The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  We were still left waiting after the oarsmen had all gone to find their lodgings. At last the Doge’s private secretary, Bertuccio Galuppi, who had travelled with us on this long journey to the Greek island of Sifnos, came hurrying back down the quay. He had gone to see why no one was waiting for us on our arrival. As he got closer, I could see his face looked like thunder.

  ‘Messer Galuppi, what is wrong? Is there some delay? I do hope not, as I am quite parched, and standing in this sun is not a good idea for an old man with a thirst.’

  Galuppi shook his head. ‘I fear we have a problem, Messer Zuliani.’

  ‘None greater than my thirst, I can assure you.’

  Galuppi, who acted as though he had a rod up his arse at the best of times, bristled at my levity.

  ‘It is far worse than that. Niccolo Querini is . . . indisposed.’

  ‘Indisposed? That is an insufficient excuse when the Doge’s representative lands on this little excuse for an island.’

  That’s me, by the way – the Doge’s representative. I’ll tell you later how Nick Zuliani, of dubious origins and shady repute, came to be occupying such an elevated post. But right then I needed to throw my weight around a little. I scowled at Galuppi.

  ‘Tell him that I don’t care if he’s dying of the French pox, I want him here now.’

  Galuppi’s face turned puce, and he anxiously inclined his head to remind me of the presence of my granddaughter. I suppose he imagined such language should not be spoken in the presence of a lady of such tender years. Especially not one from the noble houses of Dolfin and Valier. I had no such compunction. Before I had known of her existence, Katie, dressed as a boy, had spied on me. It had been only when I turned the tables on her and grabbed her that I had felt her burgeoning tits. She had cursed me then in a language that was as robust as any Venetian sailor cursing drunkenly in a tavern in the Arsenal. Which is probably where she had learned it as the wild child she had been before I met her. I had tried my best to be a good grandfather and to put her on the straight and narrow, but to no avail. Besides, I was secretly proud of her vocabulary, and had learned a few choice expressions from her myself. I was tempted to use one or two now, but saw that it would be counter-productive with the sober-sided Galuppi. Instead, I laid an arm over his shoulder, and drew him aside.

  ‘Bertuccio, tell me, what has indisposed Querini?’

  His stiff demeanour bent somewhat, and he leaned towards my ear to whisper into it.

  ‘He is dead—’

  ‘Dead?’ I cried. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no, not dead. Merely dead drunk. He is incoherent and sleeping it off in the tavern along the street.’

  I glowered. ‘We shall see about that.’ I turned to Katie. ‘Wait here, the shipmaster will ensure no harm comes to you. I have some business to attend to.’

  I saw that she was about to protest at being treated like a child. But she knew the nature of my temper, and decided to save up her complaint about her treatment for when we were in private. I had no doubt I would be called ‘grandfather’ in the frostiest of terms, but I could bear it. Rather that than she get involved in a scene with Querini that could become nasty. She sat down on one of our trunks, and rested her chin in her hand in a way that suggested she was not happy with me. I ignored her gesture and indicated that Galuppi should lead me to our drunken host.

  In actual fact, Niccolo Querini was not who I was sent to meet by the Doge. The focus of my long and arduous journey from Venice around the southern coast of Greece and out into the Aegean Sea was Querini’s wife, Speranza Soranzo. Her father, Giovanni Soranzo, had earned a reputation as the hero of Aegean naval operations. He had taken twenty-five galleys up to the Black Sea and the Crimea, restoring Caffa to Venice and taking it away from the hands of the Genoese. He became Head of the Navy, and Governor of the Gulf and Islands of Venice. In 1309 he was appointed Attorney General jointly with Marco Querini, whose son, Niccolo, had married Giovanni’s daughter. All had then seemed well in Soranzo’s world.

  But a year later, the Querinis became embroiled in a conspiracy to overthrow Doge Pietro Gradenigo. The plot failed – not without some conniving on my part – and Niccolo Querini and his wife were banished to Sifnos, an island belonging to the Soranzos. Now, two years on, Giovanni Soranzo had been named Doge himself, and his daughter’s life was about to change. I was on Sifnos, that aforementioned chunk of rock in the Aegean, to talk to Speranza about her return to Venice, and the terms on which it would be possible. But first I had to deal with her drunken husband.

  Galuppi led me past a noisy boat-builders’ yard and down a narrow cobbled lane to a small doorway pretentiously carved in stone with a coat of arms on the lintel. I didn’t recognise the armorial bearing, but I certainly did the body inside. I had met Niccolo Querini when I had toyed with joining the plotters in the 1310 conspiracy. Then, he had been a hothead with a powerful chest and strong arms. The man slumped over the low table in the anonymous tavern had gone to seed. He had put on a lot of fat round his waist, and his once well-groomed hair was greasy and long. Clearly, Niccolo had not survived his exile well. I grabbed his unwashed locks and lifted his head off the table. He didn’t protest at the mistreatment, merely dragging one bleary eye open to see who it was who was molesting him. The solitary eye was bloodshot, but gave signs of recognition. He propped his heavy head on his palm, which allowed me to let go of his hair. Thankfully, I wiped my greasy palm on the shoulder of his tunic. When he spoke, his speech was slurred and jumbled.

