'This is for the first of you that tries to touch me!' she hissed through clenched teeth.

Ishtar, who was looking at her with awakened interest, shrugged.

'Don't waste your strength. He'll not touch you tonight. The moon is not at the full and the stars are contrary. You would not conceive… and he is quite incapable!'

'He shan't touch me, tonight or ever!'

The dark face hardened into an expression of such implacable rigidity that for a moment it looked like a statue carved of ebony.

'You are here to bear a child,' the woman said harshly, 'and you shall do it. Remember what I said: I belong to him and when the time comes I shall help him.'

'How can you belong to him?' Marianne cried. 'Look at him! He is vile, loathsome – a lump of lard steeped in wine!'

Indeed, Damiani was slumped on the bed in his crumpled gold doth, as though the matter had ceased to concern him. He was breathing heavily and so obviously sunk in a drunken stupor that Marianne began to take heart. The man was a confirmed toper and all Ishtar's efforts to restrain him had evidently failed. It might be a long time yet before the stars were 'favourable', and before then some way of escape from this madhouse might present itself, even if she had to jump stark naked into the cut and swim ashore in broad daylight in the middle of Venice. She would probably be arrested but at least she would escape from this nightmare.

Her arm muscles were trembling with the strain of holding up the candelabra and, slowly, she relaxed. She had no strength left and perhaps, after all, it was not really necessary. Across the room, Ishtar had grasped Matteo round the body and was hoisting him over her shoulder as if he were nothing more than a sack of meal. Not even bending under his weight, she bore him to the door.

'Get back to bed,' was her contemptuous advice to Marianne. 'For tonight, you may sleep in peace.'

'And – other nights?'

'You'll see. At all events, don't flatter yourself he'll drink as much in future. I'll see to that. Tonight, perhaps, he… overdid the celebrations. He has been waiting a long time for this. Good night.'

The strange creature vanished with her burden and Marianne found herself alone again with the prospect of long hours ahead. The nightmare feeling lingered, even in her tired brain which no longer seemed to be working very well, so that it could not grasp the idea of her mysterious husband's death, or the incredible alteration in circumstances which followed from it.

In spite of the heat, she found that she was shivering, but with excitement, and she knew that, exhausted as she was, she would not be able to sleep. All she wanted was to escape, as soon as possible! The absurd and revolting scene which had just taken place had left her in a kind of daze from which only the sheer animal instinct of self-preservation had roused her briefly when she made her dash for the candelabra.

She knew that she must break out of this deathly fog and rid herself of the paralysing fear which held her. She had to get a grip on herself. After all, this was not the first time she had been a prisoner, and so far she had always managed to escape, however desperate her situation. Why should luck and courage desert her now? Her captor was half-mad and her gaolers half savages. With wit and patience she ought to be able to find a way out.

Comforted a little by these reflections, Marianne made a further bid to regain her self-possession by washing her face and then drinking a little water and eating some fruit. The fresh, fragrant scent of it did her good. Then, because its voluminousness still draped about her got in the way, she tore the sheet in half and knotted one of the pieces firmly round her chest. For all the thinness of the covering, the sensation of being more or less dressed was reassuring.

Thus prepared, she repeated the tour of her room with minute care, in the vague hope of finding something passed over during her first examination. She stood for a long time at the door, studying the complicated play of the lock, only to reach the dispiriting conclusion that it was impossible to open it without the key. The sinister chamber was as securely fastened as any strong box.

Next, the captive returned to the window and studied the bars. They were thick but not very close together, and Marianne was slim. If she could only get one out she might be able to slip through the gap and, with the help of her sheets, climb down into the little inner court from which there must surely be some way out. But how to shift the bars? And what with? The mortar welding them into the stone was old and might crumble easily enough if attacked with a strong tool. The difficulty lay in finding such a tool.

There was the tray, but the cutlery on it was made of fragile silver-gilt, quite unequal to the task. That was no use.

But Marianne, thirsting for freedom, was not to be so easily discouraged. What she wanted was a piece of iron and she continued her obstinate search for it in every nook and cranny, studying the walls and furniture attentively in the hope of finding some answer, some object she could use.

