The old woman was not always bleared and red-eyed, nor always a servant. She is the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina. Until fourteen she lived in a palace to which the castles of German barons would have served for stables. One of her robes was worth more than all the magnificence of Westphalia. Poets in her country said her eyes eclipsed the stars. She was affianced to the Prince of Massa Carara, as handsome as herself, and Italy composed sonnets in her praise, though not one of them was passable. Then an old marchioness, once mistress to the Prince, invited him to drink chocolate. He died in less than two hours of terrible convulsions. This, she says, is only a bagatelle.
Her mother, in despair, takes her toward an estate near Gaeta on a galley gilded like the altar of St. Peter's. A Sallee corsair boards them. Their men defend themselves like the Pope's soldiers: they fling themselves upon their knees and throw down their arms. They are stripped as bare as monkeys. Fingers search the places where diamonds might be hidden, a practice she later learns is a law of nations, used also by the Knights of Malta on Turkish prisoners. In Morocco the corsair captain plucks the flower reserved for the Prince and believes he does her a great deal of honour. She calls such things common, not worth mentioning.
Morocco swims in blood. Fifty sons of the Emperor Muley-Ismael each have their adherents, and the wars run black against black, tawny against tawny. A contrary faction tries to rob her captain of his booty. Next to jewels and gold, the women are the most valuable things he has. A Moor and a lieutenant take her mother by the arms; a soldier and a corsair take her by the legs. Italian women and the Princess herself are torn, mangled, and massacred. The captain dies with the rest. She crawls from a heap of slaughtered bodies to a large orange tree on the bank of a rivulet, pressed by fright, fatigue, horror, despair, and hunger. Something moves upon her body. She opens her eyes on a white man of good countenance, who sighs between his teeth in Italian about the misfortune of being without testicles.
Coming Up in Chapter 12
Astonished to hear her own language, she answers that there are greater misfortunes than the one he names. The man was chapel musician to her mother, the Princess of Palestrina. He promises Italy, then sells her to the Dey of Algiers.
