Crossing To Paradise (18 page)

But just as Gatty had regained her spirits and the seven pilgrims had found their land-legs, they heard the ship's trumpets in the distance. It was time to set sail again.

Signor
Umberto del Malaxa lost no time.

Next morning, the sun was only halfway up the dome of the sky when one of Gobbo's sailors pointed-and-pushed Gatty and Nest up to the captain's cabin. Gobbo and Signor Umberto were awaiting them.

“Gatti!” said Signor Umberto. “Nest.” He bowed to each girl. “Raindrops. Wind in pines. Nest. Gatti. Beautiful names.”

Gatty shook her head. “Not mine,” she said. “It's gat-toothed.”

“Sounds pretty,” said Signor Umberto. “Light on my tongue. You are pilgrims?”

“Our lady died,” Nest explained.

Signor Umberto made the sign of the cross. “Gobbo told it to me.”

“We were Lady Gwyneth's servants,” Gatty said, and she turned to Nest. “What would she say, our being here like this?”

“She wouldn't mind,” said Nest. “It's different on board; everyone talks to everyone.”

Signor Umberto was even more handsome than the girls had supposed. Not only was his hair blond but his watchful blue eyes were set wide apart, and his tanned, olive face was not in the least pitted or pocked; he had a full, almost womanly mouth, and a slow, gathering smile. When he took her right hand, Gatty was amazed.

“Your skin!” she exclaimed. “It's as smooth as Lady Gwyneth's.”

Signor Umberto smiled. “I learn from Saracens,” he said.

Signor Umberto's gaze! At first Gatty boldly returned it, but when she lowered her eyes, she felt it still playing, lazily almost, over her cheeks, her brow, her hair, her mouth, her neck. The scarlet cross stitched above her right breast!

Signor Umberto snapped his fingers and at once a dark shadow glided through the door connecting the cabin to an inner room.

“Yes,” he told Gatty and Nest, “I learn recipes from Saracens. You two English girls, you are beautiful, and I make you more so.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Nest. “Yes!”

Signor Umberto pointed to the shadow—a man with skin so dark that his teeth looked shockingly white. “My slave…” he began.

“Slave!” cried Gatty.

“
Sì,
” said Signor Umberto.

“Beni Sulaym,” said Gobbo.

“Is that his name?”

“No, no. The name of his tribe,” Gobbo explained.

“There were girls in the market,” Gatty said. “Younger than us.” She clutched her wrists and her ankles.

“Yes, yes,” said Gobbo. “Slaves from Beni Sulaym. Egypt.”

Saying this, Gobbo left the cabin and Signor Umberto smiled at Gatty and Nest. “His name is Mansur,” he said. “He will make you more beautiful.”

Then the rich landowner gave his slave instructions, and snapped his fingers again. Mansur bowed, and soon returned carrying a small tray with little pots and tweezers and files and scalpels on it.

“First is a pomade for your skin,” Signor Umberto told Gatty and Nest. “Your face, your hands. Sit please.”

“Pomade?” asked Nest.

“Pig's grease,” Signor Umberto replied. “Sweet apple, bitter almonds. Other things. I do not know their names.”

Mansur gently massaged the pomade into Gatty's and Nest's hands, and then into their faces.

“There's rosewater in this,” Nest told Signor Umberto. “I can smell it. I'll show you my cream if you like. It's made of rosewater and brazilwood.”

Mansur coughed and rolled his eyes and said something in a gentle voice to Signor Umberto.

“He says he will make your fresh breath more fresh,” the landowner told them. “Please to open your mouths.”

Mansur slipped part of a laurel leaf marinated in musk under each girl's tongue, and Gatty spluttered.

“Hold it there under your tongue while Mansur shapes your eyebrows.”

“What do you mean?” gulped Gatty.

“They are too strong,” said Signor Umberto.

With his tweezers, the slave said something and at once began to pluck Gatty's eyebrows. Her eyes stung.

“Mansur says a woman's eyebrows are her scimitars,” Signor Umberto told them. “Curved and sharp. Now one more recipe for Signorina Gatti.” He laid his fingertips very lightly on her cheeks. “Spots,” he said.

“What spots?” asked Gatty.

“
Sì,
” said Signor Umberto. “Brown spots. All over.”

