Isabel Giovanni (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} isabel_giovanni) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} seasidecafe,@ 2008-07-07 15:23:00 |
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Oh dear Christ and all the ailing, suffering saints. The last time she was required to play this parlour game was in Tripoli with Hayreddin Barbarossa, one of the Cainite Ottomans who controlled the region, when she was negotiating a safe trade treaty for the Giovanni. He had agreed that their merchant fleet could sail the Mediterranean unmolested and that the merchants could operate a warehouse 'tax' free in the city if she answered him just one small question.
Isabel had been on her guard immediately but she had given him a smile and a nod. The smell of the turmeric and garlic in the meal his last vessel had been eating before being tapped was on his copper-scented breath as he leant in closely to the forward infidel Cainite before him. If you were stranded on a desert island and could take anything, save a boat, that you wished with you, what would it be? She had blinked at the simplicity of the question and saw the trap that he set before her. A woman, feeble and weak minded would think only of necessity for creature comfort, or so Isabel guessed at the pirate's reasoning. There was no room in her answer for seriousness or debatable points, it was a question designed to test character as much as entertain. With a polite bow and flourish, Isabel looked at the red-bearded Cainite before her and smiled. I would take Yeshua ben Joseph with me, she had answered. The men looked at her curiously to hear her name a prophet and she could only grin wider. For is it not said that the holy man could walk upon water? Should I have him with me, I would need nothing else.
The room erupted into laughter and applause. The next night, treaties with the pirates had been drawn up, signed, and witnessed. Isabel smiled at the memory and thought that soon she should go see her old friend to relive wilder nights once more.
"The one thing I couldn't live without if I were to be stranded on a desert island?" she pretends to think about it a moment. Something more modern for this crowd is in order as an answer.
"Captain Jack Sparrow," she says at last with a cryptic smile.