Maria took a deep breath. "We're going to sort this out. By tomorrow. Nobody should have to starve like this."
"We expected the siege to be over in a few weeks at most. When will help come from Venice?" asked an older woman bitterly. "Are we only worth keeping as expendable serfs, and not worth protecting?"
Maria looked her straight in the eye. "Venice had to be told before they could mount a rescue. And the Island is blockaded. You know that. I can tell you this much—a messenger has gone over to Italy, taking word to Venice, a clever messenger, who can get past anything."
She wondered just where Benito was, and uttered a silent prayer for his well-being. "The Republic won't fail you. And the scuolo won't fail you either. Your men work for us. It's up to us to care for you."
She was surprised by the hastily hushed cheers.
* * *
That evening Umberto arrived home a little late and looking worried. He didn't even notice Maria's belladonna-widened eyes at first. He was just looking gray and stooped. He took the cup of wine gratefully from her hand, then swallowed a long, appreciative draft. And then blinked at his wife. "You're looking beautiful tonight, dear. And your hair is done up in that way I like so." His nose twitched. He smiled tiredly. "I'm a lucky man. And I don't appreciate you enough. And how is our little girl tonight?"
Maria felt truly guilty. Like a complete slut. "She's fine, asleep now," she said gruffly. She decided that directness and honesty suited her better than feminine wiles. She was better at those than seduction anyway. "Umberto. I need to talk to you about the wives of the Corfiote laborers."
"They're hiding in the back sheds at the Little Arsenal," he replied conversationally.
She didn't need the belladonna to widen her eyes. Had everyone known except her?
"I'm sorry dear," he said apologetically. "That's what kept me. There was a fight between one of the Illyrians and a Corfiote—something to do with the women. I'm afraid both of them are with the hospitalers. I had to see to it."
"Oh, hell!" she said in dismay. "Will this mean fighting between the Illyrians and Corfiotes?"
He actually laughed. "Not unless they both don't recover from being hit by me with a cladding plank."
She stared, seeing a man she hadn't known hiding in Umberto's very ordinary frame.
"I had to do something," he said, uncomfortably. "The Corfiote accused the Illyrian of betraying the women to the guards. But Guildmaster Grisini asked the guard to organize more food, quietly."
"Two guards called Oliviolo and Nona."
It was Umberto's turn to gape at her. "How did you know—?"
"Because far from organizing more food, the pair of bastards have been extorting money and food from the Corfiotes," she told him with savage satisfaction. "The Corfiotes blame the Illyrians, which is where your knife-fight came from."
Umberto shook his head. "I don't understand them. They're our people. Why didn't they come to us? The scuolo looks after its own."
Looking at him with a mixture of pride and love, Maria realized that the perfume probably wasn't wasted after all. And she realized that—just as old women always said—you didn't have to be in love with the man you married to learn to love him. "Can I get you some supper?" she asked, rubbing his shoulders.
He looked at her. Speculatively, with a shy smile. "Maybe . . . later."
Chapter 64
The end came faster and more abruptly than any of the conspirators had anticipated. And it came at a damned awkward moment for Maria.
She'd gone up to the governor's palace the day before and missed seeing the contessa. Not wishing to make herself too obvious, she'd waited until this morning. Umberto had told her last night that the two guards had been transferred on to another duty, so something must be happening.
Renate De Belmondo had been organizing. Among the things she'd organized, Maria found, when she got up to the palace, was a huge basket of foodstuffs. Maria had the muscle in her back and shoulders from years of working heavy loads in a small boat—this basket she could hardly carry. "It's too heavy, milady."
Renate De Belmondo smiled. "You'll manage. There is considerable stage-management to be done before we can bring them out of there. Those women and children need food. And there are a lot of them."
So Maria had staggered down to the sheds. They were a good place to hide, actually; their men had chosen well. Although the sheds were within the compound, they were well away from the rest of the yard—up a steep bank, where there was a winch for loading materials from the street and a chute for sending timbers down to the workshops or the ship-gate. They were used when ships were in port and kept securely locked when they weren't. At the moment there just wasn't the call for cladding or masts. Getting up there unnoticed was considerably more difficult, but as Umberto's wife she could at least get into the shipyard.
