Читать книгу The Discovery of Chocolate: A Novel онлайн | страница 37

We spoke as strangers reciting lines from The Romance of Durandarte or as performers in a play in which we had been given the wrong parts. Perhaps she thought me uncouth, for, having seen such suffering, I was no longer the effete young gentleman she had known; and I was saddened, realising that, although I had changed, Isabella had not.

Out of boredom, I reached into my knapsack and pulled out a gold ingot.

Isabella gasped and held out her hand, which then sank under its weight.

‘Is this the treasure?’

‘It is a present, my love, but the true secret follows …’

‘And where shall I find it?’

‘If you will come to my house …’

She sat for a moment and smiled. Her canary sang in the corner, heartlessly beautiful.

‘What is that you wear upon your wrist?’ she asked accusingly. I had brushed my hair from my eyes, and the bangle Ignacia had given me had fallen forward. For the first time, I felt the need to defend myself.

‘It is nothing, my lady, a trifle.’

‘It looks like a love token.’

‘Believe me, it is no such thing.’

‘I think indeed it is.’

‘It is merely medicinal. It holds the pain at bay.’

‘I have never heard people tell of such a thing. Give it to me.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You would deny me?’

‘I must. It is fixed to my wrist. It cannot be removed.’

‘Would you cut your hand off for me?’

‘If I did such a thing I would no longer be able to defend you.’

‘Would you place it in fire?’

I thought of Ignacia making me pledge my love upon the chocolatl, and of how all my words with Isabella were of no consequence compared to that memory.

‘I would consign my whole body to the flames if I thought I could win your love …’ I stated, as boldly as I could, knowing that these rhetorical love games were ridiculous. One could be pledging love and allegiance until Doomsday if one stayed long enough at court. These were amusements of wit, without feeling or passion, and I could not believe that I, who had risked both my life and that of my companions, now lived an existence in which a man’s greatest fear might lie in an inadequate reply.