The Venetian Contract by Marina Fiorato Page B

intrusion in this place, he looked through the doors across a small courtyard to where another door lay open too. Beyond those second doors a woman was propped on her pillow. She was motionless, her flesh discoloured, and it seemed that she was dead. But as he looked she opened her eyes, eyes that were the colour of the sea.
    Suddenly he was back twenty-one years, to the moment those same eyes had bewitched him at a masque at Paros. Those eyes had held his, and persuaded him to take her away, ride with her to his ship and steal her away to Constantinople. He held those eyes again now, for a last moment and then, realizing what he was witnessing – an ending, not a beginning – he turned away.

Chapter 5
    F eyra could not remember, afterwards, what they had for dinner that evening.
    She had prepared the various dishes, and carried them to the table, she had lit the brass lamps when the sun fell, she had laid out the knives and cups. She had carried different morsels to her lips, but tasted nothing.
    While she’d prepared the food she had trodden over and over the pathways open to her. She could reveal everything to her father, and break the confidence of her dying mother. Or she could keep her counsel and say nothing at all. She had still not decided when she took her place opposite her father at the table. The one thing she was sure of was that she was not about to leave Constantinople. If her mother was gone and her father was leaving, the city was all she had.
    Feyra studied Timurhan carefully. He seemed distracted. She gazed at his face, tanned and weatherbeaten by the four winds for four decades at sea – the beard, oiled to a point and now flecked with grey, the amber eyes, just like hers. He sat where he always did when he was home, at the head of their polished table, before the latticed window which pricked out his form with crosses and diamonds of light. He was silent, and he ate little more than she did.
    Feyra respected her father, was obedient to him as all good daughters should be; she loved him, and, what was more, she liked him. But she was still a little afraid of him.
    He was stern. He was jealous of her chastity and as such approved of her careful dressing. He beat her when she crossed him – for which she held him no grudge, for what father did not beat his daughters? – and kissed her when she pleased him. But lately, just lately, there had been a subtle, tiny change. Just now and again, when she uttered some remark at dinner, or spoke of her work, she noticed a change as imperceptible as an alteration of tide when the waters begin to turn and favour the converse direction. She’d begun to see some respect in her father’s eyes, and, what was more, a modicum of fear.
    Knowledge was the source of this new power of hers. Once or twice he asked her opinion on medical matters, and sometimes he would defer to her, even in the company of his crew. Only last night, when their dinner was just an evening meal, he had asked her several questions about the care of an infected person, about how to contain a serious illness when a patient was in the close company of others. But he did so grudgingly. She could see that he did not like the change, that he felt like something was lost.
    Feyra decided to tell her father something that would not break her mother’s trust but something that would help her decide what to do. ‘My mistress is dead.’
    The words dropped and rolled between him and her in the silence, like marbles cast on the table.
    Her father’s eyes flickered a little. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.
    From those few words Feyra realized he already knew. And moreover, he
was
sorry, and sad and still in love. It was enough. Feyra dropped her platter with a clash and fell toher knees beside him. ‘Father, what should I do? She was raving at the end, she said all manner of strange things – should I return there tomorrow?’
    He cupped her face. ‘Feyra. I am to go on a voyage tomorrow. And you are to