She was distributing the contents of the contessa's basket when a hoarse whisper came up the bank. "Hide!"
Maria found herself dragged hastily into a long cavity roofed with masts and stacks of timber. It was dark, hot and airless.
And also a vain effort. Captain-General Tomaselli's men knew exactly where to look; somebody had plainly told them where to go. The women, Maria included, were hauled, blinking, into the bright July sunlight.
Maria knew that the one thing she must not do was to reveal who she was. At the moment the scuolo could still claim injured innocence; if they found her here, the cat would be out of the bag. Alessia was safely with Stella, but any baby would do for camouflage; almost all of them were awakened by the rough handling and almost all of them were crying. The poor mites were mostly hungry. She "borrowed" one, hastily. If there was one thing she'd learned since Alessia's birth it was that very few men will look directly at a breast-feeding woman that is not their own. It was as near as she could come to disappearing. She also realized that the moment was more serious even than she'd thought. There were some seventy of the captain-general's soldiers—quite enough to deal with frightened women and a gaggle of children.
What the captain-general hadn't taken into account was that there were some hundred or so Corfiote porters and laborers in the Arsenal. And they weren't about to watch their wives and children being herded away without a fight. Even if they weren't soldiers, they were men in a shipyard full of edged tools.
And more than just tools. Within less than a minute, a dozen angrily shouting laborers were standing on the walls around the compound holding, one between each two of them, pots of boiling pitch.
There was something very persuasive about that boiling pitch. A few of the troopers had been behaving with a fair amount of roughness to the captives. They suddenly became positively respectful.
"What do you men think you're doing?" demanded the captain-general.
"You tell them to leave our women and children alone and no one will get hurt!"
It was a very nasty situation. On one hand, the troops were armed, and armored. They had the women and children as virtual hostages. On the other hand, armor is no defense against hot pitch. And the Corfiotes were between them and the way out of the shipyard. Something else ominous was happening beyond the Corfiotes too. The scuolo, being Venetian guildsmen, were all part of the Militia. So they were in the habit of bringing their weapons and breastplates to work for duties afterward—and now they were arriving, armed, in dribs and drabs. They were positioned behind the Corfiotes with their pitch and crowbars, their felling axes and knives.
One of the guildsmen pushed forward. "Don't try to stop this, Master Grisini," said the big Corfiote. "We're desperate men."
The elderly guildmaster sniffed irritably. "We've no intention of stopping you. But I warn you, Dopappas. You get one drop of that pitch on my deck-planking and I'll shove that cauldron up your ass." Maria risked a quick peep to see that her Umberto was backing old Grisini up, coming up the ramp to where the soldiers stood with their prisoners. The master wasn't a big man. The Corfiote laborer he was threatening was enormous.
But the Corfiote nodded respectfully. "Yes, Master Grisini. But they want to take our women."
Grisini sighed gustily. "I'm old. I'm tired. But I'm also aware of the scuolo's rights and responsibilities."
The Corfiote blinked.
The old man walked on through the Corfiotes, Umberto following behind him.
Maria saw that some more entrants had arrived for the affair. The Contessa De Belmondo and her husband, the governor. And, peering nervously through the gate: Stella, with Alessia and several of her own children. She'd plainly gotten a message to the contessa.
"Good morning. And what is happening here?" De Belmondo enquired with gentle curiosity.
"We've found these illegal entrants hiding here, Your Excellency," said the captain-general. "These men seem set on daring to rebel against legally constituted military authority in a war zone. The penalty for that is death, as you might like to remind them."
Old Grisini bowed respectfully to the governor. "Morning, Your Excellency. We seem to have a problem here about authority. Would you please explain to the captain-general that the Little Arsenal is part of the Arsenal of Venice—not part of the military of Corfu. He has no authority here. We explained that to him when he tried to draft us, but he doesn't seem to understand it."