Her perseverance was rewarded when she came to the big coffer and saw that the lock was ornamented with dainty but thoroughly medieval volutes of wrought iron ending in sharp points. A quick reconnaissance with eager, careful fingers produced a gasp of joy, quickly stifled. One of them was loose, its nails rusted through. It might come off.

Trembling with excitement, Marianne took the cloth off the tray to save her fingers and sitting down on the floor by the chest began working at the iron to loosen the grip of the nails in the antique wood. It was harder than she had first thought. The nails were long and the wood sound. In fact, it was painful and tiring work, made no easier by the heat, but with her whole mind concentrated on her goal, Marianne was unaware of it, any more than of the bites of the mosquitoes which tormented her continually, attracted by the light of the candles at her side.

By the time the piece of metal she wanted dropped into her hand, the night was far advanced and Marianne was exhausted and perspiring. She looked for a moment at the heavy piece of ironwork in her hand and then, getting to her feet with an effort, went to have another look at the seating of the window bars. She sighed. There were several more hours' work there and it would be daylight long before she had finished.

As though in corroboration, a clock somewhere nearby struck four. It was too late. There was nothing more she could do that night. Besides, she was feeling so tired and so cramped from her long time crouching over the lock that it was doubtful if she could have managed the descent by the sheet. Prudence dictated waiting until the next night and praying that nothing disastrous happened in the intervening day. Meanwhile, she must sleep, sleep as much as she could to recoup her strength.

Having made her decision, Marianne calmly returned the piece of iron to its original position and replaced the nails which held it. Then, with a murmured prayer, she went and lay down on the big bed and, pulling the covers over her, for the chill mist of dawn was stealing into the room, fell sound asleep.

She slept for a long time, waking only when a hand touched her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she saw Ishtar, draped in a flowing black and white striped tunic with big gold rings in her ears, seated on the edge of her bed gazing at her.

'It is sunset,' she said simply, 'but I let you sleep on for you were weary, and there was little else for you to do. Now it is time for your bath.'

The other two women were already waiting in the centre of the room, surrounded by all the same preparations as on the previous night. But instead of rising, Marianne curled further down among the bedclothes and stared at Ishtar sullenly.

'I don't want to get up. I'm hungry. I can have my bath afterwards.'

'I think not. Food shall be brought to you afterwards. But if you are still too tired to rise, my sisters will help you.'

There was a threat, sardonic but unmistakable, in the soft voice. Remembering how easily the tall black woman had hoisted Matteo's huge bulk over her shoulder, Marianne realized that it was useless to resist; and rather than waste the strength which she foresaw might be desperately needed, she got up and submitted herself, with no more argument, to the ministrations of her strange attendants.

The ritual ablutions of the previous night were repeated with, if anything, still greater care. Instead of the oil, they anointed her body with some heavy scent which soon began to make her head swim unbearably.

'Don't use any more of that scent,' she protested, seeing one of the women pour another hefty dollop into the palm of her hand. 'I don't like it!'

'Your likes or dislikes are of no importance,' Ishtar retorted coolly. 'This is the perfume of love. No man, even on his deathbed, can resist one who wears it.'

Marianne's heart missed a beat. She understood now: tonight, this very night, she was to be delivered up to Damiani. The stars, it seemed, must be favourable… A wave of terror swept over her, mingled with rage and disappointment, and she made a desperate attempt to escape from the hateful ministrations which made her feel suddenly sick. Instantly, six granite hands came down on her and held her fast.

'Be still!' Ishtar adjured her roughly. 'You are behaving like a child, or like a lunatic! You must be one or the other to fight against what can't be helped!'

That might be true but Marianne could not resign herself to being offered up, bathed and scented like an odalisque for her first night with the sultan, to the revolting creature who desired her. Tears of rage filled her eyes as, her anointing completed, they dressed her this time in a flowing tunic of black muslin, wholly transparent but scattered here and there with strange geometric figures in silver thread. Her hair was dressed in innumerable tiny plaits, like black snakes, and on it Ishtar placed a silver circlet at the front of which was a coiled viper with emerald eyes. Then, taking a pot of kohl, she set about exaggerating the girl's eyes enormously while Marianne, momentarily accepting defeat, let her have her way.