The Venetian Contract by Marina Fiorato Read Free Book Online Page A

out of Nur Banu’s mouth. ‘They are coming!’
    ‘
Who
?’ asked Feyra.
    ‘The Four Horsemen.’
    Nur Banu’s mind must have addled now. She was making some association with the ring she had given Feyra, and perhaps also the four horses that had taken her away from Paros. Feyra spoke soothingly. ‘No, no they are not coming.’
    ‘Yes, yes … I see them! They are bringing Death!’ The sea-blue eyes were staring now.
    ‘No, they are not coming,’ Feyra attempted to assure her, ‘I can see all the way across to Pera, and there are only a few boats there. There is no one in the room, no one at our door.’
    ‘They do not come to
me
,’ protested the dying woman. ‘They ride to Venice! The Great Tribulation is riding to Venice. They gallop across the waves, with the white horses, yet only one of them is white, the others are of another hue.’
    Feyra looked down at the ring again, at the tiny etchings. One of the horses was enamelled in white. ‘
Only one of them is white, the others are of another hue
.’ Perhaps her mistress was not raving after all.
    ‘What do they mean? What do the horses bring?’
    ‘
Come and see, come and see, come and see
.’
    Feyra moved as close as she could. ‘I am here, Mistress.’
    Suddenly, Nur Banu sat bolt upright and spoke with a strength that belied her beleaguered body. ‘
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!
”’
    She sank back down on to the pillows, her voice a whisper once more. ‘It is written. It is written in The Book.’
    Feyra became agitated. She was no wiser. The Valide Sultan was wasting words. Soon she would no longer be able to speak, and she was wasting words on cant about wine and oil?
    ‘What book?’
    ‘I have not read it for years. They do not let me here. The Book, the Book of Books. It tells of the Great Tribulation.
Come and see come and see come and see
.’
    Her eyes were staring, and Feyra knew the Valide Sultan’s time was coming to an end. She tried a different question. ‘What can I do?’
    ‘Timurhan carries the first horse, the black horse, in his ship. Go with him, prevent him. He is followed hard upon by the red. When the third horse comes, the white horse, the conqueror, Venice will be no more. Then the pale horse will be the king of all dominions; for it is he that is the most terrible, it is he that all men fear.’
    ‘Who is the pale horse?’
    ‘Death.’
    The single syllable echoed around the quiet court. Itseemed to be an end: the final word. But then the Valide Sultan turned her head on her pillow and looked Feyra in the eyes. She spoke quite normally. ‘Am
I
going to die?’
    There seemed to be an obstruction in Feyra’s throat, a great cold stone blocking her voice. But she had never lied to her mistress. ‘Yes.’
    As if she were a little girl, as if she were the daughter and Feyra was the mother, the Valide Sultan said, in a voice that was small and afraid, ‘Will it hurt?’
    Feyra thought of the hawk she had fed with the spores of the Bartholomew tree. Of how the bird had looked two, three hours after infection. She thought of how Nur Banu would look, in another hour, and of how her organs would feel as they were pulped as the merlin’s had been. Heart breaking, the last thing she said to her mother was a lie. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You will not feel a thing.’
     

     
    In another hour, Feyra was as sure as she could be that her mistress was dead.
    The Valide Sultan’s eyes were open and staring, the flesh mottled as black as a bruise. Feyra closed the eyes that were as blue as the sea, this sea and the one that cradled Venice, and then she