I had to laugh out loud.
“Signore!” the aunt said, appalled. “This is not a joking matter.”
“No, Sister, certainly not,” I said. “But I don’t know what you expect poor Piero to—” I clamped my mouth hard upon the thought and tried to suck the bitterness of the nun’s face into mine to keep the corners of my mouth turned down. “Send your niece to me in our cabin. I will speak to her.”
“My niece!” the nun said. “I most certainly will not. It’s your man that needs curbing, not Sofia. And I certainly will not allow her to enter a strange man’s cabin. Alone? Unchaperoned? God have mercy on me.”
“As you wish, Holy Sister. But our man is not very bright. He will stand right in front of you and nod at every word you say, but turn around and do exactly what you asked him not to do the next minute.”
“Signor Veniero, I am not talking about a simple scolding. I want your brazen man punished—whipped, scourged— whatever is customary here at sea.”
“Even that, Holy Sister, rarely has any effect. He is as big as an ox, twice as tough, and three times as dull-witted.” I had to direct the nun’s attention elsewhere to keep her from seeing the broad winks with which Piero was greeting my attempts to get him out of his fix. “Just look at the scars across his back and shoulders there: beatings that would have killed an ordinary man. But they made no impression on him. He is quite incorrigible, I’m afraid.”
“Then I wonder that your uncle keeps him,” the aunt replied with a tight breath of air.
“What we could get for him would not be worth the trouble.”
I lied, of course. Piero was more than our slave. He was part of the family and clever enough to cover for me if ever I were kept from my mate’s duties. But the nun, being the simple, sheltered soul she was, believed me at once.
“Very well,” she said. “I will do as you ask. But I will stand outside your door and hear your every word. If my niece should but draw her breath... Besides,” she muttered as she tripped over the ropes to where the unlikely pair sat, “I don’t know what you can say to correct her that I haven’t already tried. Sweet Jesus, it we can only get to my brother safe and alive...”
And with the girl’s virtue intact, I silently read the end of the sentence in the old nun’s lace.
***
“Come in, Madonna Baffo,” I said to the knock on my door. “Come in,” I said again as she entered and closed the door behind her. Sitting in my uncle’s great armchair, I thought, gave my voice strength and authority.
“Have a seat,” I invited her.
She sat.
“Have some wine?” I offered, pouring. “It’s very good. Last year’s vintage from Cyprus.”
She looked at me warily, but she took the dare and the goblet. I raised my own drink to her, but she did not return the toast. She quickly put the wine to her lips and drank. She was not used to drinking on board, however, and a sudden swell sent the strong liquid up the back ol her throat and into her nose. She choked and sputtered. The aunt burst into the room at the sound.
“Auntie, it’s nothing,” the girl insisted, trying to conceal the breathlessness that still lingered in her throat. I knew she was humiliated, and I smiled quietly at this first triumph as the aunt grudgingly left the room again.
To make up for her original defeat, Baffo’s daughter turned to me now with a haughty fire in her eyes and a rigid perfection in her limbs. I had to fight the disability the sight of her gave me. She was perfection. The plum color, I thought, suited her best of all. And the velvet was as soft a^ night. Her face was like a clear, pale, cold moon in that night. It could easily turn a man mad. I was in grave danger of losing my advantage.
“Madonna Baffo,” I said. “It seems you have—er, fallen in love, shall we say?”
“What business is that of yours? You have got me on the ship, and that is all your duty.”
“It is no business of mine,” I agreed, “except that it is our man you have dropped your kerchief for.” I took a sip of wine and looked at her askance. “Truly, Madonna Baffo. A lovely young lady such as yourself. A ship full of healthy young sailors. And a black slave is the best you can do? By San Marco! You’re much too intelligent a young woman to feel you must reward a man simply because he saves your life. And of course, you must know I paid Piero to watch out for you and promised him a coral earring for his trouble. He has been recompensed. If anyone is your creditor, then I would say it is myself.”
I could see by her eyes that she did not like being in my debt. I counted it as another point in my favor.
“Well, lest I bring your auntie in here for my presumption, let me immediately say that I quit you of all repayment. I need no reward. It was my duty to see you safe on board. It was business. No—more than that. It was a pleasure.”
Baffo’s daughter sniffed her skepticism.
“However, on one point I am still unsatisfied.”
Baffo’s daughter stirred in her seat.
“I cannot understand why—why Piero, of all the sailors...?”
The girl leaned toward me, showing off the white softness of her cleavage again, which the cabin’s lamp highlighted