The captain-general looked frigidly at him. "In this case food and shelter intended for the island's people are being wasted on these women."
De Belmondo blinked. "Are these women and children from some other island then?"
"No, but they're not Venetian! They're locals." Tomaselli's tone added the unsaid words: and thus beneath contempt.
"I do not recall—as governor of this Venetian possession—anything which abrogates our responsibility for 'locals,' as you put it." The governor's voice was decidedly frosty. "In fact, I wasn't even aware of any such official category of people."
"But they're here illegally!" sputtered the captain-general.
Old Grisini snorted. "Not to make too fine a point of it—so are you, Tomaselli. They are in our building. They're the wives and children of our employees. We'll see to them. We'll see to their appropriate treatment."
The captain-general played his trump card. "Not with the food from the Citadel's stores. They must be put out!"
De Belmondo shook his head. "I cannot allow you to do that. And I don't think your men would be prepared to do something that would have them forever labeled as murderers of women and children. The Senate of the Republic would have my head, and yours."
This plainly hadn't struck Nico Tomaselli. "But we can't just allow them to freeload on the Citadel's stores!"
Umberto cleared his throat. "Excuse me, milords. I have an idea. If we put these women to work for the Republic, they would be entitled to a place as these men are."
The captain-general sneered. "You haven't even got work for yourselves! Besides, what can they do?"
Umberto answered instantly. "Weave sailcloth. We have flax, but the stores of sailcloth are very low."
"And what do we do with sailcloth in a siege?" grumbled Tomaselli, but you could see he was weakening.
"There is life after siege, we hope," said De Belmondo. "And if there isn't . . . well, we shall have no use for anything—never mind sailcloth."
* * *
There was no help for it. Maria came and had her name—Elena Commena, she decided—scribed in the book with the other workers' wives. Umberto nearly dropped his quill.
* * *
"But why sailcloth? The flax is intended for ropes, Umberto. It's too coarse for good sailcloth," said old Grisini. He'd virtually collapsed when the tension and need went—he was in his late seventies, and it was hard on him.
Umberto paused. Bit his lip trying to think how best to put this to the old man. "Because, master, the captain-general is right. We don't have work for ourselves. That's really the main reason there's fighting and dissatisfaction. So I have been thinking ever since the Teutonic knights arrived here under fire, that we need to be able to strike at the enemy ships. We have everything we need, except brass nails and sailcloth, to build ships ourselves."
The old man blinked at him, confused. "We can't launch ships. And without nails we can't even build them."
Umberto shrugged. "We've got iron nails by the bushel, master. And we can lower smallish craft directly over the walls."
"But what good will that do?" asked Master Grisini, tiredly. "The enemy has some huge carracks out there. And iron nails will just rust."
"If the boats are on fire they can burn craft thirty times their size. And they won't have time for the nails to rust."
"It's a good idea," conceded the old master shipbuilder, after thinking about it for a few moments. "But how are we to convince the military of that? The captain-general would not exactly thank us for military help."
Umberto shrugged. "We will deal with that, like we did with this. When the time comes. In the meanwhile we can give the men work to do. It'll cut down on the fights."
* * *
Sophia Tomaselli lay wakeful, trapped in her husband's bed by the sleeping man's leg. She wanted out of here. Out of this boring man's bed, and away from his clumsy and drunken rutting. And "rutting" was the right word, too. She knew perfectly well he was only taking out his frustration with the world by mounting her.
As soon as she could get out of here, Sophia would make her way through the dark streets to her new interest. Now there was a man who could teach this husband of hers a thing or two about lovemaking. She felt herself aroused by the very thought of the shameful, exciting lust, the thrill of forbidden pleasuring. And she had some information about the plans for repulsing any attack on the inner wall. He always rewarded her well for these little snippets.
* * *
Bianca closed the lid of the chest in her room, after finishing the needed rituals to prevent decay. Fortunately, she didn't need a large chest, nor had the rituals taken much time—in both cases, because the body of the beggar boy was so small.