“They're freckles,” Gatty protested.

“
Sì,
” said the Venetian. “Freckles. This cream is many, many things: yolk of egg, myrrh, rock sugar, I don't know. You, Gatti. Rub it on your face tonight, and wash in the morning and your spots…your…”

“Freckles,” said Gatty.

“…your freckles will go off!”

“What's wrong with them? I got them all over.”

The Venetian smiled. “You are very beautiful,” he said. He picked up another little phial. “You and Nest,” he said, “tonight sprinkle a little powder and you will have rose-pillows.”

“Oh, yes!” said Nest enthusiastically.

Gatty shook her head and laughed.

Then Signor Umberto bowed to each of them, and the two girls left the captain's cabin.

Back on the main deck, Gatty's feet were still not quite on the ground. She grabbed hold of the rope ladder, next to the mainmast.

“Come on!” urged Nest.

“I'll catch you up,” Gatty told her. And then, with her strong arms and legs, she quickly scaled the ladder. More than twenty feet above the deck, she grasped the rigging, and gazed at the wild silk of the sea, the rugged, dry mountains of Crete.

His smile, she thought. His smooth olive skin. The things he said! His eyes.

First, Gatty rounded her mouth and sang long, low notes. Mysterious notes, dangerous even. Then, as if there were no in-between but only depths and heights, she pursed and almost pointed her lips and sang notes thrillingly high—flying bright arrows. Trills.

When at last Gatty looked down, she saw Everard clasping the bottom of the ladder. Twined round it, face upturned.

“Unlocked!” he cried. “Oh, Gatty! Your voice! Growing out of you, and growing into you!”

But Gatty's and Nest's companions were less rapturous about Signor Umberto's recipes and the amount of time the girls had spent in the captain's cabin.

“You're pilgrims, not playthings,” Tilda warned them.

“The better you look, the better you feel,” Nest retorted.

Emrys shook his head. “Lady Gwyneth will be turning in her grave.”

Gatty knew this might well be true. She stared at her feet.

“And sweet's better than sour,” argued Nest.

“In that case,” Tilda said nastily, “keep well away from Gatty's armpits.”

“You look good as you are,” Snout said. “You, Gatty, you look like apple pie. My best one, with raisins in it.”

Gatty smiled at him under her eyelashes.

“If Austin were here…” Emrys began.

“Pomades and lotions and powders!” spat Tilda. “You should be thinking about penance and purgatory.”

Nakin looked at Gatty and Nest with his gleaming little piggy eyes as if the girls were so much tender meat. “Well, Tilda,” he said in a measured voice, “at least they're not salty old mutton.”

Tilda yelled at the merchant and Emrys raised his fist.

“Lightly spiced lamb!” Nakin went on. “There's nothing wrong with that. But as for Signor Umberto…”

“Rose-pillows!” protested Tilda. “What next?”

“Exactly!” said Nakin. “Just what is that man up to?”

“I
need your help,” Signor Umberto told Gatty and Nest on the evening before the ship docked in Cyprus. He shook his head mournfully. “Only you,” he said.

“What?” asked Gatty.

“Love-land!” said Signor Umberto, looking into Gatty's eyes.

Gatty felt a tremor in her heart. “What do you mean?”

“My father take away my beautiful land in Cyprus and give it all, all of it, to my greedy young brother.”

“That's not right,” protested Gatty.

“Wrong,” agreed Signor Umberto. “Very wrong. In his will, my father say I cannot have my land because I have no…no
bambino
.”

“
Bambino?
” Gatty repeated.

Signor Umberto cradled his arms and made a rocking motion.

“Oh!” chimed the girls. “A baby!”

“Baby,
sì.
A boy baby.” The Venetian sucked his cheeks. “Wrong. Very wrong. I need your help.”

“How?” asked Gatty.

“You have my baby.”

“What!” exclaimed Gatty.

“Yes,” said the Venetian, looking at her. “You have my son.”

“Me?”

“Tomorrow,” said Signor Umberto.

“Tomorrow!” repeated Gatty, and she burst out laughing.

“I ride alone with Mansur to village far, far away from port of Larnaca and find a
bambino
.”

Gatty giggled. “What? Under a bush?”