  ‘Zulz . . . Zuliani. Good to see you, man. How’s things?’

  I peered angrily into his one functioning eye.

  ‘They could be better, Querini. I have just come through a big storm that threatened to wreck my galley off the Peloponnese. Then we were attacked by pirates who could have been under the command of the Duke of Milan, for all I know. And when I arrive at Kamares, desirous of a soft bed and a roof over my head, I find my host has drunk himself silly in a cheap tavern.’

  My last words were shouted right in Querini’s face. He flinched and held his head in both hands, no doubt to try to control the headache that raged within.

  ‘It’s not my fault, Zuliani. It’s hers.’

  ‘By ‘hers’ I suppose you mean your wife, the daughter of the Doge. Why is it her fault?’

  Prising both eyes open, he gazed at me miserably.

  ‘She’s forsaken me for a monk. And now she’s gone and shut herself in a nunnery.’

  His head fell to the table with a loud clunk, and I could see I would get no more sense out of him. I left Querini to bemoan his fate and asked Galuppi to make arrangements to transfer our baggage across the island to the Querini mansion in the south. He asked about a courtesy visit to the capital, Kastro, but I waved his suggestion aside. The people I needed to see were ensconced in the south and the capital of this little island was in the east. I use the word ‘capital’ advisedly. It doesn’t take much to be the biggest place on an island in the back of beyond. No, the Tou Kontou peninsula was where the Querinis were settled, and that is where I would move my household during my stay on Sifnos. Galuppi hurried off to arrange the required transport.

  As I walked back to the quay to meet up with Katie, I pondered on Querini’s words. I was not surprised to find the Doge’s daughter lodged in a religious house. She was supposed to have been living in the monastery of St John the Theologian at Mongou as the terms of her exile. That she would actually be living with her husband, however, was taken as read, and the Querini mansion was close by the monastery. So I assumed she had taken herself off to Mongou in anticipation of my arrival, just for form’s sake. But what had Querini meant about her leaving him for a monk? I would have to do some digging to discover what had been going on here on Sifnos.

  My task had all started with a letter. As soon as Giovanni Soranzo had become Doge, the letter had arrived from his daughter, begging to be allowed back to Venice. Soranzo was a canny
enough bird to know that as Doge he had to act cautiously, and not show preference to family. Especially family who had plotted against the previous Doge. What he had done had been a surprise to me as much as to others around him.

  I had been dining with Cat in Ca’ Dolfin, her family home, where I had been living since my own house had burned down. Both of us had finished the meal, and we were talking finance. It was my favourite subject.

  ‘I have put what money I have in the Florentine Bank of Peruzzi. They are financing the Venetian bullion trade, which is huge. Twice a year a bullion fleet of twenty to thirty ships, under heavy naval convoy, sail from Venice to the eastern Mediterranean coast or to Egypt, bearing primarily silver. And they sail back to Venice bearing mainly gold.’

  ‘What profit is there in that?’

  I sighed. Cat had the old aristocracy’s lack of understanding of how trading worked.

  ‘Because it is a trade between regions that value gold and silver differently. Some merchants are making annual rates of profit of up to forty per cent on very large, short-term investments.’

  Cat yawned and I knew to stop my monologue. Then I saw by the growing look in her eyes that she was thinking pretty much the same as me. It was still only a month or two since we had found each other again, and the forces of nature worked strongly in both of us. As soon as we could slip Katie’s attention, we would be dashing off to bed together. Old man I may be, but my lust was aroused by the still lithe and sensuous body of Caterina Dolfin. But we were destined never to get there. A scratching at the water door of Ca’ Dolfin had heralded the arrival of a mysterious emissary clad in a hooded cloak. It had turned out to be Bertuccio Galuppi with a strange commission. The Doge wanted to find out discreetly about his daughter’s situation, and have his man recommend what to do about fetching her back to Venice. It seemed I was the man for the job, due, according to Galuppi, to my legendary negotiating skills and discretion. I think he meant I was a slippery and underhand customer, who could be relied on to sneak in and out of Sifnos without anyone knowing. After Galuppi had delivered his message, Cat and I spoke about whether I should take the job. She was adamant I should.

  ‘You can’t refuse. It’s the Doge who is asking. That means it is a command.’

  I snorted. ‘That’s what you members of the case vecchie think. We mere merchant classes need a good deal to be on offer.’

  I often teased Cat about her family being of the old aristocracy, which excluded such as the Zulianis from power. It was one of the reasons I had left Venice. Her father had deemed me too common for his snooty daughter. Now I had my feet under her table, but it had taken me forty years, the death of her father, and a trip round the world to get there. Our argument would have raged on, but for the intervention of the one thing that united us both. It was Katie, who had been listening to our row, who finally resolved it.

  ‘Of course you must go, Grandpa. Then you will have the Doge in your pocket, and eternally grateful to you.’

  I pointed at my granddaughter in triumph.

  ‘See. She is more of a Zuliani than a Valier or a Dolfin. She gets straight to the nub of the matter in the most businesslike way.’ I hit the table with my fist, causing my wine goblet to spill over. ‘I will go.’

  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 t
hrough 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.