The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

‘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.

‘Who?’

Katie sat up and stamped her foot. ‘You’re always interrupting, Grandpa.’

‘Well, what sort of outlandish name is that? Be-orn-wyn.’

‘It’s English… or Welsh… or something. Anyway, I don’t suppose she’s a proper saint like Mark or Agnes, just one of those false Celtic ones.’

I was getting impatient, and tried to hurry Katie along. Like all Zulianis, she did like to tell a tale. I had been accused of telling a million lies when I came back from Xanadu.

‘So where does virginity come into it? On the way back from the monastery, you said he was peddling virginity.’

She grinned broadly. ‘Yes. That was what turned Brother Hugh into a sensation. Imagine what little a gathering of bored Venetian wives, weighed down with the riches of generations, didn’t have and couldn’t buy. Brother Hugh told them that, if they venerated St Beornwyn, and lived as she did, they would somehow regain their virginity.’

I fairly bellowed with laughter, so much so that one of the servants came running to see what was wrong. After I had shooed him away, and wiped the tears from my eyes with the end of my expensively fur-trimmed robe, I asked Katie to run that by me again. She looked at me as if I was some monkey that a crusader had just brought back from Afric lands. And not a very bright or well-trained one at that.

‘Let me explain, Grandfather.’

That name again. I kept my face straight and nodded.

‘This St Beornwyn was apparently a noble Englishwoman who was betrothed to a local lord. But she was renowned for her nightly vigils at the local church, where she prayed for the salvation of her father’s land from invading pagans. And for her own perpetual virginity.’

Katie glanced at me to see if I was going to break out into laughter again. But I managed to look serious. She went on.

‘While she was living she was called a saint, offering up her virginity and her regular vigils for the good of others. Then one night the invaders came and struck her head from her body. They flayed the skin from her body and draped it on the altar, but the Virgin Mary sent blue butterflies to cover her nakedness. So you see she was an exemplar of the virtue of virginity.’

I grunted. ‘It didn’t save her life, though, did it?’

‘Oh, Grandpa Nick, you have no soul.’

I summed up. ‘So St Beornwyn is a saintly virgin, and Brother Hugh was holding her up to the case vecchie as a figure to emulate. What did the husbands of all these newly created virgins think of this?’

‘Granny Cat said they were probably mostly glad to concentrate on their mistresses, and not to have the attentions of their wives to cope with. It was lucrative for Hugh for a while, as the women would offer gifts to St Beornwyn.’

My ears perked up when I heard that. I loved a good scam.

‘Ah, so he got rich with his little cult.’

‘For a while, until the women got bored. Then Hugh decided to concentrate on one of his followers who had been most devoted to the saint.’

‘Let me guess. Speranza Soranzo.’

‘Exactly.’

‘He could see by then that her father was a hero of the Republic, and well on his way to becoming Doge. If he snared Speranza, then he would revive his fortunes. Unfortunately, her husband went and got himself involved in a little conspiracy, and Hugh’s acolyte was banished to a Greek island.’

I waved my arms to encompass the isle of Sifnos, where we were lodged. ‘This very enchanted isle.’

Katie nodded.

‘To give him his due, Hugh followed her into exile. And maybe his gamble will now pay off. If you can persuade the Doge to allow her and her husband back to Venice, Hugh’s fortune will be made again.’

I scowled at my granddaughter. ‘It’s my job to decide if his daughter won’t be an embarrassment to Giovanni Soranzo, not to act as Speranza’s agent and persuade him to allow her back.’ I knew what I had to do. ‘I need to know more about Brother Hugh and his virgin saint. Especially if he is to come back with Speranza and her husband. And where is Querini, anyway?’

It was getting dark outside, and Querini still had not put in an appearance. Maybe he was still sleeping off his binge at the harbour. But I thought he was less of a man for getting in such a state, and for avoiding me into the bargain. Was he afraid of coming back to Venice, where he had attempted to oust the former Doge? Or was he embarrassed by his wife tossing him out of the marriage bed for a monk and a cult of virginity? I suddenly realised that Katie had said something and I had missed it.