Marianne and the Rebels

'Why do you do this?' Marianne asked, looking at her strange companion. 'What do you hope to gain by this weird life?'

Melina Koriatis shrugged and smiled in a way that made her seem suddenly much younger.

'I act as an agent and a clearing house for information between the Archipelago, Crete, Rhodes and the ancient cities of Asia Minor. The news comes here and is passed on. Others come here, also, who need help and can be comparatively safe. Have you noticed the girls who live with me? No, of course, you were too exhausted and you had too much to worry about on your own account. Well, if you look at them more closely, you will see that, except for the four or five girls who came here out of loyalty to me, all the rest are boys.'

'Boys!' gasped Marianne, recollecting even as she spoke the unusual strength of the women who had carried her and the hard muscles of the one who had walked at her side earlier that evening. 'But what are you doing with them?'

'Making soldiers for Greece,' the Princess answered grimly. 'Some are the sons of men who have been killed, whom I have brought here to prevent their forcible enlistment as janissaries. Others were carried off by the pirates who haunt the islands, for unfortunately we also suffer from an accursed plague of traitors and renegades working on their own account, like Ali. I or my agents purchased them in the markets of Smyrna or Karpathos. In my house they are themselves again, forgetting the shame but not the hatred. I train them for war, in the caves of the island, as the warriors of Sparta were once trained, or the athletes of Olympia. And then, when they are ready, Yorgo or his brother Stavros takes them wherever good fighters are needed… and brings me others. I am never short. The Turks are never tired of executions, nor do the traders tire of profit.'

Marianne stared wide-eyed, overwhelmed by feelings of mingled pity and horror at this fresh revelation of the infamous traffic in human flesh. She was staggered by the woman's daring. There was a Turkish post only a few furlongs away from the refuge she had created! For the first time, she felt a genuine rush of friendship towards her and she smiled warmly, how warmly even she herself was not aware.

'I cannot help admiring you,' she said, with sincerity, 'and if I can help you I will do so gladly, although I do not see how. As this man has said, my mission from the Emperor is to the Sultana, to try and recreate the ties of friendship which have lapsed…'

'But he also gives shelter to thinking men of our nation. One of our greatest writers, Korais, who has devoted himself with all his might to our rebirth, lives in France, at Montpellier; and our poet Rhigas was put to death by the Turks because he wanted to meet Bonaparte and win his support for us.'

Here the man addressed as Theodoras interrupted. He had evidently had more than enough of history lessons and was eager to get down to immediate practicalities.

'Napoleon wants the war between Turkey and Russia to continue,' he said abruptly. Tell us why? We, too, wish it to continue, naturally, until the Porte is defeated, but we should like to know your Emperor's reasons.'

'I do not really know them myself,' Marianne answered, after only the faintest of hesitations. In fact, it did not seem to her that she had any right to reveal Napoleon's plans, especially when these were still secret. 'I think he is chiefly anxious to remove the Sultan from the English influence.'

Theodoros nodded. He studied Marianne as though he meant to pierce her very soul, and then, apparently satisfied, he turned to the abbot.

'Tell her everything, father. She seems to be honest, and I'm willing to put it to the test. If she should betray me, she'll not live long enough to boast of it. Our friends will see to that.'

'I've not the least intention of betraying anyone!' Marianne broke in hotly. 'I'm tired of this everlasting suspicion! Say what you want and have done with it!'

The priest's hands moved pacifically.

'Some night soon, you will leave here in Yorgo's boat. This man,' he indicated the giant, 'will go with you. He is one of our chief people and a good leader of men. Because of that, five years ago, the Turks drove him from his home in the Morea and he has been forced to live in hiding, never staying long in one place. He moves constantly about the Archipelago, always on the run but still free, breathing fire into lukewarm hearts to ignite the torch of revolt and, with his courage and faith, doing all he can to help those who need his help. Today it is in Crete that he is needed, only he could do no good there, whereas there is much that he could do on the Bosphorus. Last night, at the same time as he brought you here, Yorgos brought a monk from the monastery of Arkadios in Crete. There is bloodshed there and the cries of the oppressed rise to heaven. The pasha's janissaries will plunder, burn, torture and impale on the slightest suspicion. This must stop, and Theodoros thinks that he has the means to stop it. But to do so, he must go to Constantinople, which for him is equivalent to throwing himself into the jaws of the wolf. With you, he has a chance not only to get in but also of getting out again alive. No one would think to question a great lady of France travelling with a servant. He will be that servant.'

'He? My servant?'

Marianne stared incredulously at the ferocious-looking giant, with his fiercely curling whiskers and his picturesque garb, thinking that nothing could be less like the conventional Parisian idea of a respectable butler or servant of a great household.

Melina smiled. 'He won't look quite like that,' she said with amusement. 'And he shall be an Italian servant of yours, since he speaks no French. All that we ask of you is to take him with you and get him into Constantinople in your company. You will be staying at the French embassy, I imagine?'

Remembering what General Arrighi had told her about the repeated appeals for help on the part of the ambassador, Comte de Latour-Maubourg, Marianne could not doubt for an instant that she would be warmly welcomed.

'I can't think of anywhere else,' she admitted, 'that I could go.'

'Excellent. No one would think of looking for Theodoras in the French embassy. He will remain there for a little while and then, one day, he will simply vanish and you can forget all about him.'

Marianne frowned. Her mission to the Sultana was delicate and complicated enough already; she did not see how she could afford to risk bringing worse trouble on herself by taking under her protection a proscribed rebel leader who was probably quite well known, since he dared not enter Constantinople openly. It was enough to wreck her entire mission and to ensure that she herself spent the rest of her life, assuming she was allowed to live, in meditating on her indiscretion on the mouldy straw of a Turkish gaol.

'Is it essential', she asked, after a moment's thought, 'that he goes there himself? Would it not be possible for me to do his work for him, somehow?'

The giant's sharp, white teeth showed in a ferocious grin and his hand stroked the chased silver handle of his knife.