The corpse would keep, for the moment, under the linens. There'd be no tell-tale traces of putrefaction coming from the chest for at least a month. By then, Bianca would have Saluzzo under her control and would have him dispose of the body in some more permanent manner.
She put that problem out of her mind. Right now, she needed to concentrate on finishing the materials needed for the ritual she'd use to have her "relatives" removed. The beggar boy's blood needed to be mixed properly with the fat she had carved from his internal organs. The very little fat, unfortunately—the beggar boy hadn't been emaciated, exactly, but he'd been scrawny. There had been a little around the liver, the intestines; not as much as she had hoped. She might have to extend it with some of her other unguents, and hope that the principles of contact and similarity would make good the deficiencies.
Gingerly, she fingered her forearm where the boy had punched her, at the end. She thought there'd be a bruise there, by the morning. Little bastard. He'd put up more of a fight than she'd expected, once he realized the arm she'd wrapped around his throat was intended to kill him rather than to hug him.
True, it hadn't been much of contest. Bianca had not yet dared begin the rituals that would eventually provide her with the superhuman strength of her mistress, Countess Bartholdy. But she was still a full-grown woman, well-fed and in good health. Against her murderous resolve, a malnourished five-year-old boy had had no chance at all. She just wished that he had been a little fatter.
She lit the brazier under the bowl containing the blood and fat, and picked up the special instruments carved from human bones. With her right hand, she began stirring slowly; while, with her left, sprinkling into the mix the other ingredients required. All the while, softly chanting the needed phrases and intonations. Some of the words had never been meant to be formed by a human mouth.
As the mixture cooked down, she saw that there was no help for it; she would have to add precious defiled and deconsecrated oils to the recipe, or there would not be enoug
h of it for her purpose. She reached for the vials and added them carefully, drop by drop, watching for some change that would warn her that this addition had "soured" the mix.
But it didn't. In fact, as she added the precious fluids, so difficult to come by and so very expensive, she felt the sullen power in the bowl increasing, and her lips stretched in a little smile of surprise. Well, well, well!
Last of all, she added the ingredients that had been the most difficult of all to obtain; the powdered hair of her "aunt" and "uncle," and allowed the fire to die away beneath the bowl. Finally the mixture ceased to bubble, and she now had, for all of her effort, a little puddle of a thick, black, tarry substance in the bottom of the bowl—black as tar, but not sticky. No, this stuff would be smooth and creamy to the touch, and would swiftly vanish into whatever it was combined with or rubbed on, leaving no outward trace.
And the power contained within it made her laugh aloud.
* * *
"We must find this monster," hissed Eneko. His hand came up and stroked a brow gone suddenly pale. "I have not sensed such a shriek of pure evil since . . ."
Diego, if anything, looked even more shaken. "At least we finally know the creature's sex. It's got to be a woman. That ritual—done that way, with a child—"
Francis and Pierre were frowning. Neither of them had the depth of knowledge regarding the Black Arts that Eneko and Diego possessed. Francis was a healer, essentially, and while Pierre's talents as a witch-smeller were superb, that was by its nature an applied rather than theoretical skill. They'd sensed the sudden blast of evil magic that had seemed, for a moment, to shake the entire island. But they'd been unable to discern the details.
"A woman?" queried Pierre. "Are you sure?"
Eneko shook his head. "Say a 'female,' rather. That thing is no longer human, in any sense of the term that matters."
Chapter 65
Commander Leopoldo had chosen to come and see Manfred while the knights were at morning drill, because he could do so while remaining unobtrusive. A party of men—and an officer—would come to do a stock-count at the magazine every Wednesday anyway. Leopoldo did this duty himself sometimes, so his presence while they were drilling in the courtyard was unremarkable. When the knights broke for a rest, it was simplicity itself to walk the few hundred feet under the arcade to the shade where Manfred sat with his watchdogs, and squat down so that he was virtually invisible. He was not a man given to peacocky clothes like Captain-General Tomaselli.
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