The Invitation(32)

He shrugs off his cloak and wraps it about her, taking care not to touch the soft white flesh. The woman is barely sensible now: her eyes are closed, and the breath rasps out of her. But at least, the captain thinks, it shows that she is breathing. He leans in close. ‘Can you hear me?’ he asks her. His voice surprises him by betraying a quaver, almost as though he were afraid. Strange, because he prides himself on never showing fear.

Her eyes open, and she looks at him but there is no answer, and he does not try again. Her black gaze has silenced him.

‘I don’t like it,’ one of the men says. ‘I don’t think we should bring her onto the boat. There’s something odd about it.’

‘What do you suggest I do?’ the captain asks. ‘Pitch her back in?’ The fellow shrugs, but his expression suggests he thinks it might be preferable.

‘The men, sir,’ the other man says, ‘there will be a riot. They haven’t seen a woman in months.’

And neither have I, thinks the captain to himself. And perhaps I have never seen a woman quite like this: so beautiful and strange. But aloud he says, ‘We’re close to home now. I will keep her in my quarters. She will be protected from them there.’

When they return the captain sees that men have lined the deck, curious to discover what has caused their commander to leave his ship. He has wrapped the woman in his cloak so that as much of her as possible is hidden from view. Only the blue-pale legs are visible, and when she is hoisted up on deck they hang limply down, not unlike the limbs of a corpse. As she is carried to the captain’s cabin the men stare, wordlessly, at the strange spectacle. For all they know their captain is carrying a body – not a living person. He will have to find some way of explaining it to them. The men mutter and whisper among themselves, but he hears several perplexing references to ‘the ankles’. It is only when the woman is placed in the chamber outside his cabin that he realizes why. Around her ankles is a thick rope of bruises, as though something had been tied viciously tight about them.

A bed is made up for the woman in the captain’s quarters, and when he goes to his own bed he finds that sleep eludes him. He cannot stop thinking about the woman in the next room. Despite the heavy drapes that divide the two cabins, he is certain that he can hear the gentle exhalations of her breath. Eventually, unable to bear it any longer, he goes through to her, simply – he tells himself – to have a quick look, to check that her condition has not deteriorated.

It is a full moon and he can see her almost as clearly as in the day: though the cold light makes her appear all the more otherworldly, like a creature underwater. Her black hair fans out about her head as though the strands are afloat. She is so still that he places a palm above her nose and mouth, to check that she is really alive. The breath comes as a shock, a surprising warmth against his skin.

Alone and unobserved he looks at her greedily, noticing all that he had not had the leisure to see before. The black eyebrows, two perfect curves, as though etched with the compasses he uses on his charts. The nose: too strong to be conventionally feminine, but somehow well suited to her face. The pale pillow of her lips. His gaze lingers there longest of all. He tears his attention away and looks, instead, at those bruises on her ankles. They are dark, purplish: evidently of recent creation. And he realizes, suddenly, that they are matched by similar patterns about her wrists. He cannot believe that he did not notice them before: was he so obtuse as to have been distracted from them by her naked body? What was she? A prisoner of some sort? But what monster would imprison such a woman? Though, of course, no crime is too heinous for the Pisans.

Eventually, having satisfied his need to look, he turns to make his way back to his cabin. But as he does he has an awareness of being watched, a sensation so powerful that he can feel it prickle down his back. He turns, and just stops himself from starting with alarm. Silently, she has raised herself from the bench so that she is sitting up, and her eyes are open. She is watching him. Quickly, he recovers himself, though he is certain that his first expression must have betrayed his shock.

‘Hello,’ he says, slowly, not sure she will understand him. ‘I hope you are feeling recovered.’

There is a long pause. He is uncomfortable beneath her gaze, but he steels himself not to look away – that much would be a sign of weakness. Just as he has decided that she clearly does not understand him, she speaks.

‘Yes, thank you.’ She speaks in Italian, though her accent is strange.

‘You were such a long way out,’ he says. ‘How did you come to be in the water, so far from shore?’

She frowns, and takes a long time to answer. Eventually, she says, ‘I don’t remember.’

He isn’t sure that he believes her. How could someone forget something like that? Her gaze on him is unwavering. It gives him a certain thrill, to have so much of her attention focused upon him. It unnerves him too.

‘Where are you from?’ he asks her.

‘Oh, nowhere you will know, sire. My background is a humble one.’

He waits for her to say more, but she does not. He senses a reluctance in her to reveal her origins to him. It only intrigues him further. He wants to find out more about her, and is about to ask another question, when she says, gently. ‘If you do not mind, sire, I am very tired.’

‘Oh.’ He steps back. ‘But of course. Forgive me for disturbing you.’