Marianne's hopes faded once again.
"Money?" she faltered. "Does she want very much? Everything I had was stolen from me on board Jason Beaufort's ship—"
"Don't worry about that. If I send you to Rebecca, then it is my affair. One of my women shall come to you tomorrow after dark with a closed carriage. She will take you to the Jewess, who will already have received her payment and her instructions. My woman will remain with you there for as long as necessary and then bring you by water to a house belonging to me in the vicinity of the Eyub cemetery where you may rest for a few days. Your ambassador will know only that you have gone with me on a brief visit to my palace at Scutari, where I shall be going the day after tomorrow."
As she spoke, the weight began to lift from Marianne's heart, to be replaced by a sense of profound gratitude. By the time the soft, lisping voice had ceased, her eyes were full of tears. She slid to her knees and, lifting the hand that still rested on her own, she raised it to her lips.
"Your Highness," she murmured, "how can I thank you—"
"Why, by saying nothing. You will embarrass me if you insist on thanking me so much. This is a very small thing I do for you—and it is long since I had to do with an affair of the heart. You can't think how much I am enjoying it. Now, come—" She rose and shook out her pale-colored draperies, as though in haste now to shake off the burden of her confidences.
"It grows cold," she said, "and must be shockingly late besides. Your Monsieur de Latour-Maubourg must be wondering what has become of you. Your Breton is capable of imagining anything! He probably thinks I've had you sewn into a sack and dropped into the Bosporus with a stone tied round your neck. Or else that Mr. Canning has somehow spirited you away—" She laughed, relieved perhaps to have dealt with an awkward situation, and possibly also by the chance to unburden herself of some of the accumulated bitterness of her years. She chattered like a schoolgirl as she settled her muslin veils about her with all the care of a woman whose habit it is never to appear looking less than her best.
Marianne rose automatically and followed her. They made their way quickly back to the kiosk, where the file of eunuchs was still gravely waiting, and Marianne, hearing her companion giving orders for her return to the embassy with a doubled escort on account of the lateness of the hour, was appalled to realize that she had spent the best part of the night at the palace and still the mission entrusted to her by Napoleon remained unfulfilled. With a graciousness that was not perhaps entirely disinterested, the sultana had encouraged her to talk about herself, turning what had begun as a diplomatic audience into a purely family occasion in which the emperor and his concerns were out of place, and putting under a strong obligation of gratitude one who ordinarily should have been thinking of nothing but the success of her mission.
When, therefore, Nakshidil led her guest back into the pavilion and proposed a final cup of coffee while they waited for the arrival of the litter, Marianne was quick to accept, even if one more dose of that comforting beverage meant that she would not get a wink of sleep that night, or what was left of it.
She spoke seriously, striving to banish a trace of compunction at bringing the sultana back to what was evidently unwelcome ground.
"Your Highness has been so very kind to me tonight that you have made me forget the real reason for my coming here. I am ashamed to think that I have talked of almost nothing but myself when there are so many more important matters at stake. May I know how Your Highness is disposed to regard those things I have said in confidence and whether you will consider mentioning them to His Highness the sultan?"
"Talk to him? Well, I might, but"—and here she sighed—"I am afraid he will not listen to me. It is true that my son's love for me is complete and unchanging, but my influence is no longer what it was and neither is his admiration for your emperor."
"But why not? Is it the divorce?"
"No. Rather it is because of certain clauses in the Treaty of Tilsit, of which he was informed by Mr. Canning, who had them from what source I do not know. It seems there was a letter from Napoleon to the tsar, dated February 2, 1808, in which the emperor put forward a proposal for the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Russia was to have the Balkans and Turkey in Asia; Austria, Serbia and Bosnia; France, Egypt and Syria, which would be a magnificent base for Napoleon to attack the British power in the Indies. So you see, we have small cause to love the emperor."
Marianne felt as if the ground were shifting under her feet and mentally cursed Napoleon's epistolary indiscretions. What made him write such dangerous letters to a man he was not wholly sure of? Was he so delighted with Alexander as to forget even the most elementary rules of caution? What could she say now to rid the Turks of their very reasonable belief that the French emperor was prepared to sell them to the highest bidder? Should she deny it? There was small chance that she would be believed, and in any case it was becoming increasingly unlikely that she could persuade them to go on getting themselves killed to facilitate Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
However, she was determined to do her duty to the end, and so she went in gallantly to attack the English position.
"Your Highness is quite sure that the letter is genuine? The Foreign Office has never balked at forgery where its interests were concerned, nor do I see how secret clauses of the Treaty of Tilsit, how a letter addressed to the tsar in person—" She broke off, realizing that she had lost her audience. The two women had remained standing in the center of the room, but now the sultana was engaged in prowling slowly around and around her visitor. It was evident that she had quite lost interest in a political discussion to which she felt she had already given a sufficient answer, and she was subjecting Marianne's dress to the detailed scrutiny which any woman, be she empress or no, reserves for matters of such vital importance.
Nakshidil extended a cautious finger and stroked one of the full green satin sleeves with its frosting of crystal beads. She sighed.
"That dress is truly ravishing. I have never liked these long sheaths that Rose has made so fashionable. I preferred the hoops and frills of my youth. But this is enchanting. I wonder what I should look like in such a dress…"
Marianne was aware of a moment's hesitation while she adjusted herself to the ease with which the sultana passed from matters of state to feminine frivolities. Should she lend herself to the game? Was it simply an attempt to evade the subject, or had this woman who had risen to such dizzy heights still kept something of her incurable Creole frivolity? It did not take her long to decide. Smiling as if no word of politics had ever passed her lips, she said: "I hardly dare to ask if Your Highness would care to try it on—"
Nakshidil's face was transformed instantly.
"Really? Would you let me?"
Even before Marianne could answer, a brief command had summoned the women whose duty it was to help their mistress to undress, another brought forth a tall, gold-framed mirror in which it was possible to see oneself from head to foot, and a third sealed the entrance to the pavilion.
A moment later Marianne found herself standing in her under-petticoat of fine lawn watching as Nakshidil stripped off sky-blue muslins faster than her women could assist her without snagging them. But the discarded veils were cast aside as contemptuously as if they had been a heap of old rags while one of the women proffered the dress which she had been helping Marianne to remove.