a loop of silver bells, to wear around
her ankle? I suppose in the Arab lands, such
gifts are made to every new whore in the harem.”
I came
to my feet
so quickly my
chair fell over.
I grabbed his throat
in both hands and said,
“You lie. Her father would
never allow her to accept such
a gift from a godless blackamoor.”
But
another
friend said
the Arab trader
was godless no more.
Lithodora had taught Ahmed
to read Latin, using the Bible
as his grammar, and he claimed now
to have entered into the light of Christ,
and he gave the bracelet to her with the full
knowledge of her parents, as a way to show thanks
for introducing him to the grace of our Father who art.
When
my first
friend had
recovered his
breath, he told
me Lithodora climbed
the stairs every night
to meet with him secretly
in empty shepherds’ huts or in
the caves, or among the ruins of
the paper mills, by the roar of the
waterfall, as it leapt like liquid silver
in the moonlight, and in such places she was
his pupil and he a firm and most demanding tutor.
He
always
went ahead
and then she
would ascend the
stairs in the dark
wearing the bracelet.
When he heard the bells he
would light a candle to show her
where he waited to begin the lesson.
I
was
so drunk.
I set
out for
Lithodora’s
house, with no
idea what I meant
to do when I got there.
I came up behind the cottage
where she lived with her parents
thinking I would throw a few stones
to wake her and bring her to her window.
But as I stole toward the back of the house
I heard a silvery tinkling somewhere above me.
She was
already on
the stairs and
climbing into the
stars with her white
dress swinging from her
hips and the bracelet around
her ankle so bright in the gloom.
My
heart
thudded,
a cask flung
down a staircase:
I knew the hills better
than anyone and I ran another
way, making a steep climb up crude
steps of mud to get ahead of her, then
rejoining the main path up to Sulle Scale.
I still had the silver coin the Saracen prince
had given her, when she went to him and dishonored
me by begging him to pay me the wage I was properly owed.
I put
his silver
in a tin cup
I had and slowed
to a walk and went
