The False Virgin (15 page)

Katie smiled, righting my goblet and wiping the spilled wine with her hand. She licked her fingers.

‘Good. And in return for my sound advice, you will take me with you.’

Eventually, after a bone-shaking ride over the hills of Sifnos, Katie, Galuppi and I managed to settle ourselves in Querini’s estate in Moussia. I had to admit the views
were spectacular. Venice hunkers down low at sea level, whereas this mansion was perched high on a hill overlooking the bright blue sea. From the balcony of the main room, I could see a curious
white chapel stuck out on the peninsula, and beyond it nothing but water. It was a good place to keep a lookout for marauding pirates and had escape routes by the beaches to the west and the east.
I reckoned I had appropriated Querini’s own room, but I was not concerned about that. The fool could stay in the stables, for all I cared. If he ever got back from the other end of the island
after sleeping off his binge. As for me, it was time to tie one on before embarking on my official business, and I had plenty of Querini’s best wine over dinner.

I awoke the next morning with a hangover, but knew it was nothing that a brisk walk in the fresh air wouldn’t cure. Time to acquaint myself with Speranza Soranzo’s hideaway. Standing
on the balcony, I could feel that the morning was warm but the onshore wind was cool. So I pulled a sleeveless velvet robe over my tunic and leggings, and went to see to it that Katie would be
entertained while I met the Doge’s daughter. Walking through the archway into the inner courtyard of the Querini mansion, I saw the back of a slim pageboy I had not noticed amongst the
servants during last evening’s meal. I called out to him, intending to get him to fetch Katie. When the boy turned round, I saw it was Katie herself dressed in the way I had first seen her
when she was stalking me in Venice.

‘What the hell are you doing in that garb?’ I exploded.

She grinned and spun around, showing me the full effect of the white tunic, red tabard, and grey leggings she wore.

‘Don’t you think I would pass as a pageboy? I fooled you at first, didn’t I?’

She had tucked her radiant hair under a red sugar-loaf hat, and I had to admit she was a passable youth. Albeit one that someone with a taste for downy-faced boys might prefer.

‘But why do you want to pass as a boy?’

She pouted in a way that was all female. ‘I knew Galuppi wouldn’t let me come with you on your investigations dressed as myself. He is so stuffy and old-fashioned, and thinks a woman
should sit at home and spin and embroider.’ She grabbed my arm and pulled me to her. ‘But you will arouse no alarm being accompanied by your page, will you?’

I knew that pleading tone, and was aware I could not stop her once her mind was made up. I sighed deeply.

‘Very well. But don’t let Galuppi see you. And keep your mouth shut when I am with Querini or his wife. Pages are seldom seen and never ever heard.’

Katie grinned and put a finger to her lips, sealing her vow of silence. I wondered how long it would last.

‘Besides, I am not investigating anything, but merely ascertaining if the Doge’s daughter is suitably chastened by her banishment, and will not stir up feeling on her
return.’

Katie shook her head vigorously, almost releasing her long locks. ‘Fat chance of that happening. Speranza was always too full of her own importance. Now she is the Doge’s daughter,
she will lord it over everyone.’

She started to walk ahead of me, but I grabbed her arm and held her back.

‘You mean that you knew her before her exile? Then she will recognise you, and your little subterfuge will be in vain.’

Katie blew out her cheeks in exasperation. ‘Of course she won’t, Grandpa. I was only twelve when she last saw me. I’ve grown since then.’

I shrugged in defeat, not wishing to note that she had also grown tits, which were now well concealed, thank God, or the disguise would have been useless. I did have one command for her,
though.

‘You will have to walk behind me and not at my side or ahead of me. From now on, you are not my granddaughter, but my servant.’

Katie bowed deeply, put on a solemn face and hung back as I crossed the courtyard. Which was just as well as it meant she didn’t see the big grin on my face caused by her feisty impudence.
She was without a doubt a Zuliani.

