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"It was the most wonderful night of my life." I thought of enlarging on this, to tell her about the fire and the moon, but I saw from her face that it was not the time, it would have been lost on her, she was too intent on what she had to say.
"You play the viele?"
"Why, yes. Also the mandora. Well enough to accompany my singing if need be."
"I can dance to the viele. And you can sing and make the words and perhaps make the music that belongs to the words. Together we are something not seen before – never seen such a dancer and such a singer and two so beautiful people. We get money – they throw more than we can gather in our hands. And we see new places all the time."
Her eyes were shining. There was love for me in them and love for the idea of travelling thus. She was so beautiful to me that I could barely sustain the light of it. Whether she was right to see this future for us I could not tell. I knew only that I wanted to be with her. My title of knighthood was worthless, I knew it now at last. Her rejection had stripped away the last shred of value I placed on it. I knew it for the reward of corruption, a gift from the ruined world I had wept over. A memory came of that dark night at the castle of Potenza and of the French knight who had so praised my singing at a time when I had been too cast down to listen fully to his words. I had never thought of myself as one who might make song a means of living and a way of life.
But I had remembered the knight's name. Perhaps this, finally, was the right shape.
"We could go to Paris," I said. "There would be a place for us there – we would find a welcome there, I am assured of it. You could dance and I could sing. Not in the street but at the royal court."
I did not look at her as I spoke. I was unfastening the clasp at my nape, which held the chain of the ruby – the same gesture the King had made.
"Paris," I heard her say, in the calm tone of one whose delight is very great. "That is a city I am very much wishing to see."
"I want you to have this." I leaned close to her as we sat there, and fastened the chain of the ruby round her neck and arranged the gem so that it lay between her breasts. "It is not to wear thus," I said. "It is for the dancing. I ca
She clasped the stone for a moment then looked down at it as it lay in her palm. "When I dance it will always be for you," she said. "Let us go and see if it fits me well." She smiled and her eyes looked into mine.
"You will play the viele for me, and I will try if the red stone lies in the right place. We will have a dance of the measurements."