she had succeeded in detaching from the lock of the antique chest seemed to shine brighter than the rest and drew her like a magnet. But when she sat up in bed she saw that she had a nurse: one of the negresses was seated on the steps of the bed, with her blue tunic spread out over the bearskins.
She was not doing anything, but simply squatting with her arms about her knees which were drawn up almost to her chin. In her dark draperies she had the air of some strange brooding bird.
Hearing a movement, she merely turned to look at the girl and, seeing that she was awake, clapped her hands. Her companion, so like her that she might have been her shadow, entered with a tray which she set down on the bed and then seated herself, in exactly the same attitude, in the place of her sister, who bowed and went out.
For hours the woman sat there, as though rooted to the ground, uttering no word and appearing not to hear any that were addressed to her.
You cannot be left alone,' Ishtar said later when Marianne complained of the guard mounted at the foot of her bed. 'We cannot have you giving us the slip.'
'Give you the slip? From here?' Marianne cried, disappointment at finding herself thus closely guarded whipping up her anger.
'How could I? The walls are thick and there are bars at my windows – and besides, I have no clothes!'
'There are other ways of escaping from a prison, even when the body is secured.'
Then Marianne understood the real reason for the watch kept on her. Damiani was afraid that in her humiliation and despair she might take her own life.
'I shall not kill myself,' she said. 'I am a Christian and Christians believe that suicide is both a coward's way out and a sin.'
'Perhaps. But I do not think you one to balk at flouting the gods. In any case, we can leave nothing to chance. You are too precious to us now.'
Ignoring the implications of this, Marianne let the matter drop. Let the future take care of itself! For the present, she was well aware that it was useless to insist on the removal of her watchdog, but it cost her an effort to conceal her chagrin. The woman's presence made things much more difficult. How could she make the smallest attempt to escape under that brooding black eye? Unless she could ensure that she was helpless, by stunning her first.
The idea worked away quietly in Marianne's brain and she, who a moment before had been proclaiming herself a Christian, now coolly considered the possibility of killing her guard in order to escape. It all depended, of course, on whether she had the strength to do it and the turn of speed to surprise a creature with the reflexes of a wild cat…
In this way, the day passed, monotonously but not without interest, in concocting any number of plans, some more practicable than others, for getting rid of her gaoler. But when night fell, Marianne knew that she had little chance of carrying out any of them, for after supper Matteo returned, walking into the room with a candlestick in his hand: a Matteo so altered from the one she had seen hitherto that for a second Marianne forgot her anger.
It was not simply that the mad sorcerer of the other night had vanished as if he had never been, or that the man no longer showed the slightest hint of drunkenness. He had also bestowed an unaccustomed degree of care on his appearance. He was shaved, brushed, pomaded, his nails gleamed like agate and he wore a dressing-gown of heavy dark-blue silk over a dazzling white shirt. There floated about him such a powerful smell of eau-de-Cologne that for a moment Marianne was reminded of Napoleon. He, too, was in the habit of drenching himself in eau-de- Cologne like that when—
Her brain recoiled from the horrid comparison which suggested itself. Yet Matteo certainly looked just like any rustic bridegroom on his wedding night – only without the inevitable look of embarrassment, for his face bore a triumphant smirk and he seemed highly pleased with himself.
Marianne drew her brows together, suddenly on her guard. When she saw him set his candle down on the bedside table she uttered an indignant protest.
'Take that candle away, and yourself too! How dare you come to me like this! What do you think you're doing?'
'Why… I've come to sleep with you! After all, you are, in some degree, my wife now, Marianne, aren't you?'
'Your—'
Words failed Marianne but only for an instant. Then the torrent of her rage burst forth in a stream of abuse in several languages, borrowed indiscriminately from the stable oaths of old Dobs, her groom, and the vocabulary of Surcouf's seamen. She even succeeded in astonishing herself, and the steward fell back stupified before the storm.
'Out!' Marianne commanded. 'Get out of here at once, you murderous brute! You miserable, sneaking cur! You're nothing but a lackey, the swinish offspring of a sow and a he-goat! Even your weapons are a lackey's weapons! The snare and the knife in the back! That's how you killed your master, isn't it? Cowardly, from behind? Or did you cut his throat while you were shaving him? Or was it a drug, like the one you used on me to get me in your power? And do you think, now, that your mumbo-jumbo has made me like yourself? Do you imagine I enjoyed the things you did to me? And do you think I must be so enamoured of your charms I'll share my bed with you, like any tradesman's wife! Take a look at yourself – and look at me! I'm no milkmaid to be tumbled in the hay, Matteo Damiani, I'm—'
'I know what you are!' Matteo cried, his patience at an end. 'You have told me often enough! Princess Sant'Anna! Well, like it or not, I'm a Sant'Anna, too, and my blood—'
'That is not proved, and you have yet to convince me! Easy enough to claim a great lord as your father when he is no longer there to confirm it. And, so far, the way you go about things tells against you. From what I know of the Sant'Annas, they at least killed openly. Theirs may have been a cruel and merciless kind of justice, but I do not think that they would ever have recourse to an African sorceress to help them get the better of a helpless woman —'
'Any means are fair with such a woman as you! Your own marriage was a cheat. Where is the child you pledged yourself to give your husband? Where is it, the one thing he married you for, you emperor's whore?'
'Miserable flunkey! One of these days, before I see you hanged, I'll have you flogged until you scream for mercy, until you wish you'd never dared to raise your hand against me – or your master!'
The room re-echoed with their rage as they confronted one another, face to face, both gripped by an equal fury, if not of an equal quality.
Marianne, white-faced, her green eyes flashing, poured scorn on the apoplectic Damiani who, with bloodshot eyes and heavy, congested features quivering with rage, was clearly in a mood to kill, but she was past caring. Her anger was beyond all control now, and she spat out her hatred and disgust without even pausing to ask herself why this strange urge had come upon her to avenge a husband who, not so long ago, had inspired her with nothing but fear.
Matteo, beside himself, was on the point of hurling himself at Marianne to throttle her, but even as his hands