The land was scrubby and sere between the mansion and the monastery, our feet raising dust that clung to our clothes. It was a far cry from Venice, where dampness and the sea were on every hand.
Soon we could see the thick walls of the monastery, which was set on a small rise in the land. Over the doorway hung a bell set in an arch with a thick rope hanging from it, which stirred lazily in
the hot wind that blew across the dried-out land. The door to the monastery lay open, its timbers bleached and cracked in the sun. I stepped through the archway and into an open yard. There was no
one around, though I got the impression that a black-clad figure had just disappeared through one of several doors to my right. Straight ahead of me, though, stood the church and another open door.
On reaching it, and looking into the gloomy interior, I felt rather than saw its enticing coolness. Katie came up close behind me and whispered in my ear.

‘Did you see that priest run off when we arrived? Don’t you think it’s odd that no one has come to ask who we are? Let’s just grab the church silver and run.’

I glared at her, and stepped into the cool interior, which was only sustained by the narrowness of the windows. The interior of the church was dark and sombre. Beyond the sanctuary screen, a
solitary candle burned close to the altar, and I could just make out a kneeling figure in the circle of yellowish light it cast. From the slightness of the figure I guessed it was a woman. No doubt
this was the Doge’s daughter. I held up my hand to indicate to Katie that she should stay put, and started to make my way down the central aisle. I had got only half-way when someone I had
not noticed loomed out of the darkness. He stood in my way. It was a man in a drab brown robe with its hood pulled up, half masking his face. He held his hand palm outwards to stop my progress.

‘You may go no closer. Who are you?’

His words were spoken in a hoarse whisper, as though he were trying not to disturb the prayers of the woman he protected. I had no such compunction, and made my voice boom out echoing around the
church.

‘I am Messer Niccolo Zuliani, come to speak privately with the Doge’s daughter, Speranza Soranzo. Who might you be? Take off your hood and show yourself.’

I could see beyond the monk’s shoulder that the kneeling figure, hearing my voice, had turned to look at me. Apprehension was written on the pale face that glowed in the light of the
candle. My adversary raised his hand and deftly flicked back the hood of his monkish robe, revealing a tonsured head and a grave, angular face. Though the rest of his features seemed chiselled and
lined, and his nose slightly bent, his lips were as full and red as a woman’s. He licked them with the tip of his tongue, betraying a new nervousness.

‘I am Brother Hugh, Mistress Soranzo’s spiritual guide.’

So this was the monk who had stolen Speranza from her husband. He was not the most manly of rivals for Querini, so I could see why Niccolo had turned to his cups in despair. Perhaps it was his
religious message that was irresistible. I was to find out the truth of that soon enough. The woman in white had risen from her knees by now, and approached my little confrontation with the
charismatic monk. She was more composed now, and calmed him down with a few gentle words.

‘It’s no problem, Brother Hugh, I have been expecting Messer Zuliani.’

She stepped past the monk and gave me a bow that was no more than a curt nod of the head. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any more. I was a common trader, and she the daughter of the
Doge of La Serenissima and a member of the same élite ruling gang in which my own Cat Dolfin had her origins. I gave her my best cold stare that had many a business opponent quivering in his
boots, but she merely ignored it and ploughed on.

‘I am sorry that I was not at my husband’s house to greet you. We thought the storms at sea would have delayed you.’

I saw from her tone that she wasn’t sorry, and that the ‘we’ she referred to was not herself and her husband, but herself and her monkish mentor. She had slightly inclined her
head to indicate him as she spoke. I tipped my own head to acknowledge her comments, and assured her that our stout Venetian galley had weathered the storms easily.

‘We even outran the pirates that seem to infest this region. Now, Domina Soranzo, I need to arrange a time when you and I can speak. In private.’

I made it clear what that meant for the monk, and blushing, he retreated from our presence and walked through the sanctuary arch to where Speranza Soranzo had been praying. I noticed that he
picked up a small gilded box from the altar before he snuffed out the candle and plunged the sanctuary into darkness. When he turned the box had disappeared somewhere in his robes. Querini’s
wife drew my attention away from his activity by taking my arm and walking me away.

‘I regret I cannot see you in the monastery as I have a private cell not suitable for visitors.’

By her tone of voice I assumed she meant not for male visitors. She was clearly either taking her pretence of following the terms of her exile to an extreme, or she truly had shut herself off
from her husband. I guessed the monk was the key to what she was up to, and mentally noted I would have to find out more about him.