“A poor woman with a baby son. I pay her and take her baby for one
day, two days. I bring him back to Larnaca and you, Gatti, you feed him.” Signor Umberto gently squeezed his chest. “You can?”

“Neither of us can,” Gatty said, blushing but knowledgeable. “No one can wet nurse until she's had a baby.”

“I bring mother's milk,” Signor Umberto informed them. “I have papers,” he said. “Many papers. Baby's name is Babolo and he is four months old. He was born in Candia on the fifth day of March.”

“I'll help you,” said Gatty, secretly pleased that Signor Umberto was favoring her and not Nest. “I will!”

“You, Gatti,” the Venetian said, “you be my beautiful young wife, you be Babolo's mother. We go to the court and prove it. You, Nest, you be Gatti's servant.”

Nest put her nose in the air.

“I have clothes for you,” said Signor Umberto, “and I reward you. Ten gold coins each.”

At this moment, the captain walked through from the inner room.

“We dock at dawn,” he informed them, almost as if he had been listening to their conversation. “We rest one day and one night in port of Larnaca.”

“Time enough,” Signor Umberto told the girls.

“What if it's not?” asked Nest.

“No risk,” said Signor Umberto. “My friend Gobbo knows my business.”

“Important business,” the captain replied. “No risk. I will wait for you.”

“Come!” said Signor Umberto. “Let us kiss on it!”

And with that, the handsome Venetian put his hands on Gatty's shoulders, and drew her to him, and kissed her on each cheek.

“Wine,” said the captain, and he pulled the stopper out of a wooden flask.

“Come!” Signor Umberto said again. “We say a prayer, yes?

“
Lord of justice,
Shine on your servant, Umberto.

Lord of love,
Reward and embrace

Your sweet Gatti and Nest,
This night and always.
”

“Amen,” said Gobbo loudly.

“Amen,” whispered the girls.

“Both of you, meet me here at noon tomorrow,” Signor Umberto reminded them. “Wind in pines. Raindrops. You will not regret this.”

During
that July night, a hot wind sprang up in the south. It made the waves foam and spit. It drove them half-mad. Then the wind discovered a small split, a wind-eye, in the mainsail; it seized the oatmeal sheet between its teeth and shook it and wrestled with it until the huge sail screamed and ripped. Gobbo's ship was badly lamed and, far from reaching Larnaca at dawn, she limped along the north coast of Cyprus and docked at Kyrenia in the late afternoon.

Signor Umberto found Gatty on her own on the main deck. “Different port, same plan,” he reassured her. “Here, everywhere, you are my wife! Meet me at noon tomorrow in Gobbo's cabin.”

Early the next morning, the pilgrims rode out of town to watch the builders at work on the new abbey of Saint Mary of the Mountain, and they talked to one of the monks, Brother Antony, who spoke good English. But Gatty's and Nest's hearts weren't really in it. They kept thinking about their meeting with Signor Umberto.

By mid-morning, though, Nest had developed a fever. As soon as they got back to the ship, she flopped onto her mattress, and couldn't stop shivering. Her head pounded, her eyes ached.

Then Nest vomited.

“Oh, Gatty!” she croaked. “Will I lose my baby?”

Gatty's eyes shone. “There are plenty more in Cyprus!” she replied.

“Will I?”

Gatty got down on her knees beside Nest. “Of course not,” she said. “Your baby's safe inside. Believe me, I seen plenty of birthings.”

“I can't come,” said Nest. “I can't.” First she had a fit of coughing; then she began to weep silently.

“I'll have to go alone, then,” Gatty said. “I can't let Signor Umberto down. He's already been wronged by his father.”

Nest pressed her face into her pillow and trembled.

When Gatty climbed the hatchway on to the main deck, she saw Emrys and Tilda had cracked two of the pullets' eggs they'd bought in the market on their way back, and were frying them on one of the anchor's flanges.

“Feel how hot the sun is,” Snout marveled. “Where's Nest?”

“Where do you suppose?” asked Nakin.

“On her back,” Snout replied.

“She's sick,” said Gatty.

Tilda folded the white flaps of her egg over the yolk and stuffed the lot into her mouth.

“Gatty,” said Everard, “I want you to come with me this afternoon.”

“No!” said Tilda. She sucked her eggy cheeks and swallowed. “I need Gatty's help in the market.”