‘Then we should talk at your husband’s house. I take it that propriety will not be offended if you met me there. After all, my granddaughter will be there too.’

I looked over my shoulder at Katie who, in her pageboy disguise, had been skulking in the shadows all this time. ‘Won’t she . . . Sebastiano?’

Katie glared at me in giving her such a stupid name, and with as gruff a voice as she could muster replied, ‘Indeed, master.’

Katie need not have been concerned at me drawing her to Soranzo’s attention. The Doge’s daughter hardly deigned to look at the page who attended me. But I did notice that the monk
gave ‘him’ a sharp look. Perhaps he was a more dangerous adversary than I had at first suspected. From his mangling of Italian I guessed he was an Englishman, so maybe I could speak to
him in his own language. I had learned some of the rough tongue from my own mother, and could speak it passably. It would pay to know where he stood in the Soranzo household before I questioned
Speranza more closely.

After she had agreed to meet me at her husband’s mansion the next morning, I left the monastery with ‘Sebastiano’ trailing sulkily after me. It didn’t take long for Katie
to emerge from her mood, though. She grabbed a long, dry twig and started slashing at the trailing brown grass on our return path. Gradually she speeded up and came up to my shoulder. She was
bursting to tell me something, but was going to make me repent for treating her badly first.

‘Sebastiano? Where did that stupid name come from?’

I smiled evilly. ‘The way you were behaving, I just thought you resembled a martyr.’

‘Oh, very amusing,
Grandfather
.’

To be deliberately reminded of my advanced years hurt, and I winced at the jibe.

‘Very well. You are obviously bursting to tell me something you know. So I apologise for the slur on your manhood . . .’ She swished at my legs playfully with the twig. ‘. . .
and am ready to listen with ears wide open.’

Katie pouted in that endearing way of hers, making a play of deciding whether or not to tell me what she knew. But it was obvious that she would without any further encouragement, and she
managed a pause of a few moments.

‘I have seen the monk before.’

‘Brother Hugh? Where?’

‘Why, in Venice, of course. Before you came back from your travels. He was a sought-after guest in the houses of Granny Cat’s friends. The more vacuous ones.’

Katie had some choice words at her disposal, revealing her fine education at the expense of the Valier family, whose name she bore. ‘Vacuous’ was one I would remember when it came to
the
case vecchie
of La Serenissima. I laughed.

‘And what was he peddling? Indulgences to save them from Purgatory?

Katie grinned in a way that suggested she had a salacious secret to reveal. ‘No. Something far more valuable than that.’

‘Oh, what?’

‘Virginity.’

Once we had returned to the Querini mansion, and I had persuaded Katie to dress like a proper girl once again, she told me the story. We first ate a quiet meal with Galuppi,
and I sank a few goblets of Querini’s good red wine. Eventually, the fussy secretary saw that his presence was not wanted, and he bowed and left. Relieved by his disappearance, Katie threw
her legs over the arm of the chair she had been sitting demurely in, and clasped her hands behind her head.

‘Lord! I thought he’d never go, Grandpa Nick.’

‘Is that why you were sighing heavily all the time? Bertuccio Galuppi is a good man, you know, and doesn’t deserve to be on the end of your bad manners.’

She waved one hand in the air. ‘I’ll apologise to him tomorrow. Now, let me tell you the story of Brother Hugh.’

It seems that the monk had turned up in Venice three years ago in search of a relic. He had come all the way from a place called Carmarthen somewhere in the badlands beyond the edge of England.
He was peddling a story about a finger bone belonging to a saint that a Venetian merchant had long ago purchased.

‘My great-uncle Marco!’ I exclaimed. ‘It must have been him. He went all over the place collecting relics to resell at a profit.’

Katie hushed me, and kicked her legs in anger.

‘Let me finish. This Brother Hugh was nothing much of an attraction at first, according to Granny Cat.’ She looked across the table at me. ‘You can see he’s not much to
look at, and his message was all about a saint no one had heard of. But then he somehow laid his hands on the relic, and it all changed.’

At a gathering of bored matrons of noble lineage to which Hugh had been invited, more out of habit than expectation of something exciting, a stir had been created. The monk had produced a small
gilded box, and announced he had the relic of St Beornwyn.