“On the other side of the market,” said Everard, “there's a grove of palm trees. The musicians there showed me their instruments. One was an
oud
—quite like a lute. And one was a flute cut from a reed. That's called a
ney
. And one…”

Nakin gave a mirthless laugh. “Poor little Everard, with all your lutes and flutes!”

Everard put his fingers to his cheekbones. “All you use your voice for is contempt and greed,” he said.

“High and mighty Everard!” Nakin taunted him. “So perfect in every way. You come with me, Gatty. I've found a den where women dance. Like wild animals.”

“Revolting!” cried Tilda.

“You all want to go off on your own,” Emrys said, “but Lady Gwyneth told us we must be companions. Let's all listen to the musicians. Let's all go to the market.”

“And the den,” said Nakin with a lascivious smile.

“No, Nakin,” said Emrys. “We'll do what our companions can also do—not dance with the devil.”

Gatty jammed the toe of her boot into the deck. “I can't,” she said.

“Can't?” demanded Tilda. “Why not?”

Gatty looked troubled.

“Nest, is it?” asked Snout.

Gatty gave Snout a grateful look. “Nest, yes. I need to look after her.”

Tilda gave Gatty a suspicious look.

“She needs me,” pleaded Gatty, and she dived down the hatchway again.

Nest stared up at Gatty, and coughed feebly.

“Quick!” said Gatty. “I'm keeping Signor Umberto waiting.” She rubbed some of Mansur's pomade into her face and hands.

“Freckles!” she said to herself. “What's wrong with freckles?”

Gatty dabbed perfume of cinnamon, sandalwood, and musk behind each ear; she daubed her lips with Nest's brazilwood cream.

“Do I look all right?” she demanded.

Nest looked up at Gatty dimly. “Come here,” she said.

Nest sat up and patted and massaged Gatty's brow, her chin, her neck. Then she wiped the back of her hand firmly across Gatty's mouth.

“What you do that for?” Gatty protested.

“Give me the cream,” croaked Nest. “You're not careful enough.”

“Who cares anyhow?” Gatty replied.

“You do,” said Nest. She smiled. “Signor Umberto does.”

“Why?” asked Gatty.

Nest gently applied a little blacking to Gatty's eyelids and eyelashes. “There!” she said.

“I'm not beautiful,” said Gatty.

“You could be,” said Nest, and she dabbed the remainder of the cream onto her own cheeks.

As soon as Nest had finished with her, Gatty turned her back, slipped her half of the violet ribbon over her wrist and put it carefully into her scrip; then she bit the hem of her gown, and worked the gold ring out of it.

“What are you doing?” whispered Nest.

Gatty very nearly showed her the precious ring. But then she tucked it into the little waist-pocket of her tunic. “Nothing,” she said.

“You were,” said Nest feebly. “Put on your felt shoes,” she said. “The ones Mansel made. At least they'll look better than your boots.”

Gatty looked down at her, and suddenly she felt a surging fondness for this pretty, feeling, timid girl lying, hot-eyed, on her mattress so very far from Ewloe. She dropped onto her knees, and put her arms round Nest, and hugged her.

“Don't,” wailed a muffled voice. “Oh! I wish I were more like you, Gatty.”

Gatty scaled the hatchway ladder, ran across the deck, and climbed the forecastle steps to Gobbo's cabin two at a time.

Signor Umberto was waiting for her. He bowed to Gatty and then she saw his slave was rocking a bundle in his arms.

“Babolo,” Signor Umberto said.

Gatty yelped. Only now did she begin to grasp the enormity of what she had agreed to do. On tiptoe, almost, she crossed the cabin and peeked at the baby. “God's bones!” she whispered, and she shivered.

“Signora Gatti,” said the Venetian, “where is Nest?”

“She's sick,” Gatty replied. “Too sick to come.”

Signor Umberto frowned. “A lady!” he said. “My wife! Without one servant?”

“We'll say she's ill,” Gatty said brightly. “Like she is.”

“
Sì
,” shrugged the Venetian, and he pointed to the inner room. “Please dress now. Your clothes are waiting.”

Spread out on Gobbo's bed was the most beautiful silk dress. It was yellowy-green, the color of oak leaves when they're still silly and tender. It had almost no shoulders!

Gatty stared at it in excitement and dismay.

I can't wear this, she thought. I've worn a kirtle, but I've never worn a proper dress before.

Gatty swung off her grey cloak. She paced round the room and eyed the dress and then, very quickly, she pulled off her tunic. She put the dress over her head and slipped her arms into the sleeves.

The silk came right down to her feet, it grazed the ground, but her shoulders were nearly naked and the front of the dress was scooped.

Gatty covered herself with her hands. I can't let anyone see me like this, she thought. I can't! Anyhow, the biting flies will eat me.

Gatty clasped the big square buckle on the front of her grey-green sash; she inspected the little dragons with pearl eyes sewn all over her beautiful sleeves, and saw how the sleeves could be detached, exposing the full length of her arms from her rounded shoulders to her fingertips. Gatty trembled. She listened to the music of her rustling dress.

Then, out of her tunic pocket, Gatty took her gold ring. She rolled it between her palms. She eased it onto the middle finger of her right hand.

“Gatti!” called a voice. “Gatti!”

“Yes,” Gatty replied. “I know. I'm coming.” Then she swallowed, lowered her eyes, and walked out.

“Ah!” exclaimed Signor Umberto. “
Sì!
Signora Gatti.
Bella! Bellissima!
”

Gatty tucked her chin against her chest.

“You like?” the Venetian asked her.

“I don't know,” said Gatty in a small voice.

“You are Venetian lady.”

Gatty felt apprehensive. She didn't feel like herself at all.

Signor Umberto spied Gatty's ring and smiled.

“Good!” he said.

“I found it,” Gatty told him, truthful as always.

The Venetian gave Gatty an amused, knowing smile. “
Sì, sì,
” he said. Then he snapped his fingers, and at once his slave held out the bundle.

So Gatty took the baby into her arms.

“Babolo,” Signor Umberto said tenderly. “You say Babolo.”

“Babolo,” mouthed Gatty. “Babolo.”

Gatty well knew how bizarre her situation was—she, the unofficial wife of a Venetian nobleman, wearing a low-cut silk dress, mothering the child of some Cypriot woman—but it didn't feel at all unnatural to be
holding a baby. She was indignant at the unjust way Signor Umberto had been treated and wanted to help him as much as she could.

“
Sì,
Signora Gatti,” said Signor Umberto. “Now when Babolo was born, you told me, ‘A lord is born into the world.'”

“I did?” replied Gatty, wide-eyed.

“You did,” said Signor Umberto with a wink.

Gatty smiled and looked at him under her eyelashes. “I remember now,” she said.

Signor Umberto took an amber necklace from an inside pocket. He opened it, put it round Gatty's neck, and fixed the clasp.

“Amber from the Baltic,” the Venetian told her. “For you, Gatti, to keep always,” and then he reached over Babolo and gave Gatty a lingering kiss on her pomaded right cheek.

Balancing the baby precariously in the crook of one arm, Gatty fingered the smooth stones.

“Last thing,” said Signor Umberto, snapping his fingers.

At once Mansur held up a small pot.

“Another pot!” said Gatty.

“Unguent,” the Venetian told her. “You say unguent?”

“I don't know,” Gatty replied.

“Purple oil and mint juice and vinegar and wax,” said the Venetian. “And rosewater. For your breasts. To make milk.”

“Never!” Gatty exclaimed.

“
Sì
. Smear it over them.”

“I told you,” said Gatty. “You can't until you've had a baby.”

“Babolo,” said the Venetian. “He is your baby!”

“Oh, I see,” said Gatty. “You mean if anyone sees I'm carrying it, they'll believe I'm his mother.”

“And last last,” Signor Umberto said, “Signora Gatti's hair.”

The Venetian nodded and Mansur stepped up to Gatty not with a linen cap, but a net made of fine gold thread. He fixed it on with pretty hairpins in such a way that it imprisoned altogether fewer of Gatty's golden curls than escaped it.

So, wearing her low-cut dress and her hairnet, and carrying her baby, Gatty walked with Signor Umberto through the streets of Kyrenia. Her heart was pounding. She wasn't so much afraid of what might happen in the court as of running into her companions. But unless they'd stopped and looked very closely, they would never have known that Signora Gatti del Malaxa was, also, Gatty.